formulated thought, shaped in My Image and Likeness, as yet unquickened, and therefore having no connection with your human personality, which has not yet been born.
Chapter 9
The Garden of Eden
Whether or not you have gotten any clear grasp of what has just been stated, do not discard it as impossible of comprehension. For in every line is hidden a meaning that will more than repay you for the study necessary to make it become clear. This Message is to awaken you to a realization of what You are, to a realization of your real Self. It is intended to make you once more conscious of Me, your Divine Self, so conscious that never again will you be deceived by that other self, which you have imagined as being you and which so long has lured you on by feeding you with its unsatisfying sense pleasures, its mental dissipations and emotional delights.
Before that can be it will be necessary for you thoroughly to know that supposed other self, that self which You created by thinking it real and separate from Me, and then kept alive by giving it the power thus to entice and deceive you; yes, that self-created self, with its purely selfish pride and ambitions and imagined power, its love of life, of possessions, of being thought wise or good, - but which self is merely your human personality, which was born only to die as a separate identity, and as such has no more reality or permanence that the leaf, the snow or the cloud.
Yes, you will be brought face to face with that petty personal self, and will see with perfect vision all its sordid selfishness and human vanities; and you will then learn if you but turn to Me and ask in simple faith and trust that it is I, the Infinite, Impersonal part of You, abiding always within, Who am thus pointing out to you all these illusions of the personality, which for so many ages have separated you in consciousness from Me, Your glorious, Divine Self.
This realization will surely come, when you can recognize that this Message is from Me, and when you have determined that it shall be. To you, whom I have inspired with such a determination, I will cause every illusion in time to disappear, and you shall in truth know Me. The exercise of your mind along these abstract lines will not hurt you. Instead it is what your mind needs. For, not until you can grasp My Meaning when presented to you in ideas such as there herein contained, coming from without, can you perceive and correctly interpret My Idea when I inspire you from within. Your mind I AM thus preparing for USE, not to gain more earthly knowledge, but in order that you can receive and give forth My Heavenly Knowledge to those whom I shall bring to you for that purpose. With a prayer to Me, Your Own Real Self, your Father-in-Heaven, that true realization may come, read carefully what follows.
We have arrived, in the course of our consideration of the process of unfoldment of My Idea, to where the I AM of you, manifesting in your Immortal Soul Body, or in the Thought Image created by My Thinking, is now ready to take on a substantial form, a form suitable for the Earth expression of My Attributes.
This change from a mental to a mortal form took place after the manner and process of all thinking and creating, and is literally described in the Bible, where it says I "formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
Shall I explain further? - That the quickening power within My Idea (your Soul) proceeded to attract to it the various elements of life substance (dust), and, atom by atom, and cell by cell, in due course of time, to mold and shape each into substantial reality, after the pattern of the Thought Image composing your Soul Body, thus forming an Earthly outer covering, as it were, - until finally your mortal form actually became manifest to the psychic sense, if not yet to what is called the physical sense. Whereupon, all being now prepared for this cyclic moment, You, My Attribute, breathed into and then through its nostrils (from within) the breath of life, and You then made your first appearance of Earth as a human being-a living Soul (My Idea now able to express consciously through a suitable Earth medium), containing within your Self all of My Attributes, all of My Powers and all of My Possibilities.
Thus were now manifest all the various mediums for the Earth expression of My Idea; and You, being one of My Attributes, naturally had dominion over all of these mediums, or possessed the power of utilizing any or all of them, if necessary, for the full and complete expression of Your - My Attributes - powers and possibilities.
In this manner and for this reason alone did You and Your Brothers and Sisters come into human expression. While in human form yet Your expression was so entirely Impersonal, that, though self-conscious, you still looked wholly to Me within for inspiration and guidance.
This, then, was the first condition into which You awakened when You entered into Earth expression, and is what is called the Edenic state or dwelling in the Garden of Eden.
This Edenic state represents the Celestial phase of Impersonal Consciousness, or that state in which You were still consciously One with Me, though now confined in a mortal medium of expression.
Now, I shall not tell you in detail how or why it became necessary for Me to "drive" You (now manifesting as Man or Humanity) out of the Garden of Eden, other than to remind you of the part that Desire plays in Earth expression, and its relation to My Will; how it centers your interest in outer things and makes you forget Me within. When you have solved that and comprehended somewhat of My reason, then perhaps you can understand the necessity of first causing You (Humanity) to fall into a deep sleep (You having arrived at the close of another Cycle called a Cosmic day), and of letting you dream you had awakened, but in reality you were and are still asleep, and everything from that day to this, including all seeming earthly events and conditions, have been but a Dream, from which you will fully awaken only when You (Humanity) again become wholly conscious of Me within, - and of finding Yourself (Humanity) no longer outwardly one, but two; one an active, thinking, aggressive part, thereafter called a man, and the other a passive, feeling, receptive part, - a wombman, or woman;
Also the necessity of these seeming earth influences being brought to bear to draw Your consciousness from purely Celestial delights and to hold it in this new Dream condition, in order to develop a mortal mind, that You might through its natural selfish tendencies become centered entirely upon Your Earthly mission of mortal expression;
And the wisdom of having this influence, through the Serpent of Selfishness (the shape I caused it to assume in your mind), first generate in the passive, feeling, receptive part of You Desire, the mortal agent of My Will, which was to supply the motives and the power for the further and complete expression of My Attributes on Earth; And finally the necessity of Desire casting its complete spell over You (Humanity), that Your Celestial or Impersonal nature might be kept deep in sleep; until, in your Dream, by the free but ignorant use of My Will, You could taste and fully eat of the fruit of the so-called Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and through the eating could learn properly to discriminate and know its fruit for what it really is; and thus acquire the strength to use the knowledge thus gained wisely and perfectly in the expression of My Idea only.
You likewise possibly now can understand how in your Dream you became more and more engrossed in and attached to this false earth state, through first eating of this fruit and expression;
And the wisdom of having this influence, through the Serpent of Selfishness (the shape I caused it to assume in your mind), first generate in the passive, feeling, receptive part of You Desire, the mortal agent of My Will, which was to supply the motives and the power for the further and complete expression of My Attributes on Earth; And finally the necessity of Desire casting its complete spell over You (Humanity), that Your Celestial or Impersonal nature might be kept deep in sleep; until, in your Dream, by the free but ignorant use of My Will, You could taste and fully eat of the fruit of the so-called Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,
