The Role of the Garden of Eden in the Cosmic Storyline

The Role of the Garden of Eden in the Cosmic Storyline

[00:45] The Triumvirate

Welcome to my podcast, the Vedic Worldview. I’m Thom Knoles. I’ve had some inquiries about the Garden of Eden. A very interesting concept and one which requires a little preface.

In the Vedic worldview we are not literalists. Literalism gives rise to fundamentalism, which then ends up having a deleterious effect on the intent of knowledge. And so we’re going to step out of the denotative and into the connotative and have a deeper understanding of what this was all about.

In the biblical mythos, we have God the creator, having created Adam, the first human, and then having discovered, and I’m taking some shortcuts here, for those of you who are literalists, please have your forgiveness, eyes and ears on, that’s supposed to be what you do.

Adam, feeling a little lonely, and so God extracted from him a rib. We’re not sure which rib, because we have an equal number of ribs on each side, even though we’re descended from Adam, and from that made Eve, the first woman. And in the Garden of Eden story, there was the triumvirate.

And the triumvirate, we’re not too sure exactly how long it lasted. The triumvirate was God, Adam, and Eve, and everything was perfect. No one had a navel because there was no umbilicus that could attach to a navel. So navel-free, naked and roaming freely without any shame in the Garden of Eden.

And the Garden of Eden was beautifully cultivated as we have it in our popular imagination, and every day was the same. Adam, Eve and God and perfection, with no navels. Adam, Eve and God. Adam, Eve and God.

[03:09] The Forbidden Fruit

One day, and we’re not sure exactly which day it was, God lets Adam and Eve know that he is going to go somewhere. This is a very interesting concept right from the get go because there is common agreement that God is a combination of what I refer to as the three Os.

Omniscient, we’ll come back to that one, omnipotent, meaning completely capable of anything, can achieve anything, and for me the most important, omnipresent.

That God was going to leave the garden to an unspecified location, the omnipresence was going to fail to be omnipresent for a period of time. That’s very interesting, I guess if you are omnipotent, one of your powers will be to become quasi-present, meaning almost everywhere, except in this case, in the garden.

And he gives Adam and Eve his blessing, letting them know that they’re able, permitted to do anything they like in the garden and to enjoy all aspects of the garden, except for one thing. That tree over there on which grows a forbidden fruit. And so, “You can do anything you want, but whatever you do, you’re not to partake of the forbidden fruit.”

And then most of us know what happened, but I’ll spell it out for you. The omnipresence fails to be omnipresent and becomes quasi-present. The omniscience fails to be omniscient. Omniscient means all knowledge of all things simultaneously in the past, all things simultaneously in the present, all things simultaneously in the future.

So the omniscience also takes a holiday along with the omnipresence, and first Eve goes, and of course there’s the serpent who is hanging about the arena of the forbidden tree with the forbidden fruit, and who convinces her that having a bite of the fruit would just be the most fantastic thing. “And anyway, God’s never gonna know, so go ahead and have a bite.”

She takes a bite, and then next she brings Adam onto the scene and convinces him of the same and the two of them partake of the forbidden fruit. It’s frequently referred to as an apple, although I’m not sure scripturally it actually narrows things down to that species. Just a forbidden fruit.

[06:17] Can You Surprise the Omniscient?

Next thing we know, the omniscient, omnipresent one, once again becomes omniscient and once again becomes omnipresent. Why do we say once again? Because God evinces surprise and disappointment. The surprise and disappointment that they had done what he had forbidden them to do.

And so now we have to stop and pause and ask a question, to what end? Because we can make the assumption that there’s always a plan, to what end does the omnipresence decide to either feign quasi-presence, but actually remains omnipresent, to what end, in aid of what does the omniscience make itself not capable of knowing what Adam and Eve are up to?

Or indeed, since Adam and Eve were created in his own image, as specified in Genesis, that he, having warned them not to do a thing, is it really possible that he didn’t know what they were actually going to do?

And so then to what extent is God’s wrath and surprise and disappointment at the sin, the original sin of Adam and Eve, to what extent is God feigning this surprise? Because can you surprise the omniscient? Can you do a thing that the omniscient didn’t know you were going to do? Was the omnipresence able to actually leave a place and go to another place? Because that disqualifies omnipresence.

