What really happened in the Garden of Eden?

Let us now use these insights to take a fresh look at the Garden of Eden story. This story is one of the pivotal myths in world culture and it is a fruitful source of understanding, especially when it comes to the relationship between people and their spiritual teachers. Obviously, one can unlock this understanding only by looking beyond a literal interpretation. If one does not, one can never resolve the obvious contradictions or answer the questions raised by the story.

First of all, one needs to realize that what the Bible calls God is not God in the ultimate sense, but a spiritual teacher that represented God to the students in the schoolroom that was called Eden. The Creator is beyond all form and thus would not interact with human beings in a form they could see. The Creator leaves this to the beings who hold the appropriate position in the cosmic hierarchy. The word “God” was used differently in Old Testament times, often used to refer to any spiritual being. As I have mentioned before, I, Maitreya, was the teacher of Adam and Eve, which I think makes me more qualified than any human being or institution to explain what truly happened in the Garden.

Secondly, one needs to realize that there were many students in Eden. The story focuses on Adam and Eve for the sake of simplicity, and thus Adam and Eve are symbols, archetypes if you will, for what happened to many of the students in Eden. Let us now look at one of the pivotal passages in the story:

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis, Chapter 2)

The first question we will consider is why the spiritual teacher even had to tell the students not to eat of the fruit? Why was there a forbidden fruit in the Garden, why didn’t God create the Garden without this temptation? We can now resolve this question by reaching back to our discussion of free will. If students did not have the option to go against the laws of God, they would not have the fullness of free will. Thus, the temptation to deliberately go against God’s laws is a companion of free will.

We can now see that the “fruit of the knowledge of good and evil” is a symbol for a state of consciousness, namely the frame of mind that makes it possible for a student to go against the laws of God out of willful ignorance. As we have seen, violating the laws of God is not possible from the Christ mind, for when you perceive the reality of God, you know that violating God’s laws will hurt yourself and your greater self (all life). And you would never consciously choose to hurt yourself or your Self.

It now becomes clear that violating God’s laws is only possible when you are in a frame of mind in which you do not truly know what you are doing and how it will affect you. You might have come to believe that it will not truly hurt yourself, that it will not have negative consequences or that you can somehow escape those consequences. You might be violating God’s laws without truly seeing that you are doing so, or you might be violating them deliberately but still without the full realization of how it hurts yourself.

Violating God’s laws is only possible when you suffer from an illusion so that you do not see the reality of the Christ mind. You have neutralized your connection to the reality of God and the clear vision of that reality, which is a product of the Christ mind. How can perception of reality be neutralized and replaced by an illusion? It can be done only by entering a state of consciousness that has a more limited perspective on the world than the Christ consciousness. Therefore, you do not see reality but a mental image of reality, an image that is either limited or distorted. In other words, in the Christ mind there is no room for illusions, lies, doubt or interpretation, for there is no gray zone. So you can hurt yourself only by entering into a frame of mind in which there is room for illusion and doubt, meaning that there is a gray zone in which things are not clear. There is room to create a mental image of reality instead of the direct perception of God’s reality found in the Christ mind. There seems to be a distance between you and reality because you are separated from reality—in your mind.

The frame of mind that separates you from reality is, of course, the mind of anti-christ. This frame of mind cannot see reality but sees only a mental image of “reality.” Good and evil have become relative terms and are defined in relation to each other rather than in relation to God’s absolute reality. When “truth” is relative, it becomes possible to define it in such a way that although you know you are violating God’s laws, your perspective makes it seem like this is acceptable, justified, beneficial or perhaps even your only option.

Excerpts from Key 13

Why was the Serpent in the Garden of Eden?

Regardless of where you have come from and how you ended up in a physical body on planet Earth, your only way to enlightenment is to follow the Path of Oneness, whereby you overcome the separate identity and come into oneness with the Chain of Being that leads from you to the Creator. And – as I have explained in the preceding chapters – the only way to overcome the catch-22 of your separate identity is to connect to a teacher who is not inside your identity box and can thus lead you out of it. Only by interacting with a being who is not blinded by your dualistic illusions can you overcome those illusions.

