God told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was a warning to Adam of what would result from the contents of the fruit. God told him that if he did eat of the forbidden tree, he would die. Some people say this means that God would doom mankind to an eventual, physical death, as a punishment for disobedience. But what God said was, "In the day that you eat of it (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) you will surely die." I take literally the statement, "in the day." They died the very day that they ate of the forbidden fruit. Since Adam's story doesn't end right then, we can conclude that the death that came from the tree was not a physical death; it was some kind of spiritual death. However, I believe that this spiritual death, when it came upon mankind, was the poison that made us mortal. We became half-alive; disconnected from the life-force (God) that completes us and protects us from disease, aging, and physical decline into death. It wasn't a punishment from God that killed us; it was the contents of the fruit (the knowledge of good and evil) that killed us.

When Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree, the Bible says their eyes were opened, and they instantly saw that they were naked. Thie first thing they did was make clothes to cover their nakedness. What this seems like at first glance is that Adam and Eve awakened to a reality of which they were previously unaware. Their eyes were opened to the knowledge that they were naked.

Now, why would the knowledge of good and evil awaken them to their condition of nakedness? What does nakedness have to do with good and evil? Is it evil not to wear clothing? Of course, in public in today's society, nakedness is illegal, but why do you suppose that is? What is indecent about public nakedness? I suspect there isn't a really good answer to that question. The fact is, there isn't anything indecent about the naked human body. What is decency? According to the ethics of illegal public nakedness, decency has something to do with concealment. We live in a "decent" society where the norm is to cover ourselves physically, emotionally, and mentally. Emotional nakedness, while not outside any legal boundaries, is sometimes just as objectionable (if not more) as going about with exposed privates. How well do you think you would be received if you exposed every single emotion and thought that breezed through your mind?

Adam and Eve's eyes were opened to the worst lie that has ever been believed in the history of Mankind - that the unaltered, unconcealed version of Man is shameful and wrong. They lived out the rest of their lives in darkness, having been blinded by a false knowledge. What is nakedness when there is no concept of clothing? They didn't awaken to a previously-unknown reality, but rather, they fell asleep to the hypnosis of a fatal deception.

Most people I talk to say that the original sin was disobedience to God, and because of that disobedience, God cursed Man simply because Man broke the rules. That is a shallow and distorted interpretation of the scriptural account of the fall of Man. If that were the case, there would be no reason to detail certain specifics about the actual broken rule itself. It would only be necessary to say that there was a commandment, and that Adam and Eve disobeyed it. But the Bible makes clear what happened in the Garden. Adam and Eve ate of a poisonous fruit, whose poison cursed them. That poison was the illusion of division: good/evil - God/Man - right/wrong - life/death - desireable/undesireable - etc.

The original sin was not an actual deed, but an affliction. That's all sin ever is - an affliction. And still today, that original sin (which started what is now a catastrophic landslide) is still just as foundational and deceptive as it was in the beginning. Want to know what it is? - Shame and Guilt

According to the Bible, Man's first invention was clothing. Their eyes were closed, and they were blinded to their own natural beauty. They became ashamed of their bodies, and after clothing themselves, they hid from God out of shame. As soon as they hid themselves from each other and from God, they became separated from the unity of all things, and then the world became a difficult place to live in. Nothing was easy anymore. No longer were they part of a great unity (or kingdom, if you will). They were now lost in an illusion of opposing forces. Man was no longer one with the Earth; instead, the Earth rebelled against Man. Woman was no longer at one with her offspring; instead, her offspring caused her great pain at birth. Mankind was no longer at one with the elements; instead, the elements caused Man's body to age, and die.

The deceiving aspect of guilt and shame is that they bind us in the illusion that our sins are our fault. I'll most likely get some dissaproving comments on this statement, and that's because some people cannot see beyond this guilt-illusion. They are afflicted by it. They believe that they are the perpetrator of their sins, and that it is up to them to change their ways. Reinforcing this is pride. Pride is when we take ownership of our actions, and then judge others for what we perceive to be their own actions. Pride also works to blunt guilt's edge by allowing us to draw false satisfaction from our self-concocted righteousness. Pride says, "I was once a sinner living in darkness, but because of my actions, I've now turned to the light." Anyone who believes that lie is still in the darkness. How can we ever be free from our sins if we continue to own them?

Most Christians regard forgiveness as being like a plea-bargain. The sin still remains, but the penalty vanishes. What they fail to see is that the sin IS the penalty. Christ offers true forgiveness - not dropped charges. We seem to have lost the meaning of forgiveness as it is used in the Bible. True forgiveness is a light that shines within us. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." John says, "you know that He came to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin (1 John 3:5)." When we take on the Spirit of Christ, when He comes to dwell within us, He doesn't leave the sin and erase the sentence; he erases the sin/sentence package. The idea that our sin is somehow separate from our sin's wages (death) is just another part of the division-illusion that got us into this mess in the beginning. Until we experience Christ's forgiveness, we are already serving our sentence; we are living in a dark cellar of guilt and death.

The knowledge of good and evil turned off the lights and left us groping about, reaching for relief, but only finding more darkness. Jesus shines a light that reveals to us the truth about ourselves and the world that we live in. When we see that light, the illusion of guilt unravels, and we see clearly that we never owned our actions - not now, not ever. This is what true forgiveness really is - when the burden of our lives is removed from us. Forgiveness can't be summed up as the act of a benevolent supreme being giving us a break on our crimes out of love (popular concept). If that were it, the sins would still be in us, eating us up, killing us little by little; this is the real hell - not some fabled afterlife. Misdirection is the tool of the Devil. He doesn't want us to see what is going on right here all around us. He wants us to always be looking elsewhere towards an awaited afterlife, about which no one can testify. Jesus opens our eyes to right here, right now. His light shows us our true reality in which there is no guilt and shame, and where we live in union with all that is.

Luke 17:20-21 Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the Kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, "The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst."