The work of the Lord.

[PastorBob]

Brigham Young says, “But the most simple thing in the world is to understand is the work of the Lord. What shall we do? Divest ourselves of great, big “Mr. I.”” Volume 13 | Journal of Discourses (in 272)

"Your fall started with the appearance of that beingness, ‘I am’. With the appearance of this knowingness ‘I am’, the next fall was embracing the body as ‘I am’. (Genesis 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins [physical bodies], and clothed them.) And then you gathered so many things onto yourself. Hold on to the state of knowing yourself as ‘I am’ as the truth. All other things you have gathered to yourself are unreal.

From the no-knowing state, the first veil I took was that of ‘I am’, That was formless, nameless. But I embraced the body: I got a form for myself; I got a name for myself. This was the fall. Therefore all sages advise: Give up the shackles of the body! ‘I am the body’ – these are the shackles. Give them up." -Nisargadatta Maharaj, experience of nothingness.

Book of Mirdad:

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

.. ..

On Sin and the Shedding

Of the Fig-Leaf Aprons

.. ..

MIRDAD: You have been told of sin, and you would know how Man became a sinner.

And you declare – and not without a merit – that if Man, the image and the likeness of God, be a sinner, then God Himself must be the source of Sin. Therein is a snare for the unsuspecting; and I would not have you, my companions, ensnared. Therefore would I remove this snare from your path that you may remove it from the paths of men.

There is no sin in God, unless it be sin for the Sun to give of his light to a candle. Nor is there sin in Man, unless it be sin for a candle to burn itself away in the Sun and thus be joined unto the Sun.

But there is sin in the candle that would not forth its light, and when a match is applied to its wick, it curses the match and the hand that applied it. There is sin in the candle that is ashamed of burning in the Sun; therefore would screen itself away from the Sun. Man did not disobeying the Law; rather by covering his ignorance of the Law.

Aye, there is sin in the fig-leaf apron.

Have you not read the story of the fall of Man, so frugal and naïve of word, but so sublime and so subtle of meaning? Have you not read how Man, when fresh from the bosom of God, was like an infant God – passive, inert, uncreative? For though endowed with all the attributes of godhood yet, like all infants, was he incapable of knowing, much less of exercising, his infinite capacities and talents.

Like a lonely seed encased in a beauteous vial was Man in the garden of Eden. A seed in a vial will remain a seed, and never will the marvels sealed up within its skin be stirred to life and light save it be hid in a soil congenial to its nature, and the skin thereof be broken.

But Man had no soil of his nature to plant himself therein and to sprout forth.

His was a face nowhere reflected in a kindred face. His was a human ear which heard no human voice. His was a human voice which echoed back from no human throat. His was a heart which beat a lonely unison.

Alone – so utterly alone – was Man amid a world well paired and launched upon its course. He was a stranger to himself; he had no labor of his own and no set course to follow. ....Eden.... to him was what a comfortable crib is to a babe – a state of passive bliss; a well-appointed incubator.

The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, and the tree of Life were both within his reach; yet he would stretch no hand to pluck and taste of their fruit; for his taste and his will, his thoughts and his desires, and even his very life were all wrapped up within him and awaiting to be slowly unwrapped. He, by himself, could not do the unwrapping. Therefore was he made to yield out of himself a helpmeet for himself – a hand that would help him unwind his many wrappings.

Where else could his help be got save from his own being so rich with help because so potent with divinity? And that is most significant.

Not a new dust and breath is Eve; but the very dust and breath of Adam – a bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Not another creature appears on the scene; but the self-same single Adam is made a twain – a He-Adam and a She-Adam.

Thus the solitary, unmirrored face acquires a companion and a mirror; and the name unechoed in any human voice begins to reverberate in sweet refrains up and down the alleys of Eden; and the heart whose lonely beats were muffled in a lonely breast begins to feel its pulse and to hear its beats in a companion heart within a companion breast.

Thus sparkless steel encounters the flint which brings forth its sparks in abundance. Thus the unlit candle is set a-light from both ends.

One is the candle, one is the wick, and one is the light, though issuing from seemingly opposite ends. And thus the seed in the vial finds the soil where it can germinate and unfold its mysteries.

So does Unity unconscious of itself beget Duality, that through the friction and opposition of Duality it may be made to understand its unity. It that also is Man the faithful image of and the likeness of his God. For God – the Primal Consciousness – projects of Himself the Word; and both Word and Consciousness are unified in Holy Understanding.