For some this will seem obvious, whereas others will sense a negative reaction in some parts of their being. Some of the beings who currently embody on Earth have a predisposition to reject the Path of Oneness, especially the idea that they need to follow a teacher and come into oneness with him or her. They are, so to speak, programmed against this process, but in reality it is their egos that are programmed. Thus, the only way to overcome this programming is to understand how the egos of these beings were created and why the very illusion that caused these beings to fall also prevents them from overcoming the fall and joining the Path of Oneness. In fact, the consciousness of these fallen beings has affected every aspect of life on Earth, so it is important for everyone to understand how and why spiritual beings can fall from their original state and end up on planet Earth. This is the topic we will explore next, and we will start by looking at the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.

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As we have discussed, there are four levels of the material universe, corresponding to four levels of vibrations, four levels of density. But why are there four levels, why not simply one? Well, when the first sphere in the world of form was created, it did have only one spectrum of vibrations. It was created at a certain level, and it was then raised in vibration from there. This also holds true for several of the other higher levels.

I have explained that the purpose of creating a sphere that is set apart from the void is to give self-transcending beings the opportunity to start out as separate beings. This is attained by creating a sphere where the intensity of light is so low that it allows for the illusion of separation to exist. The beings in the sphere are meant to grow in awareness until they see themselves as one with their Creator and one with all life. In the process of raising their own consciousness, they also bring more light into their sphere and raise its vibration, until it ascends and becomes part of the spiritual realm.

Yet as the process of creating new spheres progressed, there came a point when not all of the beings in a sphere were ready to ascend when the sphere itself ascended. Thus, the question arose of what to do with the beings who were not willing to raise their consciousness? The obvious answer was to allow them to descend to the newly created sphere, the next sphere set apart from the void. In such a new sphere, there would still be enough darkness left, there would still be such a low intensity of light, that the beings with a lower level of consciousness could continue an existence there. They could maintain the illusion that they were separate beings, which was no longer possible in their old sphere. Thereby, such beings could receive additional opportunities to get back to the path of becoming MORE and rejoin the River of Life.

When a new sphere is created, it is the original model to create it at a certain level of vibration, a certain level of density. My point being, that according to this model there would have been only one level of vibration in the sphere in which you live. Yet there were several groups of beings in the sphere above yours – some of whom had come from even higher spheres – who were not willing to rise above their old state of consciousness and ascend with their sphere. Thus, it became necessary to design the new sphere so that it could provide a place for these beings, a place that was adapted to their level of consciousness. In other words, the density of the new sphere was adapted to the density of the consciousness of these groups of beings. That is why this sphere was designed with four different levels, ranging from not very dense (the identity realm) to very dense (the physical realm).

This now adds a complexity to the purpose of this sphere. In the higher spiritual realms, there was a very clear and simple purpose. Self-conscious beings could basically focus on their own growth and walk the Path of MORE until they were ready to ascend to a higher level. It was not their concern how other beings grew, as those who did not grow would simply be left behind when the sphere ascended. Yet by the time your sphere was created, there were so many of these “left behind” beings that a shift in purpose occurred. Instead of simply designing a sphere in which beings were meant to focus on their own growth, this sphere was – from the very beginning – designed to serve a dual purpose. One was to give new co-creators an opportunity to start out as separate beings and grow in awareness. The other was to attempt to awaken those who had been left behind when previous spheres ascended.

We now see that there are (at least) three distinct reasons why a specific being might be in the material universe:

A being might have fallen into this realm because it was not willing to self-transcend when the sphere that is now the lowest spiritual realm ascended. Such a being might actually have originated in a higher sphere and have fallen through several levels.
A being might be a new co-creator who was created to descend to the material realm and grow from there.
A being might have voluntarily descended from a higher realm in order to either help the fallen beings or the new co-creators grow in awareness. These are beings who had already become spiritually self-sufficient in a higher realm. Yet instead of continuing their personal growth, they volunteered to help those below them grow. This is a concept that in Eastern religion is known as the Boddhisatva ideal.

