The World of Knowing

My personal quest for knowledge, my path through the World of Knowing began in 1997. Studying was to be my therapy, knowledge my deliverance. It was freedom and power, for I understood implicitly that no group of domineering shepherds could control me if I studied the Word myself as it said in 2 Tim. 15. I see the Scriptures as a story book and I came to identify with the ancient writers and placing myself in the story line to see and feel what was happening.
The first thing I needed to do in my own life’s odyssey was discover my worldview, my own value system, which no one else could do for me. One of the counterproductive things modern people do is to throw out he time-honored traditions of their ancestors, claiming that organized religion doesn’t do it for them.  My personal advice to the perplexed is to find your spiritual heritage all over again, don’t lose your first love. Seek out the ancient wisdom, when we dedicate ourselves to that search, we enter the World of Knowing.
When we get out of the role of victim, when we quit being passive and dare to ask questions, when we challenge somebody else’s interpretation, we are on the path to discovering the true knowledge is all about. Life in the final analysis is not only about what we feel it is about what we know. When we enter the World of Knowing, we can make valid judgments about right and wrong, about the path we need to follow, without being led astray into a mess of relativity.
In the life of Adam and Eve, they were told not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge - - there are always consequences if we disobey, but it got me to thinking that from the lessons we learn in life good can also come out of it if we look hard enough at it. G-d has always turn when was meant for evil into a blessing. I also discovered where you biggest hurt is, is where He will use you – for you been there done that and can help another in a similar situation, telling them how G-d has helped you through it all.
So there has to be a blessing out of eating from the forbidden fruit – I am now in my ‘golden years’ and encouraged to take the time to search it out as I tip toe though the Scriptures and find what I have missed.
G-d made Adam and said it was not good for man to be alone, and made him a help ‘Meet’ – which taken back to the Stongs means ‘equal partner’. After the fall brings about many plagues that afflict us, also makes us fully human in the most positive sense, for without pain, we could not possibly know compassion, the most G-dlike quality of all. The language of compassion is the language of sacrifice and of love. Their sin is described as covetousness, or simply desire. Desire focuses us on ourselves, desire leads to ‘I’ trouble. The irony is that desire brought forth knowledge which in turn has made each of us aware, not just of our own pain, but the pain of others. It gets us out of ourselves. We may have fallen, not down, but up, looking always for
G-d’s help. In a marriage it is taking deliberate action on behalf of someone else and teaches us to accept the pain attendant with living in a fallen world knowing that pain leads to compassion.
Knowledge is power is a valuable one in our victim’s culture. Through the consequence of disobedience was the Fall, eating from the Tree of Knowledge has also brought redemption. They knew that they were made in the divine image, and they could have used that power to rebuke the serpent and command him to leave. We will be wounded, but our wounds need not debilitate us. When we truly know who, we are – miraculous divine creations – we unleash a secret power that puts us in charge of circumstances, rather than circumstances overseeing us.
The pains of life invariably yield to death, but because we have knowledge, we need not surrender to fear. The love and compassion we express become sweet-smelling incense, to make fragrant the passage into eternity. Without the Tree of Knowledge there would be no pain. Neither would there be weakness. But without the capacity to be weak, would we truly have the capacity to care?
The bible tells us that the serpent once walked on all fours, and that he even had ears and wings, prior to being cursed from on high. Notice the serpent could talk to mankind, from that day forward animals could not verbally communicate with man. I believe in heaven they will be able to once again. We now can see from our pets they can understand and feel.
Adam is to toil working the ground, and Eve is to experience pain in childbirth. Through all the pain that is predicted, Eve will learn a touching vulnerability, as she cries out to the Almighty. Pain has a positive, redemptive value, for it acts as G-d’s loudspeaker, nudging us out of complacency and awakening us to the Divine Presence.
Historically, women have guarded the home and built nests, while their husbands have gone out into the world. The homemaker is a higher role, not lower; she is the Director of Homeland Security.
 
Allegorically, the serpent is like all the people who try to mess with our heads. We need to remind ourselves who we are – made in the divine image – and operating in that kind of knowledge, no serpent can fool us. The concept of a personal devil made me do it – the fact remains that evil exists, and the Bible is trying to teach us that we created it by our own desire, be it lust, the desire for power, wealth, prestige, or whatever. We must take accountability for our own actions, if we open the door of our own garden to evil. We open the door to desire and desire produces its own fruit.
We know not to bemoan our fallen condition, but to embrace it, to celebrate our weakness, and even our mortality. From the Tree of Knowledge, we find our way through the wilderness of life.
When we are in the Work of Knowing, we unleash the power of wholeness. Whenever we think we want something or need something, we need only remind ourselves that we are complete already, because we are made in the divine image. Every time we look in the mirror and affirm who we are – the very stuff of G-d - we are embracing wholeness and conquering desire. We need not fear shrinking from death, for dying brings forth life. When dreams, and hope die, knowing that the very next phase is mercy, compassion, and resurrection.
We are all on a journey of self-discovery. We are destined to have many adventures, make new friends along our way, and ultimately learn that what we thought we lacked was inside us all along. We are strangers in a strange land, we are not at home, and we are looking for answers.
But all too often we fabricate brittle doctrines of religion, that is the true nature of our fallenness, we are blind to the divine spark within, which ought to be a blazing fire, the soul is far from being corrupt, it pure, eternal, and birthed in Paradise. Knowing that you are pure and holy and birthed in Paradise doesn’t get you back there. Each of us must set out on a road of discovery. How to find this knowledge is a deeply personal – a self-revealing path, unique for each person. The kingdom is not some far-off hope for the future, in the sweet by-and-by, but a present-tense reality for those who know themselves, those who have discovered their divine nature. We should expect to be troubled, but we should also persevere, through massive, consistent action. We should keep seeking the answers, because knowing them is what causes us to reign over our adversity. Getting the right requires both knowledge and discernment. We must know ourselves but also know the world around us, evaluating each grain field and every sojourner on the road to the kingdom.  It takes a heart of discernment to separate the wheat from the chaff, to cultivate a set of personal values that somehow reflect eternal values. It takes a childlike heart to believe that true virtue still exists.