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 learning to know Good and Evil, and after learning of the new and enticing world thus opened up to you, dying to the knowledge of the Reality back of it all; and how and why it was You learned that You were naked both the thinking and the feeling parts of You; and also why you grew afraid and tried to hide from Me, thus creating in your consciousness the sense of separation from Me.
Now, perhaps, you can see why this all had to be, why You (Humanity) had to leave the Edenic state of Impersonal Consciousness and lose Your Self wholly in the earth illusions of this Dream World, in order to be able to create a body and develop in it a personal or self consciousness capable of fully expressing My Perfection.
Thus was born Your human personality, and since its birth have I impelled You to nourish, support and strengthen it, by filling You with longings, hopes, ambitions, and aspirations, with all the various manifestations of Desire; which are but the human phases of My Will, operating in the preparation and development of a medium capable of expressing perfectly My Attributes on Earth.
And so I Spake the Word, and drove You out of the Garden of Eden, and clothed You with a "coat of skin," or, in other words, with flesh, the same as other animals. For now, in order that You might enter into the heart of Earth conditions, into the real Earth, the Earth of My Idea, - not the one of your Dream, so as to quicken My Idea therein into active life expression, You, My Attribute, had to have an organism and a covering appropriate to the conditions in which You were to manifest in your Dream.
Likewise, in thus giving You a coat of skin, did I, by so doing, provide My Idea with a suitable form for Earthly expression, I gave you the power to express Your Self, through a definite organism, by means of words.
In the Impersonal there is no use or necessity for words. Ideas alone exist and express. They simply Are, for they are the expression of the various phases of My Being.
But in this Dream condition, where every expression in these early stages of outer being had to have a form and substance that could be heard, seen, felt, smelled or tasted, in order that its meaning could be clearly apprehended, there naturally had to be provided organisms capable of being used for the double purpose of expression and of understanding what was expressed.
As My Idea unfolded Itself, after Your expulsion from Eden, You - one of My Divine Attributes, dwelling within My Idea of that Attribute in expression, in turn dwelling within the Thought Image of My Self, and finally manifesting outwardly in the Earth form of Words, when impelled by My Will in the guise of Desire to express My Meaning - began rapidly to "increase and multiply."
In Your search for the most favorable conditions for the manifestation of Your particular attributes, You gradually spread over the face of the Earth, each containing many words, and all born of Desire in the human mind to express in Earthly terms the infinite phases of My Idea ever surging within.
The more the human mind strove thus to express "in Words" My Idea, the greater and more abject the failure.
In time will the Great Awakening come that all Words are but Symbols of One Idea, and all Ideas of whatsoever nature are but phases of One Idea, My Idea of My Self in Expression, and that all Desire to express in Words that Idea, without the consciousness of My Will being the One and Only source of Inspiration, is futile. Likewise, all desire to express that Idea in living acts, without losing all consciousness of your human personality of your personal part in the acts, and centering your self wholly in Me, is vain and fruitless and will end only in failure, disappointment and humiliation.
Chapter 10
Good and Evil
In the Garden of Eden, where you abode before entering upon your Earthly mission, there grew this tree whose fruit is called the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
While dwelling in the Garden you were still wholly Impersonal, for you had not yet tasted of this fruit. Having once yielded to Desire, the Earthly agent of My Will, whose main work is to make you eat this fruit, the moment you had eaten, that moment you descended, or fell, or were forced from your Edenic estate (like the chick from the shell or the rose from the bud), and you found yourself involved in conditions altogether new and strange. For now, instead of having dominion over the lower kingdoms, and of their supplying your every want, you had to till the ground to get it to bring forth fruit, and by the sweat of your brow had you to earn your bread. Having taken upon yourself this Earthly mission, it now became necessary for you to enter fully into all conditions of Earth life, in order to develop a mind and perfect a body capable of expressing perfectly My Idea on Earth, the real cause and reason of your entering into this Dream condition.
So having fallen or stepped out of your Impersonal or Edenic estate, you yielded completely to the lure of this Dream World, and now permitting Desire wholly to lead, you no longer were capable of seeing the Reality or Soul of things; for you had put on a physical body, an earthly covering with a human brain, which acted as a veil to your Soul Consciousness, and so bedimmed your sight and clouded your mind that the light of Truth did not penetrate through, and everything was falsely colored and distorted by your human understanding.
In this Dream condition you saw all things darkly, as through a mist, and with this mist enshrouding everything you could not see things in their Reality, but only their misty appearance, which now however seemed to you the real things themselves.
This was so with everything you saw through your Dream eyes, with things both animate and inanimate, with everything you conceived in your human mind, with even your own Self and your other Selves round about you.
Thus no longer seeing the Soul of things, but only their misty shadows, you grew to thinking these shadows were real substance, and that the world about you was composed of and filled with such substance.
This mist was only the effect of the Light of Truth being invisible to your human mind, whose intellect, like an imperfect lens, only befogged and twisted everything and made it appear as Real, keeping your consciousness continually busied with these myriad illusions of your Dream World.
Now the intellect is a creature of and wholly controlled by Desire, and is not, as many suppose, a faculty of the Soul. In other words, this mist then was the clouded lens of your human intellect, which, because controlled by Desire, falsely portrayed and interpreted to your consciousness every image, idea and impulse I inspired from within or attracted from without, during the process of My awakening your consciousness to a recognition of My Idea within ever urging for outer expression.
All this I did purposely, however, through the agency of Desire, in order to lead you consciously into the heart of Earth conditions.
While this false vision, inspired by Desire, caused many missteps and much trouble and suffering, and you gradually lost confidence in your Self - in Me, the Impersonal One within, in fact, you forgot Me, so that you did not know where to turn in your helplessness; yet it was only through your thus losing the memory of your Divine estate, and centering all your consciousness in these earthly conditions, that I could develop your human mind and will, and all your faculties, and provide your human body with the strength and powers that would enable Me to give perfect expression to My Divine Idea on Earth, which eventually must BE.
So,
