The Tempting of Adam and Eve

The biblical story of Adam and Eve, who represent the first human beings, is an allegory of the fall of mankind and remains a mystery until we understand its hidden symbolism. The symbolic meaning of the following words in quotes enables us to understand the part of the story where Adam and Eve are tempted and is indicated by the words in parentheses.

After God has created Adam, He tells him he may freely “eat of any tree” (enjoy any sense) in the “garden” (the body), but not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is in the middle of the garden, for in the day that he eats of it he will “die” (lose awareness of his bliss, spiritual power and immortality). However, “the serpent” (sex temptation) is craftier than any “beast of the field” (sense pleasure) that God made, and engages Eve in conversation. (Perhaps his words represent thoughts of temptation arising in her mind.) He tells her, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it (the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden) your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Eve believes what the serpent tells her and eats some of the fruit, assuming it will make one wise, then gives some to Adam and he eats. Suddenly they “know that they are naked,” and they sew fig leaves together to make themselves aprons. (Genesis 3: 1-7)

But they were naked before eating the fruit and felt no shame. Why did eating the fruit cause them to feel naked and want to cover themselves?

Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil caused the first human beings to lose their original, heavenly state of consciousness (Eden) and become immersed in delusive body consciousness. They felt guilty and ashamed, for they had disobeyed God’s warning and, as a result, suffered a great loss. According to Paramahansa Yogananda and Sri Yukteswar, this part of the allegory can be explained in terms of the ancient scriptures of India, as follows.

A tree, with its branches, trunk and roots turned upside down, resembles the entire nervous system of a human being, and the tree in the middle of the body symbolizes the sensory nerves that conduct impulses from the sex organs to the brain. When the first humans ate the fruit of this tree (stimulated their sex nerves), the powerful kundalini energy, which enlivened their spiritual centers of divine awareness in the brain and spine, was diverted from these centers and channeled into the realm of physical sensations, especially those of sex. By awakening the sex instinct, they lost awareness of their bliss, power, and immortality as spirit. Because they felt guilt and shame for what they had done, they felt naked and wanted to cover their sex organs.

Moreover, they “knew good and evil,” which refers to the consciousness of duality replacing that of oneness in their minds. For, by diverting the kundalini energy into their physical bodies, they became engrossed in pleasurable and painful sensations and began to perceive the world in terms of dualities, perceiving opposites and judging things as “good” or “evil,” instead of seeing everything as unified in divine oneness. Their bodies became denser; their world changed to reflect their matter-bound consciousness; and pain, sorrow, fear and death became all too familiar to them. This was a tremendous loss, for in their original state, they were in paradise, their spiritual faculties were functioning, and they could manifest whatever they wanted by the divine power within them. The fall of the first human beings took place long ago, and all on earth are subject to the legacy of “good and evil” that resulted.

However, when one reads the first part of Genesis 3:22, one gets the impression that to know good and evil is godly (which is what the serpent said to Eve), for it is usually translated in the present tense: And Jehovah God said, “Behold the man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil….” But Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible says that “is” should have been translated “was” and suggests that something like the following would be correct: And Jehovah God said, “The man, who was like one of us, is now fallen and knows both good and evil….”

Although the Fall would have caused our progenitors and those who inherited their traits and way of life to experience fear and to forget or be unaware of the innocence, peace and bliss that were known in the beginning, we should realize that, at the core of our being, we are still divine, for every soul is eternally perfect and pure in essence. By developing the latent powers of the soul, we are capable of knowing all things, and through loving intentions, we can extend God’s perfect creation, rather than desecrating it by seeking only to fulfill personal desires and by fighting with each other. There is hope for humanity, for through meditation, moderation and selfless love, we can tame and transmute the desires of the physical body, reverse the soul’s descent into spiritual ignorance and delusion, and regain our consciousness of immortality and oneness with God.

Note: Paramahansa Yogananda discusses the Garden of Eden allegory in much greater detail in God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita (pages 28-29, 446, 930-932), published by Self-Realization Fellowship.

The Tempting of Adam and Eve