And so all of this asks of us to step out of the field of literalism for a moment and to look at the connotative value of the breaking of the symmetry. In science, we have a concept of symmetry and symmetry being broken. Broken symmetry has to do with the way in which a stable underlying state, which is super-symmetric, breaks its symmetry through the methods described in quantum mechanics in order to move from unmanifest into manifest.

To move from the unmanifest state to the manifest state is the nature of the unmanifest state. In aid of what? To get a story going. To get a story going. Now, was there a story? Well, up to that point, you know, God having created everything in the universe in seven days and having, in six days and having rested on the seventh, and then, you know, the creation of Adam and the garden and Eve and all of that.

[09:33] Breaking Symmetry with Turiya

But the triumvirate every day in the garden. Everything the same. Everything the same. Everything the same. There needed to be a fourth thing. In the Vedic worldview, the number four is a very pivotal number. You can have symmetry on a tripod of three, and if you want to break the symmetry, a fourth thing needs to enter the scene. Turiya, we say in Sanskrit. Turiya means the fourth.

In everyday life people experience three states of consciousness, waking, dreaming, sleeping, and these are relative states. Relative states of consciousness. By relative we mean they’re related to each other.

And so we sleep to the extent that the waking state makes us tired. We dream to the extent that we are releasing impressions of the waking state while sleeping. Dream is related to sleep, and sleep is related to waking.

Waking, likewise, is related to both dreaming and sleeping because the freshness of, and functionality of the waking state is utterly dependent on the depth of rest gained in the sleep state. And we know from modern cognitive science if somehow dreaming is suppressed through, say, taking the wrong kind of sleeping pill, you might sleep but suppress dreaming, then psychosis begins. Dreaming is a very essential state of consciousness.

Waking, dreaming, sleeping, waking, dreaming, sleeping, the three relative states and into this picture then comes turiya, the fourth consciousness state. The fourth consciousness state is the symmetry breaker. It’s the experience of the underlying transcendental field that underlies the three. The one indivisible whole consciousness field, which is the baseline out of which waking, dreaming, and sleeping appear. The transcendental field.

When we introduce the fourth, we break the symmetry of regular everyday life because we begin to add to the boundaries of waking, sleeping, dreaming life a new continuum, something which is a continuum, and out of which a story of accelerated evolution can begin appearing.

Accelerated evolution. Evolution is a very interesting thing to examine here. To evolve means to move from a less sophisticated state to a more sophisticated state, to move from a more primitive state to a more elegant state.

And these words, primitive, elegant, sophisticated, have been hijacked by certain trends in the English language, but I’m using these terms more as terms of science. Primitive meaning that there’s just primary value and basic survival in an organism.

When the organism begins to reach levels of complexity that successfully are integrated together, then we have successful integration of primary survival characteristics, yielding a new layer of sophisticated repertoire. Repertoire of the number of things that can be done, both in terms of sequence or simultaneously.

[13:28] Sophistication and Multitasking

So think for a moment about when you learn to drive a car, if indeed you’ve learned to drive one, it looks like it might be one of those things that we don’t ever have to learn anymore. With new technology we might be able to get away with having never once learned how to drive a car. Fantastic. If it works. So let’s see.

But you might remember having to learn to drive a car. In the very beginning days of driving the car, you had the problem of the three mirrors. There’s this mirror up here and that mirror over there and that mirror over there, each one of them yielding to you a distinct and unique viewpoint about what’s going on behind you.

And those mirrors, framed in the forward-moving viewfinder, the windshield or the windscreen, where you can see what’s coming. So you can see what’s behind you, and what is coming up from behind you, and you can see what’s coming.

And then there are all the dials. How fast are you going? And there are supposedly limits on that, that are posted on the roadway on which you’re driving. And then you have to somehow listen to how the engine of the car, if indeed your car has an engine and it’s not an electric car, how that’s going.

Now, if the person who’s riding in the passenger seat says to you, “I’d like to give you an explanation, while playing music to you,” and you’re a brand new driver, remember, “I’d like to give you an explanation, while you’re driving the intricacies and meaning of the compositions of Frederick Chopin. And so we’re going to play some Chopin minuets now on the speaker, and, you know, keep driving, it’s all right. And then I’m going to explain what Chopin’s doing with his left hand and his right hand on the piano.”

