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a more aware and conscious person. This growth into awareness creates anguish.
It will be good to understand the old Biblical story of Adam and Eve. They were expelled from Heaven; they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. It is a very deep psychological story. God allowed them to eat anything they desired except one fruit. One tree was not to be touched at all, and that tree was the Tree of Knowledge. This is strange, God forbidding his children to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge! This looks very contradictory. What type of a God is this? And what type of a father is against his children becoming wise and knowing? This story has troubled many minds. Why should God prohibit knowledge? We value knowledge very much, but it was forbidden.
Adam and Eve existed in an animal world. They were blissful, but they were ignorant. Children are blissful, but they are also ignorant. And children, if they have to grow, must grow in knowledge. There is no other way of growth. And if you are ignorant you may be blissful, but you cannot be aware of your blissfulness.
This has to be understood: you can be blissful when you are ignorant, but you cannot feel your blissfulness, you cannot be aware of your blissfulness. The moment you begin to feel your blissfulness, you are out of ignorance. Knowledge has entered; you have become a knowing one. So Adam and Eve existed just as animals -- absolutely ignorant and blissful. But remember, this blissfulness, too, was not a known fact to them. They were just blissful without knowing it.
The story says that the Devil tempted Eve to eat the fruit, and the reason the Devil could tempt Eve was this: he told her, "If you eat this fruit, you will be like gods." This is very meaningful. Unless you eat this fruit of Knowledge, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, you can never be like gods; you will remain animals. And that is why God had prohibited, forbidden them, to touch this tree. But they were tempted!
This word "devil" is very beautiful, and particularly for Indians. It has a different significance than for Christians because "devil" comes from the same word, from the same root, from which "deva" or
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