A Tree Of Knowledge
THE WISE MAN TELLS YOU WHERE YOU HAVE FALLEN…. The first lesson in a mystery school is the original fall of man. It has nothing to do with Adam and Eve and their original fall. That story is simply a condensed parable about the whole humanity.
Each child falls in the same way. It is not something that happened in the past, in the old biblical days; it is not something that happened in the Garden of Eden. That is a poetic expression. It happens whenever a child is born. It happens again and again. It is happening every day.
The parable is that God has prohibited Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. It is one of the most beautiful parables ever invented by the masters, by the real knowers – not to eat from the tree of knowledge. And what are your universities? – trees of knowledge. And what is your education? – a tree of knowledge.
God had prohibited them to eat from it, so that you can remain innocent, because only the innocent heart can know. The moment you become full of knowledge, knowing stops. In fact, you have found a substitute for knowing – your knowledge becomes the substitute. Then there is no need to know! You go on clinging to the knowledge and it goes on giving satisfaction to your ego.
But the moment Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, they fell – they fell from their original innocence, they fell from their childlike life. Before that there was poetry in their life, before that there was beauty in their life, before that there was ecstasy in their life – before that there was wonder and awe. Before that each and everything was extraordinary, because the whole existence was full of mystery; they were surrounded by a mysterious universe. The rainbow and the sun and the moon and the stars… it was all unbelievable. They were in constant surprise.
The moment they became knowledgeable all that wonder disappeared. Knowledge kills wonder, and in killing wonder it destroys your spirit of knowing, inquiry. Knowledge demystifies the universe – and a universe demystified is a universe without God. A universe demystified is a universe without poetry, without love, without music. Then the sound of the raindrops does not come to your heart as a message from the other shore. Then the wind passing through the pine trees leaves you unmoved, and the fragrance of the flowers does not create poetry in you. The colors of a butterfly are ignored. A rainbow remains unseen. You become too much attached to very mundane things: money, power, prestige. You become ugly because your whole existence becomes ordinary; it loses sacredness, it becomes profane. You transform the temple of God into a marketplace.
That is the original fall – but it happens every day, remember. Don’t believe the Christians who say that it happened only once – it happens with each child. The moment you start the child on the journey of becoming knowledgeable, you are helping him again towards the original fall.
The function of a wise man is to tell you where you have fallen. You have fallen because of knowledge; that is the original fall. You can rise back to those clear, innocent moments; you can enter into paradise again – but you will have to renounce knowledge.
