The Story of Adam in Exile from Truth (Sattva) - Out of Eden

[AlwaysDayAfterYesterday]

The following is a quote from Manly P. Hall, describing the essence of self-realization to our divine origin. I would love to include a video but cannot yet add HTML. If someone would like to do a youtube search for Krishna and Arjuna, it is the second video from user, Saldek2. I love this story, as it outlines the essence of most Eastern Religions and Esoteric views of the hidden mystery to Gnothi Seauton (Know Thyself).

A Story of Adam (From Manly P. Hall, Secret Teachings of All the Ages)

In this ritualistic drama--possibly derived from the Egyptians--Adam, banished from the Garden of Eden, represents man philosophically exiled from the sphere of Truth. Through ignorance man falls; through wisdom he redeems himself. The Garden of Eden represents the House of the Mysteries (see The Vision of Enoch) in the midst of which grew both the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Man, the banished Adam, seeks to pass from the outer court of the Sanctuary (the exterior universe) into the sanctum sanctorum, but before him rises a vast creature armed with a flashing sword that, moving slowly but continually, sweeps clear a wide circle, and through this "Ring Pass Not" the Adamic man cannot break.

The cherubim address the seeker thus: "Man, thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return. Thou wert fashioned by the Builder of Forms; thou belongest to the sphere of form, and the breath that was breathed into thy soul was the breath of form and like a flame it shall flicker out. More than thou art thou canst not be. Thou art a denizen of the outer world and it is forbidden thee to enter this inner place." And the Adam replies: "Many times have I stood within this courtyard and begged admission to my Father's house and thou hast refused it me and sent me back to wander in darkness. True it is that I was fashioned out of the dirt and that my Maker could not confer upon me the boon of immortality. But no more shalt thou send me away; for, wandering in the darkness, I have discovered that the Almighty hath decreed my salvation because He hath sent out of the most hidden Mystery His Only Begotten who didst take upon Himself the world fashioned by the Demiurgus. Upon the elements of that world was He crucified and from Him hath poured forth the blood of my salvation. And God, entering into His creation, hath quickened it and established therein a road that leadeth to Himself. While my Maker could not give me immortality, immortality was inherent in the very dust of which I was composed, for before the world was fabricated and before the Demiurgus became the Regent of Nature the Eternal Life had impressed itself upon the face of Cosmos. This is its sign--the Cross. Do you now deny me entrance, I who have at last learned the mystery of myself?"

And the voice replies: "He who is aware, IS! Behold!"

Gazing about him, Adam finds himself in a radiant place, in the midst of which stands a tree with flashing jewels for fruit and entwined about its trunk a flaming, winged serpent crowned with a diadem of stars. It was the voice of the serpent that had spoken.

"Who art thou?" demands the Adam.

"I," the serpent answers, "am Satan who was stoned; I am the Adversary--the Lord who is against you, the one who pleads for your destruction before the Eternal Tribunal. I was your enemy upon the day that you were formed; I have led you into temptation; I have delivered you into the hands of evil; I have maligned you; I have striven ever to achieve your undoing. I am the guardian of the Tree of Knowledge and I have sworn that none whom I can lead astray shall partake of its fruits."

The Adam replies: "For uncounted ages have I been thy servant. In my ignorance I listened to thy words and they led me into paths of sorrow. Thou hast placed in my mind dreams of power, and when I struggled to realize those dreams they brought me naught but pain. Thou hast sowed in me the seeds of desire, and when I lusted after the things of the flesh agony was my only recompense. Thou hast sent me false prophets and false reasoning, and when I strove to grasp the magnitude of Truth I found thy laws were false and only dismay rewarded my strivings. I am done with thee forever, O artful Spirit! I have tired of thy world of illusions. No longer will I labor in thy vineyards of iniquity. Get thee behind me, tempter, and the host of thy temptations. There is no happiness, no peace, no good, no future in the doctrines of selfishness, hate, and passion preached by thee. All these things do I cast aside. Renounced is thy rule forever!"