There’s a certain point where you’re going to say, “Too much. I’m a new driver. I can do things in sequence, like start the engine, put the car in gear, begin forward movement, check my mirrors and all the things I have to do, but having to do all of this and listen to a lecture on Chopin is rather complicated. Outside my repertoire of expertise.”

And so our competence has not yet come up to the level of being able to do that, but give you a month, two months, three months, four months, five months, six months of driving, you may well be able to have an articulate conversation about the intricacies of Chopin’s left and right hands on the piano, yet while driving really rather well, you know, in a way that’s not endangering the lives of yourself or others.

So when we have sequence moving into simultaneity, sequence, you know, you can sequence certain things that you’re able to do in your repertoire, but when your, when your repertoire starts to integrate and simultaneously you can think and speak and move and do everything all at the same time, this is ever-increasing sophistication using it as a scientific term.

So evolution is a progression from less sophisticated to more sophisticated, ever-increasing repertoire, and well integrated into capacity of simultaneity, the rather hackneyed phrase, multitasking. I say hackneyed because people will often say they’re multitasking when in fact they’re just doing two or three things badly, rather than doing one thing well. That’s another discussion for another day.

[17:37] Restoring Contact with Cosmic Intelligence

But we can see how from primary values moving to secondary, tertiary, and then the fourth, the breaking of the symmetry and the movement from less sophisticated to more sophisticated is story.

What is it that the one indivisible whole consciousness field, the Unified Field, what is it up to? And what it seems to be up to is to not be one indivisible and whole solely. It seems to want to become the many, and to become the many in aid of sequential storyline and then combined repertoire, moving from less sophisticated to more sophisticated, yielding a kind of entertainment. 

The same, the same, the same, the same, the same. We have a word for this. Boring. I hear that word from teenagers all the time. Boring. What does it mean? Repetition of the known. Repetition of the known, the ever-repeating known, is boring.

Let’s get back to the garden. There is God, there is Adam, there’s Eve, there is nothing else. There is no one else, and every day is the same. Boring. Something has to happen to break the symmetry. Something has to happen.

The omniscience, I’m going to put it to you, knew exactly what was going to happen. Why? Because you create beings in your own image, and when you say to them, “You see that tree over there?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, good. You see that fruit hanging on the tree?”

“Yep.”

“You didn’t ever notice that before, did you? Okay. I’m pointing it out to you for the first time here. Do anything you want in the garden, but don’t partake of the fruit, the forbidden fruit of that tree.

“Now I’m omnipresent. I’m just gonna vanish for a moment and not be omnipresent anymore. I am omniscient, so I know exactly what you’re going to do, but I’m going to fail to be omniscient for a while and I’m going to disappear from the scene. And when I return there’s going to be change. Out of the garden, out of the super-symmetry, out of the ever-repeating known.”

And then the quest for God begins. So the quest for God is the quest of humanity to return to that experience of oneness with Cosmic Intelligence. In the garden. There was oneness with Cosmic Intelligence, but it was, though the humans were equipped with the capacity for oneness with Cosmic Intelligence, seemingly by their own choice, but really, let’s get back to it here, omniscience, omnipresence, causing choice-less-ness. 

You cause choice-less-ness, but then there’s a separation from the ever-repeating known of constant contact with Cosmic Intelligence, so let’s create a storyline in which they’re seeking. The seeking of the restoration of contact with Cosmic Intelligence.

The human at the time of Adam and Eve in the garden was not a seeker. They sought nothing. They had no thoughts of any want. They had no thoughts of any need. They had no thoughts of anything being better. The concept of there being anything better was not a possibility. And so break the symmetry, cast them out of the garden, out of the garden, and start the process of the seeking and the restoration of contact with Cosmic Intelligence.

[21:58] The Kingdom of Heaven is Within

And the whole rest of all the biblical mythos is all about, what are the methods and techniques whereby, you know, whether it’s Joseph with his multicolored dream coat, having the experiences of the stairways, stairway to heaven, before him. 

