Essentially, I’ve combined bits of philosophies from Socrates, Jesus, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, and Gandhi, but the story of the Garden of Eden as it’s frame. I like to think this story potentially dates as far back as 6000 B.C., originating with the ancient Mesopotamians, and as a result, subjected to potentially millenniums of distorting interpretation; they possessed the means for language (“logos”), and therefore, the ability to retain and transfer knowledge dating that far back. Today, “Christians” call the Garden of Eden (https://biblehub.com/lsv/genesis/2.htm), “the fall,” but I think there’s a more profound moral lesson underneath what man has made it out to be ever since; the fables, supernatural, and miracles within being simply a means for people millenniums ago to express thought, words like consciousness not coming anywhere close to existing in these ancient languages, e.g., “I AM THAT WHICH I AM.” - Exodus 3:14. And knowledge is knowledge no matter its source and no matter what we’ve rendered it ever since it’s been revealed and labeled.
The trees in Eden once represented knowledge of things; a tree for the knowledge of what we now call “science,” a tree for the knowledge of what we now call “time,” math, the experience, etc, and of course of morality — right and wrong; good and evil; love and hate. Making the tree in the midst of the garden, the “Tree of Life,” the tree of the knowledge of life. And to know life is to be aware of it, and to be aware of life is to be conscious, and to be conscious is to be aware of both oneself (selfishness) and everything else (selflessness). That’s why it’s in the midst of the garden. Consciousness is what gives life to any degree of knowledge on an Earth; no consciousness, no “knowledge.” When we took a bite of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of morality, and gained its knowledge, we became aware of the right and wrong, good and evil regarding our knowing of anything, including ourselves. That’s why we became aware of our “nakedness” and felt ashamed. Prior to gaining the knowledge of morality, being naked wouldn’t have been right or wrong; a good or a bad thing. The same, of course, can be said about death:
“From every tree of the garden eating you eat; but from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you do not eat from it, for in the day of your eating from it — dying you die.” - Genesis 2:16
Prior to gaining that knowledge, death wouldn’t have been bad. It wouldn’t have been anything. It just would’ve been a part of knowing what life is. Therefore, in gaining the knowledge of morality, dying, as all things are destined to do, we became aware of our dying, while nature is blissfully unaware of it, just as we were prior to gaining the knowledge of being able to measure morality. Death is a part of everyday life, millions of things die everyday, and of course millions are brought into life everyday, for approximately 4 billion years here on Earth alone so far; not to mention microorganisms. It’s us humans, being in possession of both how much more aware we are of ourselves and everything else and our inherency to measure what is good or evil that makes it either a good or bad thing to begin with. I think this is “the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth” Jesus was referring to (Matt 8:12, 13:42, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, and Luke 13:28); the storm of the final precept of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 7:24) represents death, and the shores is our conscience.
“He who is cherishing his life will lose it, and he who is hating his life in this world will keep it to continuous life.” - John 12:25 (Continuous life being the life after death people like Socrates or Jesus gained; their influence living on throughout the ages. What I consider to be the “vanity of vanities.” - Solomon)
If we gained a knowledge that led us to be kicked out of Eden, then that would mean we need to become ignorant (lack of knowledge) of something to gain it back, so to speak. This is why an angel with a flaming sword guards Eden, because if something is aware of its death and subsequently fears it, then it will inherently want to meet the angel with another sword, with violence as a means to overcome it. But if something is absent of itself and isn’t worried about what is right or wrong, good or evil for the sake of itself, then this person will just simply walk by the angel without a care in the world; the angel might as well be a bunny with a cucumber in its hand to something that’s risen above the passions that are fanned by the flame of our desire for our knowledge of what is good and evil.
We ate the fruit of that knowledge, so there’s no becoming completely unaware of it. We’re cursed with its knowledge forever. But one can push past it’s instincts (selfishness; “Sin”) in favor of where knowledge (selflessness; God) takes it to strive to become the least aware of oneself and become free of the prison of our passions that are fanned by the flame of our inherent desire to measure what is good or evil in relation to our knowledge of ourselves and everything else, which is where all our fear, worry, or need comes from and subsequently thoughts of suicide, anger, anxiety, hate, narcissism, resentment, deppression, “suffering,” violence, you name it; for “it’s only what a person thinks that can truly defile them.” (Tolstoy’s interpretation of Mark 7:15.) At the root of it all is the extent of how much more conscious we are of ourselves in contrast to nature and subsequently how much more we’re able to measure what is good or evil in relation to our knowledge of ourselves and everything else.