Not a punishment is Duality, but a process inherent in the nature of Unity and necessary for the unfolding of its divinity. How childish to think otherwise! How childish to believe that so stupendous a process can be made to run its course in three-score years and ten, or even in three-score millions of years!

Is it so small a matter to become a god?

Is God so cruel and miserly a taskmaster that, with all eternity to give away, He should allot Man no more than so brief a span as seventy years in which to unify himself and regain his Eden fully aware of his godhood and his unity with God?

Long is the course of Duality; and foolish are they who would measure it with calendars. Eternity counts not the revolutions of the stars.

When Adam the passive, the inert, the uncreative was made dual he forthwith became active, full of motion and able to create a procreate himself.

What was the first act of Adam made dual? It was to eat of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil and thus to make his whole world as dual as himself. No longer were things as they were – innocent and indifferent. But they became either good or bad, useful or harmful, pleasant or unpleasant; they became to opposing camps, whereas before they were one.

And the serpent that beguiled Eve to taste of Good and Evil, was he not the deeper voice of active, yet inexperienced, Duality urging itself to act and experience?

That Eve was the first to hear that voice and obey it is no wonder at all. For Eve was the whetstone, as it were; the instrument designed to bring out the powers latent in her mate.

Have you not often stopped to visualize the first Woman in this first human story stealing her way among the trees of Eden, her nerves on edge, her heart a-flutter like a bird in a cage, her eyes searching everywhere for possible detection, her mouth watering as her trembling hand reached out for the tempting fruit? Have you not held your breath as she plucked the fruit and sank her teeth into its tender meat to taste a momentary sweetness which was to turn into everlasting bitterness for herself and all her progeny?

Have you not wished with all your hearts that God would forestall Eve’s insane audacity by appearing to her just as she was about to commit her reckless deed, and not afterward as He does in the story? And having committed her deed, have you not wished that Adam would possess the wisdom and the courage to abstain from being her accomplice?

Yet neither did God intervene, nor Adam abstain. For God would not have His likeness unlike Him. It was His will and plan that Man should walk the long way of Duality in order to unfold his own will and plan and unify himself by Understanding. As to Adam he could not, even if he wished, refrain from partaking of the fruit tendered him by his wife. It was incumbent on him to eat of it simply because his wife had eaten of it, for the two were one flesh, and each was accountable for the other’s acts.

Was God indignant and wroth because Man ate of the fruit of Good and Evil? God forbid. For He knew that Man could not but eat, and He wished him to eat; but He wished him also to know beforehand the consequence of eating and to have the stamina to face that consequence. And Man had the stamina. And Man did eat. And Man faced the consequence.

And the consequence was Death. For Man in becoming actively dual through the will of God had forthwith died to passive unity. Therefore is Death no penalty, but a phase of life inherent in Duality. For the nature of Duality is to make all things dual and to beget for everything a shadow. So Adam begot his shadow in Eve; and both begot for their life a shadow called Death. But Adam and Eve, though shadowed by Death, continue to have shadowless life in the life of God.

A constant friction is Duality; and the friction gives the illusion of two opposing sides bent upon self-extermination. In truth the seeming opposites are self-completing, self-fulfilling and working hand in hand to one and the same end – the perfect peace, and unity, and balance of Holy Understanding. But the illusion is rooted in the senses, and it persists so long as the senses persist.

Therefore did Adam answer God when He called him after his eyes were opened, ‘I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ Also, ‘The woman thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’

No other was Eve but Adam’s very bone and very flesh. Yet consider this new-born I of Adam which, after its eyes were opened, began to see itself as something different, apart, and independent of Eve, of God and all of God’s creation.

An illusion was this ..I... An illusion of the newly opened eye was this personality detached from God. It had not substance, nor reality. It was born that through its death Man might come to know his real self which is the self of God. It shall vanish away when the outer eye is darkened and the inner eye is illumined. And though it baffled Adam, yet did it strongly intrigue his mind and lure his imagination. To have a self which one can call entirely one’s own – that is indeed too flattering and too tempting to Man who has no consciousness of any self.

And Adam was tempted and flattered by his illusionary self. And thought he was ashamed of it because too unreal, or too naked, yet would he not part therewith; instead he clung to it with all his heart and all his new-born ingenuity. And he sewed fig leaves together and made him an apron wherewith to cover up his naked personality and keep it to himself away from the all-penetrating eye of God.

So ....Eden...., the state of blissful innocence, the unity unconscious of itself, fell away from the dual fig-leaf aproned Man; and swords of flame were put between him and the Tree of Life.

