The Forbidden Fruit

Now that we have more understanding, let’s explore this passage from Genesis where God warns Adam and Eve against eating from a certain tree, for if they do, they “will surely die.”

Genesis 2:16-17
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

In chapter 3, the serpent tempts Eve, promising wisdom:

Genesis 3:4-5
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Upon eating, Adam and Eve’s “eyes were opened” to a truth that resulted in suffering and mortality. From this point forward, they became aware of their vulnerability, and with that came generational suffering. The story is written simply, designed for memory, but its elements are deeply metaphorical.

Adam represents the first manifestation of consciousness — present in early childhood before self-awareness fully develops. The name “Adam” literally means “red earth,” signifying the physical, biological organism. It is heart consciousness: undivided, unified, innocent.

Eve arises from Adam — a lateralized, differentiated aspect of being — representing the thinking mind, mental cognition, language, and the capacity for abstraction and fantasy. She desires knowledge. She is our thinking mind, which, while curious, is prone to delusion.

The Serpent represents innate tendencies: lust, greed, envy, ambition, pride — the lower drives. In its singular form, it is Satan (literally “the adversary”). It tempts Eve to “know,” offering the dangerous promise of self-awareness and autonomy.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents duality — division into opposites: good/evil, right/wrong, desirable/undesirable. It is a corrupted version of the Tree of Life, which represents the idealized unity of pure awareness. The Tree of Knowledge divides reality into fragments, as the ego develops and overlays identity upon experience.

The “fruits” of this tree are the labels, titles, and attachments we accumulate to define ourselves. We adorn ourselves with personal narratives, striving for control and power, only to deepen our suffering as the mind becomes imprisoned by its own concepts. Each label reinforces a separation between self and world, subject and object, me and other, God and man.

Driven by our first taste of existential dread, we cling to knowledge to manage fear. Intellectuals may become trapped in ever more elaborate ideologies. The more we “know,” the more we fear. Knowledge itself, born in duality, becomes the chain of Samsara.

With this division came shame. Adam and Eve “knew they were naked” — recognizing vulnerability for the first time. The rupture from divine simplicity was complete. Their descendants (symbolically all of humanity) inherited this existential estrangement.

From a physiological perspective, this “cutting off” manifests literally in the brain. Our deep consciousness resides centrally (the thalamus), connected in early life with environmental experience. By around age seven, as the child fully develops language and inner dialogue (through interrupting speech with thought), cortical brain activity rises and creates a barrage of electrical activity in the outer cortices. This continuous neural “storm” separates the inner self from its unmediated connection to external reality. Meditators, through absorption (jhāna), can temporarily suspend this cortical activity and reconnect the thalamic center with the environment, often experiencing profound peace and joy.

Genesis subtly alludes to this in poetic form:

Genesis 3:24
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

The “flaming sword” may symbolize these cascading electrical discharges (brain waves) — the very thoughts that sever us from the Tree of Life, from direct, non-conceptual awareness of being.

“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
— Ecclesiastes 1:18