style="font-size:15px;"> The place of manifestation for this new race, and the individual soul of Adam, was in “a garden eastward in Eden.”
“Eastward” is the direction of the sun. Thus the location of the garden symbolizes a condition close to the source of all life. Both Man and the Garden were projections of the God-consciousness.
“Eden” is not important as a place, but as a condition, an expression of consciousness by souls in the earth. It was the material experience of many and a record of it has been left in all parts of the world.
And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; and the Tree of Life also in the midst of the Garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Genesis 2:9)
The Garden is a literal truth, an actual state and condition of the world at one time, but is also symbolic of man’s body. Later the body is referred to as “the Temple” by teachers such as Jeremiah, Paul, and John. Jesus referred to his own body as “The Temple.” (John 2:21) But in the beginning it is called “the Garden.”
The existence of the Tree of Knowledge indicates the probability from the beginning of the perfect man’s separation from the Source. The Father-God was aware of the possibility, yet did not know if, how, or when it would happen until the soul, by its own choice, caused it to be so.
We recall at this point that Joshua was aiding Moses in the composition and interpretation of this myth.
The two Trees are reflected in the two principles he later voiced in his great statement, so often quoted in the readings:
There is set before you good and evil, life and death, choose thou this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Living God. (Joshua 24:15)
These two principles of spirit still exist, as they did in the beginning. A soul can choose consistently to eat from the Tree of Life, and thus maintain his connection to the Source; or use his existence to experience the things of the world in a manner which gives him knowledge, yet results in separation and eventual death of the Spirit within.
Death does not come in a moment, or even in an epoch, but if the soul continues to sin, continues ‘to eat,’ then it reaps its karma from the laws of cause and effect.
It was six hundred years before Adam died.
And again He has said, as He showed the way, as He fulfilled in giving His life, “In the day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die.” Yet the tempter said, “Not surely die,” for it may be put off; and it was—six hundred years—and yet death came, the pangs of the loss of self.
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A Soul Group
And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became four heads. (Genesis 2:10)
In verse 10 we again return to a water symbol—the river with four heads. Rivers in the natural world have one head and part into tributaries. Thus, this river is unlike any in the earth, and must be symbolic of a spiritual influence entering the earth. This river is the same as the “powerful spring” of verse 6.
Adam was a god-man, the first to enter the earth at one with, or through, the Light. He entered as a living soul, manifesting the spiritual image in Genesis 1.
The readings declare that Adam (the soul who later became Jesus) did not enter alone. Many of the Sons of God who “shouted for joy” when the morning stars sang together came with him. 144,000 is the symbolic number—which may even be literal as well—of those who participated in this movement.
This influx is what is really meant and symbolized by the four-headed river.
When the earth brought forth the seed in her season, and man came in the earth plane as the lord of that in that sphere, man appeared in five places then at once—the five senses, the five reasons, the five spheres, the five developments, the five nations.
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Man, in Adam (as a group; not as an individual), entered into the world (for he entered in five places at once, we see—called Adam in one, see?) . . .
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The following again calls to mind the existence of the “dark side” of creation and speaks of the decision made by the soul we know as Jesus, who became the Christ.
Then, as the sons of God came together and saw in the earth the unspeakable conditions becoming more and more for the self-indulgence, self-glorification, the ability to procreate through the very forces of their activity, we find that our Lord, our Brother chose to measure up, to earn, to attain that companionship for man with the Father through the overcoming of self in the physical plane.
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(Q) What is the explanation of “The Lamb slain before the foundation of the world?” (Revelation 13:8)
(A). . . As the Master gave, ‘Before Abraham was, I AM—before the worlds were I AM.” Hence, when there came the necessity in the realm of the spiritual home for the coming of the Lamb into the earth for its redemption, the Truth, the Light, the Offering was made. Hence the expression as given . . . Then, when we comprehend we realize there is no time, no space, and that the divinity of the man Jesus was perfect in his own activity in the earth. For, it was offered even from the first.
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Adam, who later became Jesus, manifested in the Atlantean environment. The other points of entry are listed in the following.
(Q) Was Atlantis one of the five points at which man appeared in the beginning, being the home of the red race?
(A) One of the five points. As has been given, in what is known as Gobi, India, Carpathia, or in that known as the Andes, and [what is] known as in the western plain of what is now called America—the five places.
In their presentation, as we find, these—in the five places, as man. (Let’s get the difference in that as first appeared [as thought-forms] in what is known as Atlantis, and that as man appearing from those projections in the five places—and, as has been given, from their environ took on that as became necessary for the meeting of those varying conditions under which their individualities and personalities began to put on form)—one in the white, another in the brown, another in the black, another in the red.
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This simultaneous projection is the explanation offered by Cayce as to why similar Creation myths and legends of the Fall are found in all parts of the world—it was all happening at the same time!
(Q) The center or beginning of these projections was in Atlantis?