Man walked out of ....Eden.... through the twin gate of Good and Evil; he shall walk in through the single gate of Understanding. He made his exit with his back to the Tree of Life; he shall re-enter with his face to that tree. He set out on his long and trying journey ashamed of his nakedness and careful to hide his shame; he shall reach his journey’s end with his purity unaproned, and with his heart proud of his nudity.

But that shall not come to pass until Man by Sin be delivered from Sin. For Sin shall prove its own undoing. And where is Sin but in the fig-leaf apron?

Aye, nothing else is Sin but the barrier that Man set up between himself and God – between his transient self and his abiding Self. At first a handful of fig leaves, that barrier has come to be a mighty bulwark. For ever since he shed away the innocence of Eden Man has been very hard at work amassing more and more fig leaves and sewing aprons upon aprons.

The slothful are content to go on patching up the rents in their aprons with shreds discarded by their more industrious neighbors. And every patch in the garment of Sin is sin, for it tends to perpetuate that shame which was Man’s first and very poignant feeling upon his detachment from God.

Is Man doing aught to overcome his shame? Alas! All his labours are shame heaped upon shame, and aprons upon aprons.

What are Man’s arts and learnings but fig leaves?

His empires, nations, racial segregations and religions on the war path, are they not cults of fig-leaf worship?

His codes of right and wrong, of honour and dishonour, of justice and injustice; his countless social creeds and conventions – are they not fig-leaf aprons?

His valuing the invaluable, and measuring the immeasurable, and standardizing that which is beyond any standard – is not all that patching the overpatched loin-cloth?

His gluttony of pleasures that are rife with pain; his greed for riches that empoverish; his thirst for mastery which subjugates, and lust for grandeur that belittles – are not all these so many figleaf aprons?

In his pathetic rush to cover up his nakedness Man has put on too many aprons which in the course of years have stuck so tightly to his skin that he no longer distinguishes between them and his skin. And Man gasps for breath; and Man appeals for relief from his many skins. Yet, in his delirium, Man would do all things to be relieved of his burden except the only thing that can in truth relieve him of his burden, and that is to throw off that burden. He would be rid of his extra skins while clinging to them with all his might. He would be denuded, and yet remain fully dressed.

The time of denuding is at hand. And I am come to help you shed away your extra skins – your fig-leaf aprons – that you may help all yearners in the world to shed away theirs, too. I only point the way; but each shall do his shedding by himself, however painful be the undertaking.

Wait not on any miracle to save you from yourself, nor be afraid of pain; for naked Understanding shall turn your pain into an everlasting ecstasy of joy.

Should you then face yourselves in the nakedness of Understanding, and should God call to you and ask: “Where are you?”, you would not feel ashamed; nor would you be afraid; nor would you hide away from God. But rather would you stand unshaken, unbound, and divinely serene, and answer back to God”

‘Behold us, God – our soul, our being, our only self. In shame and fear and pain have we walked the long, and rough, and tortuous path of Good and Evil which you have appointed us at the dawn of Time. The Great Nostalgia urged our feet, and Faith sustained our hearts, and now has Understanding lifted our burdens, bound up our wounds, and brought us back into your holy presence naked of Good and Evil, Life and Death; naked of all illusions of Duality; naked of every self except your all-embracing Self. With no fig leaves to hide our nakedness we stand before you unashamed, illumined, unafraid. Behold, we are unified. Behold, we have overcome.’

And God shall embrace you with infinite Love, and straightway shall lead you unto his Tree of Life.

So taught I Noah.

So I teach you.

Naronda: This also was said by the Master around the brazier.

[rameumptom]

Is this some form of Buddhism, Hinduism or modern Gnosticism? It definitely is not Mormonism, as we consider the physical body to be an important part of eternity. D&C teaches that the spirit and body make up the soul, and that only together in the resurrection can a person receive a fullness of happiness and exaltation.

[pam]

PastorBob..is there something you wanted to specifically discuss here? Just copying and pasting something as long as this without any comment from you..just leaves me going..?????

[RanMan]

I'm confused. I thought this area was for the discussion of scripture. Some of these posts seem to be a collection of uncredited quotes and not scriptures. Being new here, am I missing something?

:)

[Hemidakota]

Is this some form of Buddhism, Hinduism or modern Gnosticism? It definitely is not Mormonism, as we consider the physical body to be an important part of eternity. D&C teaches that the spirit and body make up the soul, and that only together in the resurrection can a person receive a fullness of happiness and exaltation.

Concur...the absent of such physical body in the eternities would be a waste of mortality experience and there is know one more unhappy than those who rejected the plan in the pre-mortal life.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Hemidakota

[FunkyTown]

Yyyyes. Pastorbob - Can you explain what this scripture is, why you're including it, etc?

