In expanding your search for spiritual awareness, how can you be sure you are heading in a direction that is best for you? The story of the Garden of Eden is considered by many as evidence of man’s fall from grace and need for forgiveness because he dared seek knowledge of good and evil, taking upon himself a privilege the powerful, all-knowing God didn’t want him to have. Taken a step farther, however, you can also view the story as a metaphor for a basic conflict of the human condition.
You can choose to remain in the garden in obedience to the rules of the house, so to speak, maintain your innocence, and the authorities will give you the gift of happiness and immortality. No work required. No need to struggle with questions of what to believe. No troublesome working through of complex issues.
But what happens if you want to question authority and decide issues of right and wrong for yourself? Ah, then you get what you want — the ability to judge good and evil for yourself. HOWEVER you lose a few important perks. You won’t be taken care of, beginning with banishment from a plentiful source of food and comfort. Now you’ll have to survive by the sweat of your brow. You will have to live with the awareness you’ll die.
Quite a dilemma. And it’s something that people have struggled with for countless ages. You can live within the boundary of a garden created by religious dogma and creed set down (often with the best of intentions) by those who want to take care of you. You can accept their demand that you follow their teaching and not decide what is right and wrong by yourself. OR you can decide to judge your life through our own experience, to find your own source of meaning in life, to solve the puzzle of being human, and to follow your spiritual instincts where they will take you.
Author of Healing Relationships is an Inside Job (Personhood Press) and Ask Yourself Questions and Change Your Life (Personhood Press)