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MIND

MindThe Tree of Knowledge stands beside the Tree of Life in the garden of Eden, off-limits to all who do not want to die. This statement suffices to rename the Tree of Knowledge into the Tree of Death, but in this age of mind-derived benefits it raises the question of meaning: why does knowledge equal death?

The simple answer is that life is ensured only when the Soul is connected to wisdom, and that its independent acquisition of knowledge can neither yield nor substitute wisdom; in fact, it often actually kills it.

Wisdom is not the possession of some higher, ultimate knowledge, but the level of love, or consciousness, in the Soul that guides it in times of life-defining choices. It is not an inherent quality of the mind, but rather a power of Spirit that the mind can tap into provided it is deemed worthy. Worthiness is defined not as what the mind thinks and believes but how the mind *is*, its innate power of integrity and appreciation of Spirit. A worthy mind seeks to rise in nobility so that it can receive, love and protect Spirit from force and lack. In turn, it receives Spirit’s love as wisdom, or its willingness to grant it the gift of potential and fulfillment by guiding it in times of choices, using desire and perception as its tools. Such is the mind’s firm decision to traverse a risky path or trust one’s vision, thereby seeding potency or avoiding havoc down the road of life, a road whose length, twists and outcomes no mind can possibly fathom, let alone control.

The mind is sure to choose life when it is in a fertile connection with Spirit, and it seeks knowledge only when it has lost that connection and as result become impotent at crossroads. Such disconnected mind acts like a rejected teenager after a quarrel with his girlfriend, seeking to remedy its impotence by forcing Spirit into sacrifice, or else by devising an alternative path outside of Spirit: that of knowledge of the world surrounding it. This path of the mind is as life-creating as a man’s attempt to get pregnant and incubate a baby within his own body, rather than form a connection with a woman.

Yet that is exactly what the mind is doing, for it does not actually care for having a baby but only for proving itself powerful, God-like. If the mind cared more for life than for power, it would do whatever necessary to build and maintain the connection instead of stubbornly walking the path of disconnect. Since only women can get pregnant and only Spirit can give life, the mind will remain on its path of infertility until it exhausts its craving for power and accepts the natural order of partnership with Spirit. Until such time, however, it will treat Spirit as competition, seeking to invalidate it as a source of power by rejecting its wisdom and replacing it with its observations and assumptions about the world. In this way the mind is proving that it does not need wisdom, and that Spirit is inconsequential and worthless.

Yet unlike the teenager who can find another woman to make babies with, the mind has only one Spirit and one potential. And until it finds the humility to attend to its broken connection it will remain infertile, protecting its pride and stewing in its perception of power and self-sufficiency. This period of mind’s rejection of Spirit is called stagnation and is marked by the Soul’s connection to the Tree of Death instead of the Tree of Life. Stagnation, in fact, is the majority of Soul’s experience throughout its existence on Earth.

Lacking the power of wisdom, the mind substitutes with knowledge and thereby sentences its body and Spirit to karmic suffering, for the pursuit of knowledge is a path of force. For example, a scientist’s trapping of animals for purposes of experiments or study, or his taking of samples from trees by means of drilling holes into them are both acts of violation of Spirit, or the animal’s and tree’s right to wholeness, safety and love. His regard of trees and animals as mere means to his higher purpose of knowledge makes him accept such violation, yet creates an equal karmic violation of his own wholeness in the future, bringing him nothing less than a rape of body and mind. This is not an exaggeration, for animals and nature represent Spirit’s body and count as such in the karmic book of justice, which is why the Garden of Eden offered fruit only as food for Adam and Eve.

Thus while the scientist’s pursuit of knowledge engulfs him in the perception of growing in power, in Truth he is accumulating very destructive experiences to hit him in the future so that he acquires nobility, i.e. learns to appreciate, respect and care for life and not sacrifice it to his arrogance and need for power. If the scientist had sought to preserve and love trees and animals, he would have been given a path to discovery and fulfillment with no cost to others and to his future safety and wellbeing. The mind thus is in charge of the Soul’s fate: as long as it forces knowledge over life and power over love, power will come at the cost of suffering and in exchange for life, akin to the absolute ‘power’ of a rock. Only when it has reached the consciousness of appreciating life above its ego and needs will it be able to reconnect to the Tree of Life and reclaim its fertility and safety.

The price to pay seems trivial – pride, which is nothing other than the mind’s self-perception of grandeur, its entitlement to fulfillment and hidden need to be the boss, to be God. Yet it forgets that God is life, achieved by the union of two complementary equals. The mind’s need for and belief in its independent superiority is an aphrodisiac, a drug of the age which fosters wondrous hallucinations and visions of potency and prowess, but is practically impossible. Realizing the vision to be a mere illusion is one of the most devastating experiences that the mind can have. The fear of facing this Truth and the need to prove it wrong makes the mind reach for Death instead.

While the mind’s fear keeps the Soul in continuous karmic suffering, its humility and courage in tackling Truth head-on and building a connection with Spirit are a testimony of its worthiness, for it does so out of a great love and appreciation for Spirit and life. Yet this path of the mind is a lonely and difficult one, for it wages battles both against its own perceptions, fears and beliefs, as well as against others’ force, expectations and needs. Only when partners and communities of such mind value its courage and intent more than its sustained proving of ego-based power will humility and connection become an easier path for all proud minds, helping to clear humanity’s way out of suffering.