If not, I am going to go with the old Internet meme:

"Too long. Did not read."

[Hemidakota]

Aye, there is sin in the fig-leaf apron.

Have you not read the story of the fall of Man, so frugal and naïve of word, but so sublime and so subtle of meaning? Have you not read how Man, when fresh from the bosom of God, was like an infant God – passive, inert, uncreative? For though endowed with all the attributes of godhood yet, like all infants, was he incapable of knowing, much less of exercising, his infinite capacities and talents.

Like a lonely seed encased in a beauteous vial was Man in the garden of Eden. A seed in a vial will remain a seed, and never will the marvels sealed up within its skin be stirred to life and light save it be hid in a soil congenial to its nature, and the skin thereof be broken.

But Man had no soil of his nature to plant himself therein and to sprout forth.

His was a face nowhere reflected in a kindred face. His was a human ear which heard no human voice. His was a human voice which echoed back from no human throat. His was a heart which beat a lonely unison.

Alone – so utterly alone – was Man amid a world well paired and launched upon its course. He was a stranger to himself; he had no labor of his own and no set course to follow. ....Eden.... to him was what a comfortable crib is to a babe – a state of passive bliss; a well-appointed incubator.

The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, and the tree of Life were both within his reach; yet he would stretch no hand to pluck and taste of their fruit; for his taste and his will, his thoughts and his desires, and even his very life were all wrapped up within him and awaiting to be slowly unwrapped. He, by himself, could not do the unwrapping. Therefore was he made to yield out of himself a helpmeet for himself – a hand that would help him unwind his many wrappings.

Besides this writing is filled with too much embellished words, his knowledge what had occur in the garden is far worse than some I ran across on telling me the difference what is sin and what is transgression. Keep it simple is the key to teach others.

Not a new dust and breath is Eve; but the very dust and breath of Adam – a bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Not another creature appears on the scene; but the self-same single Adam is made a twain – a He-Adam and a She-Adam.

Yes and no. What constitutes the term 'BREATH OF LIFE?" Joseph Smith changed this term when he reviewed Genesis. It does require further reading and understanding on what this term really means.

According to the story, Adam was created outside of the garden while Eve was created within the garden. There were creatures before Eve's mortality birth was known. Was Adam already naming creatures prior to Eve's birth to mortality? Eve was brought to Adam and it is not Adam who was brought to Eve. There is noticable difference here and a grandeur purpose for it.

That Eve was the first to hear that voice and obey it is no wonder at all. For Eve was the whetstone, as it were; the instrument designed to bring out the powers latent in her mate.

Beside nonsense chiberish written here, I have erase the rest of the article, but will state, Eve was not the first one to hear the voice but the first to accept what was given from Lucifer [serpent] as partial truths. Eve revealed her true personality of being impatience instead in not waiting for the further instruction from the Godhead; she sought for divine knowledge from the wrong source. Adam was left to himself in making a decision on what had happen and remembering the utter words from GOD, to make a decision in accepting their fate or remain a lone man in the garden within Eden. I can attest Adam was not passive or inert at all. He was a child who can reason, already been previously instructed and kept all of GOD's commandments.

In not having clarity of those precious thoughts of Adam when confronting Eve in seeing her actions of transgressions, but will know it when the Lord returns and provide a fuller account.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Hemidakota

[pam]

I'm confused. I thought this area was for the discussion of scripture. Some of these posts seem to be a collection of uncredited quotes and not scriptures. Being new here, am I missing something?

:)

I think we are all missing something here.

[FunkyTown]

Has anyone figured out why he posted this and what his purpose was?

Was he saying somebody -else- said this or that -he believed this-? What?

[beefche]

Funky, obviously you are not worthy. If you cannot understand the very obvious meaning of this post, then you really should consider retrieving a shrubbery to be offered as recompense.

[pam]

Nice to know I'm not the only one confused.

[pam]

This is a test. I'm testing something on the site. Has nothing to do with the OP.

[Hemidakota]

Or is it the OUTER LIMITS....:)

[PastorBob]

I'm a bit confused myself, as to all the confusion and jesting.

Brigham Young stated that "The work of the Lord" was to get rid of one's ego, and the symbolism of Genesis and the fall is that we have all adopted it and have to free ourselves from it.

John chapter 8:

43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, *Before Abraham was, I am.*

(I'd suggest reading the whole chapter.)

Don't Touch the I - Papaji - Hindu Spiritual Videos

[Islander]

I think the whole argument here overshoots the mark.