We now see that the most general explanation for the origin of the Serpent is that “Serpent” refers to a group of beings who fell in a higher realm and thus descended to this latest sphere. It now becomes clear that the Garden of Eden was not as neat and tidy of a place, not as much of a paradise, as most people have been brought up to believe. In reality, it was a mixed environment, and this obviously raises some questions that we will look at next.

***
We can now tackle the quintessential question about the Garden of Eden story, namely why God allowed the Serpent to be in the Garden. We can see that the Garden was created for more than one purpose, and one of these purposes was to give another opportunity to a group of beings that had fallen from a higher realm. The Bible only describes one such being, but in reality there were many of them. In other words, there were a number of beings in the Garden who fell as a result of the serpentine consciousness. The Garden of Eden was partly established to give them an opportunity to rise above that state of consciousness. How could this be accomplished?

The Garden did have new co-creators who started out their journey of self-discovery in that environment. By interacting with these innocent lifestreams, those in the serpentine consciousness had an opportunity to reform their approach to life, much like some adults on Earth who are transformed by working with children. Obviously, this arrangement came with the inherent risk that the new co-creators could be led astray by those who had already fallen. Yet this does not mean that the innocent lifestreams were thrown at the mercy of a flock of ravening wolves.

The Garden did, as already mentioned, have a head teacher who had successfully passed the temptation to engage in the serpentine consciousness. Likewise, there were a number of lifestreams who had passed this initiation in a higher realm and who had volunteered to descend to the Garden in order to serve as a counterbalance to the serpentine lifestreams. Thus, there was a balance between those who had risen above the serpentine consciousness and those who had not. By interacting with those who were above this temptation, those who fell had another opportunity to reconsider their choices. Naturally, those who were above the temptation could also serve to help the new co-creators avoid being tempted by the serpents. So the Garden was a balanced yet very dynamic environment, which of course goes against the popular myth of a static place of eternal rest. Yet as I have attempted to explain, there is no place of static rest, as even the spiritual realm is constantly transcending itself. Life is an ongoing process, the River of Life, and it is only the ego and fallen beings – who have separated from this process – who want to create a static place in which their power and control cannot be challenged by the force of life itself. I hope you can begin to see that this is an impossible dream that will never come to pass.

I have already mentioned that the Garden was not located in the physical vibrational spectrum. It was located in the identity realm, which is the highest of the four levels of the material universe. This realm is meant to serve as the meeting point between “heaven and Earth,” between the material universe and the spiritual realm. The idea is that a lifestream from any of the other three levels can raise its consciousness to the identity realm and then begin the process of ascending to the spiritual realm. Thus, the identity realm must remain pure, and to ensure this purity, it was divided. The Garden was located in the lowest level of the identity realm, which allowed it to house the serpents and also allowed it to serve as a schoolroom for lifestreams who had risen from the lower realms.

In order to understand how this was possible, we need to reach back to my earlier explanation that the Earth is very old and that the Garden was not established at the beginning of the Earth’s history. This is proven by the fact that there were people in the physical realm with whom Cain and Seth could intermarry. Some of the beings who started out in the physical realm had indeed risen in consciousness and were now being tutored in the Garden. I will later talk more about this, but for now it is necessary to give you a greater understanding of why there are four levels of the material universe.

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To summarize what we have talked about so far, we can now see that you will never understand what is happening and has been happening on the Earth unless you realize that this planet is the temporary home to different lifestreams. I know most spiritual people have felt a sense of disgust over some of the things that have been happening and are still happening on this planet. I know many people are wondering why some people can do things that are so obviously evil or abusive toward others. How is it possible that some people seemingly have no sensitivity or concern for the suffering they inflict upon others or have no awareness of the consequences of their actions? How come some people have an obvious desire to control or suppress others, literally treating other people like property or slaves?

We can now begin to see part of the explanation for human evil. The stark reality is that some of the beings who inhabit human bodies on this little planet were not created to start out their existences on this planet. They were not created to descend to the identity level as new co-creators and eventually take on physical bodies. Some of these beings were indeed created as co-creators, but they were created in a higher realm. When their native realm ascended, they refused to let go of their separate sense of identity and join the River of Life. Thus, they fell into the newly created sphere.