And the serpent makes answer: "Behold, O Adam, the nature of thy Adversary!" The serpent disappears in a blinding sunburst of radiance and in its place stands an angel resplendent in shining, golden garments with great scarlet wings that spread from one corner of the heavens to the other. Dismayed and awestruck, the Adam falls before the divine creature.

"I am the Lord who is against thee and thus accomplishes thy salvation, " continues the voice. "Thou hast hated me, but through the ages yet to be thou shalt bless me, for I have led thee out of the sphere of the Demiurgus; I have turned thee against the illusion of worldliness; I have weaned thee of desire; I have awakened in thy soul the immortality of which I myself partake. Follow me, O Adam, for I am the Way, the Life and the Truth!"

Secret Teachings of all the ages...

I would also like to quickly post the view of Rumi the Sufi on the topic of the identity of the Lord. In the Masnavi, he recounts a story of a man in the state of meditative ecstasy. The man proclaims himself, "God with none beside." This, of course, is an image of the Lord of the Old Testament doing the same as the Son of God (not the Father). The man then comes out of his ecstatic mind state finding his followers claiming blasphemy! The Master than tells his followers to stab him if it happens again. The next night, the same thing happens, to which, his followers try to stab him. Instead, their knives all bounced off him, stabbing each follower.

The moral of this story is then revealed by Rumi, giving us the identity of the Lord. This same identity comes out in the story of Jacob wrestling with the Lord, winning the match. Jacob then asks the Lord's name, not realizing he was wrestling with his own mind (Ishvara / Lord). Here is the Rumi Quote referencing the identity of the Lord.

THE MIRROR OF THE MIND

Ah! you who smite with your sword him beside himself,

You smite yourself therewith; Beware!

For he that is beside himself is annihilated and safe;

Yea, he dwells in security forever.

His form is vanished, he is a mere mirror;

Nothing is seen in him but the reflection of another.

If you spit at it, you spit at your own face,

And if you hit that mirror, you hit yourself;

And if you see an ugly face in it, 'tis your own,

And if you see an 'Isa there, you are its mother Mary.

He is neither this nor that he is void of form;

'Tis your own form which is reflected back to you.

But when the discourse reaches this point, lip is closed;

When pen reaches this point, it is split in twain.

Close then your lips, though eloquence be possible.

Keep silence; God knows the right way!

The deeper message here is one of judgment, or what we do to ourselves by judging others. We ARE the others we judge-quite literally. Love is the key here, or realization of our own identity within the whole--better known as the LORD collectively. We are all Sons of God. The story of the Lord in all scriptures is the story of all of humanity (Sun Born Man / Cosmic Man).

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[Baile]

Originally Posted by AlwaysDayAfterYesterday

And the serpent makes answer: "Behold, O Adam, the nature of thy Adversary!"

Manly must have been in his 30s to 40s when he wrote this. That's the time of the great soul purge. When all this spiritual stuff is taken so seriously as to create chaos and adversity. Because in that soul purge state, one latches onto extreme havoc-beliefs; beliefs that we are "fallen" and must fight for our soul, and beliefs about imaginary adversarial beings that oppose us, and so forth.

"Put on the armor of God!" "Take up the spiritual fight!" Those are two more expressions of this havoc-creating adversarial mindset that I've heard along the way.

Once you hit your 50s you realize the real havoc is in the act of continuously creating that havoc via one's havoc-beliefs. And so you let it all go... after which one naturally and joyfully and graciously releases into the glorious state of just being. Just being in life. Just being in beautiful life, free from this adversarial relationship to spirit, and free from these havoc-causing imaginations.

And it explains religion. Religion is the human consciousness state that is stuck in a place of arrested development. It never evolved past its teen-age years. Never became an adult; always stayed a havoc-creating emotional hormonal youth that battles life and spirit, and only sees things in black/white evil/good extremes.

As for Adam and Eve: it is relating, in story form, the birth of the consciousness soul impulse (tree of self-knowledge) into collective human evolution. That is all. But of course religion needed to turn it into a morality melodrama. That's what religion does, that's its purpose: condemn humanity in chapter 1 so that God the savior can ride to the rescue in chapter 33.

EDIT: The Secret Teachings of All Ages written at age 28 looks like. Not so far off.