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Eating the forbidden fruit

By Elsabe Smit

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Published: 22May2008
Word count: 1307
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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.

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

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