Yet before they fell, some of these beings had attained a sophisticated understanding of their native sphere and how the world of form works. These beings did not fall from innocent ignorance, they fell from willful ignorance. This means that they often had a very high understanding of how the universe works, yet they did not have the Christ consciousness that allowed them to use this understanding in unselfish ways. Thus, instead of using their understanding – and their outer positions in a society in their native sphere – to raise up all life, they had become blinded by the dualistic desire to raise up themselves in comparison to others. This caused them to use their knowledge and power to actually limit and control other beings. They were seeking to elevate themselves by keeping other beings down, and this is an obvious violation of the Law of MORE. This law states that the only true way to raise yourself is to raise all life, so when you seek to raise yourself by limiting all other forms of life, you are truly out of touch with life itself.

Some of these self-centered beings have maintained their separate sense of identity in several spheres, meaning that they have fallen through several levels of the world of form. They have had a very long time to build their current sense of identity, meaning that they are very sure of themselves and their right to suppress other beings. So when they embody on Earth, they feel superior to most other people and they immediately seek to set themselves up in powerful positions. Some of these beings are simply self-centered and mainly want to control others in order to get power and privileges for themselves—all for the cause of expanding their sense of superiority. Yet some fallen beings have become trapped by the belief that they know better than God how the universe should be run, giving them a desire to prove God wrong. Thus, their desire for gaining control over other people is part of a larger agenda which few people have understood. This is a topic we will talk more about in coming chapters, when we have set the proper foundation.

My goal at this point is to make you aware that there are indeed beings on Earth who do not look at life the same way most people do. These beings – who wear normal human bodies – have become so self-centered that they have lost all sensitivity to the suffering of other people. The equation is simple, for the more you get lost in the duality consciousness – the further you descend down the spiral staircase – the more self-centered you will become. The inevitable companion of self-centeredness is an increased insensitivity to other forms of life. Only you matter, and other people simply don’t matter. The most self-centered people believe they have a superior right to pursue their self-defined goals. They believe the ends can justify the means—some of them even believe that their superior cause can justify any means, any amount of suffering inflicted upon other people. These beings are constantly and ruthlessly seeking to control others, which means they are seeking to take away their spiritual freedom.

I know this is a topic that makes many spiritual seekers uncomfortable, and they would rather not think about it. Yet if you are a sincere spiritual seeker, your goal must be to attain spiritual freedom. And how can you possibly hope to attain spiritual freedom unless you understand the forces that seek to take away that freedom? So as a mature seeker, you need to become aware that there is a force on planet Earth that is deliberately and aggressively seeking to take away the spiritual freedom of all people. Once you understand how this force works, it is quite easy to avoid its control over you personally. And if a critical mass of spiritual people come to a full understanding of this force, it will even be possible to permanently remove it from the Earth. We will talk much more about this later, but for now let us move on to look at another type of spiritual beings that have come to embody on Earth as a result of falling into the illusion of separation.

Excerpts from Key 14

The difference between co-creators and angels

I would like to summarize what we have discussed in the previous chapters. We have seen that the spheres are created with an increasing density. Starting with the fourth sphere, a new sphere is created in a mortal or incomplete state. This allows shadows to exist, which gives co-creators the opportunity to start out with a separate sense of identity and grow toward oneness. Yet the shadows also make it possible for the consciousness of anti-christ to ensnare both co-creators and angels, who cannot clearly see the fallacy of its dualistic, relative logic. This makes it possible that such beings will refuse to self-transcend, and this can prevent them from rising when their sphere ascends. Such beings will then “fall” into the sphere that is created as their own sphere ascends.

We now need to add that it takes a very long time – as time is measured on Earth – for a sphere to ascend. This means that the beings in a given sphere have a very long time to grow and develop their sense of identity. This is true for both angels and co-creators. Both can follow a path of expanding their identity and both can work their way up through layers of service in the sphere they were created to serve. Thus, by the time a sphere begins to ascend, both co-creators and angels might have attained high positions in their area of service. For example, an angel might have become the leader of a band of angels, whereas a co-creator might have become the leader of a great civilization on a planet like Earth. Yet neither of them will become fully immortalized until their sphere ascends. This means that when a sphere ascends, the co-creators and angels who were created to serve that sphere will face one final initiation, namely the ultimate test of selflessness.

