Treasure Hunter
Well-Known Member
For the young toddler, the world is a place of enchantment and benevolence. It is the Garden of Eden. As the toddler explores the world, they will eventually bump up against chaos. This might be a hand on the hot fireplace glass or a strong reprimand after breaking something.
When this happens, the toddler splits. This splitting is represented in Genesis when Eve is created from Adam’s rib. Adam represents the mind and Eve represents the body. As the mind temporarily splits from the body, then the self momentarily splits from the environment. Before this, we can consider the child androgynous, non-dual, and completely engrossed in the environment.
As the child continues to explore the world and encounters chaos, this pattern of temporary splitting will repeat and eventually result in an incremental separation of mind from body (Adam from Eve) and self from environment. As the story goes in Genesis, Adam will inevitably eat the forbidden fruit, creating a separation between self and the paradise of childhood. He will naturally try to re-engross himself to the Garden of Eden, but he will gradually realize that he can’t lose his self like he used to. He has been exiled. This is the genesis story of every human being: the splitting of mind from body, of self from environment, and of our consciousness from the benevolent childhood story.
It is at this point that The Parable of the Bags of Gold becomes relevant (Matthew 25:14-30, NIV). As it goes in Genesis 3, after Adam is exiled from paradise, then he is sentenced to work. The servant who buries his bag of gold is the attempt that we all make to escape the responsibilities of the work assigned to us by the overbearing ruler and re-engross ourselves back into the childhood paradise story.
The thinking is if we can escape back into our childhood story, then we can escape from this story of work, responsibility, and punishment by a tyrannical ruler. This is our first approach since we have an evolutionary adapted impulse to expend the least amount of energy/resources in trying to solve problems. After getting thrown into the darkness of pain and judgment, we quickly realize that we probably need a new strategy which is going to require that we extend ourselves more than we have previously.
When this happens, the toddler splits. This splitting is represented in Genesis when Eve is created from Adam’s rib. Adam represents the mind and Eve represents the body. As the mind temporarily splits from the body, then the self momentarily splits from the environment. Before this, we can consider the child androgynous, non-dual, and completely engrossed in the environment.
As the child continues to explore the world and encounters chaos, this pattern of temporary splitting will repeat and eventually result in an incremental separation of mind from body (Adam from Eve) and self from environment. As the story goes in Genesis, Adam will inevitably eat the forbidden fruit, creating a separation between self and the paradise of childhood. He will naturally try to re-engross himself to the Garden of Eden, but he will gradually realize that he can’t lose his self like he used to. He has been exiled. This is the genesis story of every human being: the splitting of mind from body, of self from environment, and of our consciousness from the benevolent childhood story.
It is at this point that The Parable of the Bags of Gold becomes relevant (Matthew 25:14-30, NIV). As it goes in Genesis 3, after Adam is exiled from paradise, then he is sentenced to work. The servant who buries his bag of gold is the attempt that we all make to escape the responsibilities of the work assigned to us by the overbearing ruler and re-engross ourselves back into the childhood paradise story.
The thinking is if we can escape back into our childhood story, then we can escape from this story of work, responsibility, and punishment by a tyrannical ruler. This is our first approach since we have an evolutionary adapted impulse to expend the least amount of energy/resources in trying to solve problems. After getting thrown into the darkness of pain and judgment, we quickly realize that we probably need a new strategy which is going to require that we extend ourselves more than we have previously.