"The Adam and Eve story is incomprehensible to me!" I observed with considerable heat one day in my early struggles with the allegory. "Why did God punish not only the guilty pair, but also the innocent unborn generations?"
Master was more amused by my vehemence than my ignorance. "Genesis is deeply symbolic, and cannot be grasped by a literal interpretation," he explained. "Its 'tree of life' is the human body. The spinal cord is like an upturned tree, with man's hair as its roots, and afferent and efferent nerves as branches. The tree of the nervous system bears many enjoyable fruits, or sensations of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. In these, man may rightfully indulge; but he was forbidden the experience of sex, the 'apple' at the center of the bodily garden.
"The 'serpent' represents the coiled-up spinal energy which stimulates the sex nerves. 'Adam' is reason, and 'Eve' is feeling. When the emotion or Eve-consciousness in any human being is overpowered by the sex impulse, his reason or Adam also succumbs.
- Paramhansa Yogananda
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jitendra, sex is the center and the core of man's sensation because it is forbidden. the sooner we accept sex as a normal and healthy sensation, the better off man will be as he will be set free to concentrate and explore more productive sensations that enhance mankind, not just his selfish urges. religion has made sex a taboo and unreachable element, thus man uses it in sometimes illiterate and irresponsible means. who tells us that sex is the forbidden fruit; religion, the moral values rightwing? Our needs are personal and reflect our inner desires and personalities. adam and ever were doing just fine until the serpent came along and told them that it was wrong. could the serpent really be religion? doug
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