***
What I will say at this point is that if a being – angel or co-creator – does not pass the final initiation of selflessness, it cannot ascend when its sphere ascends. Thus, such a being will “fall” into the next sphere, where it then has to, so to speak, “start from the bottom and work its way up in its Father’s company.” Such a fallen being will forget where it came from, but it will not lose its past attainment. In other words, although it starts out with a limited sense of identity, it can reconnect to the attainment it has built previously. This means that a fallen angel will be more advanced than a new co-creator, yet in order for it to rise above the state of consciousness that caused it to fall, the fallen angel must follow the same path as new co-creators, starting out in a cosmic schoolroom and seeking to come into oneness with the teacher. Since angels were not created to start out in a schoolroom, this can present a severe test of humility to the more sophisticated fallen angels.

We now see why the Serpent was in the Garden of Eden. The Serpent is a symbol for fallen angels (as well as a group of specific angels). We can now see why Eve was fooled by the Serpent who had an overpowering sense of identity and great skill in using the mind of anti-christ. Obviously, the teacher and some of the other students in the Garden had equal or greater skill than the Serpent, so Eve had a balanced opportunity to follow either a true teacher or a false teacher.
I earlier said that many spiritual people on Earth have an inner knowing that they are angels in embodiment. We can now see that although angels were not created to take embodiment, they will do so after they fall. However, this does not mean that all those who know they are angels in embodiment are necessarily fallen angels. After the first angels fell, other angels volunteered to descend into embodiment on a rescue mission for the fallen angels. More on this later.

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Take note that even if an angel had great knowledge and skill before it fell, that expertise was acquired in a different environment than the one into which it falls. The reason being that each new sphere is more complex, more dense and has slightly different laws than the one before it. This means that even the highest-ranking fallen angels are not nearly as accomplished in their new sphere as they might think. They have to start by learning how their new sphere works. The difference is that they can eventually begin to tap into their previous experience and can thus master their environment faster than new co-creators.

When a fallen being enters a new sphere, it forgets its previous identity and attainment. Thus, it starts out with a limited sense of identity, much like a new co-creator. It goes through the same kind of rebirth as I described that students experience as they separate themselves from their teachers. The old sense of identity dies and the being is reborn into a new sense of identity in which it now sees itself as separated from its source. This gives the fallen being a chance to start with a clean slate. We might say that as the being grows in the cosmic schoolroom, it can build an entirely new sense of identity that is not polluted by memories of the sense of identity that fell.

The challenge is that as the fallen being matures, it must face a different initiation than that of new co-creators. New co-creators truly do start out with a clean slate, so they have no skeletons in the closet that must be dealt with later. A fallen being must inevitably face the initiation of rediscovering its previous identity. It then faces the difficult test of choosing between the new more innocent identity it has created or reverting back into its old, more sophisticated identity. We might say it faces the challenge of letting its fallen identity die or choosing to embody it once more. We might also say that whereas new co-creators only have to discover their divine identity, fallen beings have to first discover and dismiss their fallen identity before they can discover and embody their divine identity.

Obviously, this is a complex challenge, but rest assured that the teacher in the spiritual school is well aware of it and is prepared to offer fallen beings all possible help to pass it. Some fallen beings accept this help and turn themselves around, but others will not accept the teacher’s help. Thus, they usually cannot graduate from the schoolroom but end up going out into their new sphere without having become spiritually self-sufficient. This has a number of ramifications that we will look at in coming chapters.

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If one wants to be technical, one can say that there are no angels in embodiment. The reason being that an angel is a being who is created with a specific identity in which it is an extension of God’s will. The angel falls by rebelling against this purpose, thus separating itself from its true identity. The true identity dies and the angel is reborn into a new identity. The new identity is technically not the identity of an angel but a being who sees itself as separated from God’s will and law. However, this still does not override the fact that many beings in embodiment were created as angels and fell from that identity.