Eating the forbidden fruit
Author: Elsabe Smit

I always find it fascinating that in one aspect, all adults
act like obstinate children without being aware of it.  We
judge each other.

The only sermon I remember from my church-going days was
about the Ten Commandments.  The preacher had a
revolutionary approach to them, in that he said that you do
not HAVE to obey them.  He said the real meaning was that
you could ignore them, but then you would have to take full
responsibility for your actions.  That made sense to me.

I realized in later years that the first commandment in the
Bible is actually "Thou shalt not eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil" (Gen 2:9).   I thought that
means we must not for a moment think that we have the
capacity to decide whether something or someone is good or
evil.

Why is it that we are not allowed to eat this symbolical
fruits? Is the world not a better place when we all agree
on what is right and what is wrong?  Surely we all have a
moral compass that we apply every day, and that is some
form of judgment?

I do not like being told what to do or not to so, so I
became curious about this, and did some research about this
magical tree.

Like most symbols in the Bible, it appears that this image
of a tree with the forbidden fruit existed even before
biblical times.

In Greek mythology the Garden of the Hesperides is the
grove that belonged to the goddess Hera.  When Hera
accepted Zeus as her husband, the goddess Gaia gave Hera
some branches with golden apples on.  Hera planted the
golden apples and the result was a grove of apple trees
that gave immortality to those who ate the apples.   The
Hesperides were given the task of tending to the grove, but
they occasionally plucked some of the apples for
themselves. Hera did not trust them and added a guard to
the garden.  It was a never-sleeping, hundred-headed dragon
named Ladon.

The same tree with forbidden fruit features in early
Mesopotamian myths, going back as far as the year 669 BC.
There is a myth about the Sumerian goddess Inanna who ate
the fruits of a tree to acquire knowledge.  She was joined
by her brother Utu, the sun-god, and the Sumerian god Enki,
the god of wisdom and knowledge.

There is a similar tree in Buddhism.  The founder of
Buddhism, later known as Gautama Buddha, sat under the
Bodhi tree when he achieved enlightenment.  This tree was a
fig tree with heart shaped leaves.

In Hinduism the Tree of Jiva and Atman appears in the Vedic
scriptures as a metaphysical metaphor concerning the soul.

The old Norse sagas also contain a famous tree, the World
Tree, which is an ash tree.  This tree is located at the
center of the Universe and joins the nine worlds of the
Norse cosmology.

Why are these symbolical trees so significant?  And why is
it so important not to eat their fruits, especially if
eating the fruits of the tree will give us immortality and
knowledge that will make life so much easier?

I think that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil is like breaking any one of the Ten Commandments -
of course you can do it, but there are consequences that
you must then live with.

Eating this fruit of knowledge and wisdom is exciting and
inspiring, and it opens up a whole new life for us.
However, there is no turning back, and that is why the
fruit of this tree comes with a health warning.  Once you
understand that this existence is only a small part of the
eternity called life, you tend to see life here in a
different light.

We can still be irresponsible with our emotions, but we
carry all of that with us for a very long time, and we
become aware that these emotions are ours, not anyone
else's.  We can do whatever we want, but where we hurt
other people, we carry that action and that knowledge in
our cells for ever.  And we cannot blame other people or
circumstances for what we think, say and do, because we
become aware that we are responsible for ourselves.

Eating of the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil is then not about judging others.  It is about
growing up and accepting our own judgment of ourselves.
That is the result of eating those fruits - we gain
immortality in our own manner, and spiritually we are never
the same again.

When we read that we must not eat of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, it is like saying to a child
that it is not a good idea to drive a Ferrari racing car.
Of course the child can drive the car, but what would be
the consequences?  Can the child deal with the
consequences?  But when the child is older, then it is so
much easier to deal with the consequences, and then the
adult can have fun driving the car.

Now that makes sense to me - and I understand why the tree
bears "forbidden" fruit.

Early on my spiritual path, I was in a room where, during a
reading, a spiritual teacher gave a very harsh warning to a
man about playing with his own mental health because the
man was adamant to become a medium even though he was
clearly emotionally not stable.  That stuck with me.

Does that mean that exploring our own spirituality is
dangerous and we should not do it?  On the contrary.  We
become our true selves when we explore who we really are,
and we find joy and understanding.  The warning is that we
need to understand that we are dealing with something that
is far greater than our human minds can conceive.  We must
not be greedy or try to run before we can walk.   And we
must understand that once we have taken on that
responsibility, there is no turning back.  We can no longer
blame others for what happens to us, and we will never see
the world in the same light again.  But we will also
experience indescribable joy and peace.

For some people things like clairvoyance and telepathy and
energy work are second nature.  For other people anything
spiritual is like an awakening from a deep sleep.  Nobody
wants to awake from a deep sleep by means of an explosion.
We want to slowly become conscious, then stretch out and
leisurely open our eyes.  And some people want to sleep on.
 We need to be patient with ourselves and one another.

I sometimes encounter fear and prejudice when I do readings
for people - because I do not use tarot cards and I do not
rely on the interpretation of any other cards.  At least
tarot cards and other cards have some entertainment value,
but many people find the idea of just closing your eyes and
"tuning in" scary. I have also encountered fear and
prejudice that is so paralyzing that people avoid me and
never explore the reasons for this behavior.  How do I
react?  By loving them.  It is not for me to "convert"
people or to assume that everyone should share my beliefs -
which are right for me now, but may change as I become more
aware and awake.

This may be presumptuous, but I think I have had a tiny
bite of the forbidden fruit, and I know there is no turning
back.  Of course you can take a bite yourself and
experience the joy and peace and abundance, but are you
ready for it?  You will know in your heart of hearts and
walk your own path.


About the Author:

Elsabe Smit is the author of A Tapestry of Life and of the
blog http://www.mypurpleblog.com , Spiritual
interpretations of everyday life.