Or whether it is the Christian version of the Bible in which a son is born, who is also God and the Son at the same time, connected altogether by a transcendent Holy Spirit field. You know, the requirement for the acceptance of this as a belief system in order to regain contact with Cosmic Intelligence, but only after your body dies. Your body has first to die, and then only will you have contact with Cosmic Intelligence.

And then there’s the otherwise. Otherwise there’s the excruciating experience of the purpose-built hell. Purpose-built, meaning built only for humans. There are no squirrels in hell. There are no dolphins in hell. There are no blue whales in hell. There are no sparrows. There are no house dust mites screaming for mercy in hell. There’s only humans.

That’s what awaits you unless you have a certain saturation point, and we’re not sure what the percentage is. Is it 50% belief? 100% belief? How about 99.999 belief in a particular way of thinking that’s going to guarantee you the restoration of sitting at the hand of God forever and ever and ever?

In the Vedic worldview we rather are fond of the statement made by Jesus and Matthew, kingdom of Heaven is within you. That place that you discover is going to add the fourth, the turiya to your life. Break the symmetry of the ever-repeating known, waking, dreaming, sleeping, waking, dreaming, and sleeping.

You wake up in the morning and you have tasks ahead of you. You’ve got to either go to school and learn stuff. And what are you learning stuff for? You’re learning an aid of figuring out who’s going to give you money. So you’re going to get to a certain age where somebody other than your parents are going to have to give you money. And so for that, you’ve gotta go to school and get a baseline education.

And then, if you ever get out of the basement of your parents’ house, you’re gonna be out there trying to see if there’s some way you can convince people to give you money. If you’re an artist, can you do art that pays? if you’re a musician, can you make music that makes people support you as a musician?

If you’re not any of those things, what’s your method for convincing people to give you money? Everybody’s gotta have a method of having people give them money, and for that you’ve gotta go to sleep at night, and then you have to unstress during the dreaming time. And then you have to wake up in the morning and get on with the process of trying to figure out how to get other people to give you money.

[25:06] The Radical Effect of Learning Vedic Meditation

Ever-repeating knowns. The story. Three states of consciousness, repeating, repeating, repeating. In comes the fourth state of consciousness. You learn Vedic Meditation. You learn how to sit comfortably in a chair with your head upright and your back supported, your body free and relaxed. And then how to practice an effortless technique whereby you settle down into the least-excited state of consciousness and experience turiya, the fourth, the symmetry-breaking state.

This is the state of consciousness that causes evolutionary change to really start galloping along. Because when we experience the pure consciousness that happens during the practice of Vedic Meditation, everything goes through change. Waking state becomes more wakeful. Sleep state becomes more restful. Dreaming state becomes more thorough going at releasing the stresses.

You begin to inject into your life, contact with the one indivisible whole, conscious, Unified Field value, and this revolutionizes life. It turns the ever-repeating known, rather boring storyline into a really interesting storyline.

Learning Vedic Meditation has a radical effect. The radical effect means that if you want to continue living the ever-repeating known, if you’re satisfied with the boredom, then don’t learn Vedic Meditation.

When you do learn Vedic Meditation, it’s going to take the bland life and spice it up somewhat. It’s going to cause your life to be refreshed with an injection of creative intelligence twice every day.

When we practice Vedic Meditation, we do it each morning at the commencement of the day before taking food, before starting the day, and then late afternoon, early evening, we sit and settle into that state again and give ourselves another injection of it, of that consciousness state, so that we can move forward into our evening with that replenishment of creative intelligence.

And so, story. Story seems to be what Unified Field Consciousness is into. It wants to create story. Story for the fun of variety. Story for the ever-repeating known breaking its symmetry and becoming a declension. 

A declension of events. One event after another, after another, after another, and then eventually leading into that aha moment, the enlightenment in which one understands, “I am one with the Cosmic Intelligence yet again, and yet I’ve had a great story. What a great story this life was.”

That’s what that’s all about. So now we have a little bit of a better contemplation of the Garden of Eden and what stories like that and other stories which are dotted all over our planet. In cultures all over the planet there are variations of the creation mythos. How all of this came about and how it is that we, 8 billion humans, where we all started and what we’re actually here for.

We’re here for the story of evolution and to arrive into an elegant state of Knowingness of Unified Field and all of its manifestations.

Jai Guru Deva.