“So long as thought is not under complete control of the will, brahmacharya in its fullness is absent. Involuntary thought is an affection of the mind, and curbing of thought, therefore, means curbing of the mind which is even more difficult to curb than the wind.” - Mahatma Gandhi
“Go in through the narrow gate, because wide [is] the gate and broad the way that is leading to the destruction [selfishness], and many are those going in through it; how narrow [is] the gate and compressed the way that is leading to life [selflessness], and few are those finding it!" - Matt 7:13
This unimaginable God(s) or creator(s) of some kind wants us to strive to rise above the passions — not our knowledge of morality itself — born from our desire for what is good or evil; right or wrong; for both hate and love (as love and our desire for what is right can lead to just as much hate and violence as hate and evil can), that gives birth for our fear, worry, and need for ourselves and everything else to reunite with it, so to speak, and gain this “true life” of a life most lived in the present, that our capacity for knowledge hides from us as we gain more of it the older we become — of time, the experience, and the right and wrong or good or evil we find within it.
“Truly I say to you, if you may not be turned and become as the children, you may not enter into the kingdom of the heavens” - Matt 18:3 (The kingdom of heaven being a state of mind.)
“It is idle to adjudicate [judge] upon the right and wrong of incidents that have already happened. It is useful to understand them and, if possible, to learn a lesson from them for the future.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Instinct leads us to be more inherently drawn to ourselves, and to live and shape our lives around what we want most from it, but when one holds God(s) to be true to whatever degree, it passively leads our minds to be the least aware of ourselves and the most selfless, leading us to posses an ability no other species comes anywhere close to being able to parallel, born out of our capacity for “logos” (divine revelation to whatever degree via our capacity for letters; words; speech; language.): To strive and to even be willing to subjectively “suffer” and give ones life for something that isn’t itself; for even the smallest, most insignificant, or most hated of creatures. Also known as, the “Holy Spirit”, or, the Holy Will. Provided of course your knowing of God(s) doesn’t point you back to selfish thoughts and behaviors, as most of what we now call “religions” do today.
“Time is an illusion to life: the life of the past or the future hides the true life of the present from people. And therefore man should strive to destroy the deception of the temporal life of the past and future. The true life is not just life outside of time — the present — but it is also a life outside of the individual. Life is common to all people and expresses itself in love. And therefore, the person who lives in the present, in the common life of all people, unites himself with the father — with the source and foundation of life.” - Leo Tolstoy
The Serpent is “Instinct”
Additionally, the serpent represents pride and all the arrogance born from it; hypocrisy — an acting like other people; like everyone else; “playing a part.” (Tolstoy) The serpent was renowned to be a symbol of wisdom and cunning; it slithered its way into knowing as much as a human does within Eden, but it was no God, and not being guided by God as Adam and Eve were, it turned arrogant, prideful, evil, and selfish in its journey in gaining great knowledge. It’s ability to reason darkened by the extent of how much more conscious it was of itself (selfishness; “Sin”), while Adam and Eves was illuminated by holding the knowledge of a God as a truth; with great potential for knowledge comes great vulnerability to being blinded by this false sense of self-assurance born out of the love we gain for ourselves along the way. While belief in the divine humbles us; it reminds us of how little we puny humans really know and are incapable of knowing when contrasting ourselves with the scale of an unimaginable God(s) or creator(s) of some kind (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and even Einstein belived in a God). And when God wasn’t around, the serpent revealed itself to the humas and its arrogant influence was introduced to them, claiming the opposite of what God warned us of, that dying they won’t die.
“I am wiser than this man; for neither of us appears to know anything great and good, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know.” - Apology 21d “The greatest deception is the belief that one knows.” - Socrates
If it wasn’t for the serpents arrogant influence, the humans would’ve done what God warned them not to do without question, not knowing right from wrong at this point, but the idea of becoming more like a God ourselves — that they wouldn’t have even considered otherwise if not for the serpents influence — led them onto a different path that again wouldn’t have been there otherwise; lack of knowledge being a blindness. The snake represents all the arrogant humans that unknowingly — via this false sense of self-assurance born out of the overwhelming influence of our contemporaries — lead us to build our life out on the sand (on what’s temporary; “lying vanities.” - Jonah 2:8) along with them, rather then out on the rock (on what can withstand the storm of death; potentially continuously or “eternally”), making the gold of life given to us (or that you’ve stumbled upon) all about making more life for ourselves all throughout it within the way mankind has made the world (“the dirt of which we came”) up until now, making Gods of our sense organs (of “the flesh”) so to speak, rather than going as far as even building pyramids for the poor or homeless, the starved, or collectively despised; for the sake of everything else (Matt 25:14).
“The just man who is believed to be unjust will be scourged, racked, bound—his eyes will be burned out, and at last he will be crucified, and he will learn that one should wish not to seem [just] but to be just.” - Republic, 361c–d
“If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are children of the living Father [that we give life to and keep living here on Earth via our capacity for “logos”]. But if you do not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty, and you are poverty.” - Thomas, Saying Three
“Know thyself.” - The first of three Ancient Greek maxims chosen to be inscribed into the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle of Delphi resided in Ancient Greece
The Consequence of Consciousness; to Know is to Not Know: https://lemmy.world/post/37315211