 3. Adam & Eve |
The "original paradise" is the whole body of Man. The male and female are the two alternating currents of the body, pingala and ida,* the active-expansive and the passive-subjective. The serpent is the mind in the autonomic nervous system. The two trees are the two patterns of the autonomic nervous system, one rooted in the lower coil and the vital center (the tree of life) and the other rooted in the upper coil and the subtle and mental center of the brain (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil).
God is the whole body at Infinity. But the viewpoint in the text is not that of God, but of mortal Man. To account for the elemental suffering of mankind, the text claims that God is in principle opposed to Man's being more than a noble and dependent creature, and that our unrelieved struggling and mortality is a punishment for our innate desire to expand into a spiritual state of freedom and ability, wherein mortality and unconsciousness are obviated.
This Old Testament view, which is not true to the esoteric Hebrew tradition as a whole, is specifically opposed and disproven by the moral, occult, and spiritual demonstration of Jesus. Jesus, as he is shown in the New Testament, taught and demonstrated that the conventional mortalist view, whether religious or materialistic, is utterly false. Jesus is the mind in sushumna,** or the central nervous system. God is not opposed to our occult and spiritual development, nor to our transformation from a mortal to an immortal and glorified Condition. Indeed, God is that condition, and to love God is to Commune with and be Transformed into that Condition. God is the Archetype in which we are bodily involved. God is the whole body disposed to Infinity. If there is any opposition to our ultimate transformation, we provide it ourselves.
For a more scientific explanation see the chapter on Truth - Reality Part II.
*Pingala and ida are the principal nerve channels of the two divisions of the autonomic nervous system. Pingala, the sympathetic channel, is associated with the right side of the body, and ida, the parasympathetic channel, is associated with the left. They are also identified with the patterns of breath through the right and left nostrils.
**The central nervous system, including the brain and spinal cord. Aligned with the circuits of the autonomic nervous system, which extend from it, sushumna serves as a conduit for the distribution of Life-Force throughout the body.
