The Sunday Mail
GRADUALLY, let us chisel the debris by deconstructing the scriptures to improve humanity.
Since the Scriptures should be read figuratively, symbolically and allegorically, let us therefore find meanings of the following: Garden, Eden, the Garden of Eden, the Tree, East, the Names of the Rivers of the Garden of Eden and the Four Rivers of the Garden of Eden.
Why?
Because according to Rabbi Michael Ezra, “Every person, place or event in the (Scriptures) represents an instinctual human drive or complex(because humanity is the measure of all things).”
Garden
In Hebrew, this is spelt as “Gimmel-Nun’(Gn).
Gimmel/Gamel, whose picture letter is a camel, to lift up. Its symbolic meaning is kindness, to nourish, or pride, to be lifted up which brings delight, excitement or pleasure.
Nun, whose picture letter is a seed, moving fish, and movement has a symbolic meaning of new or active life, a continuance.
This gave rise to a variety of related meanings such as to continue, increase, propagate, and sprout. In the ancient picture language this was pictured as a seed or fish in ancient Hebrew and Egyptian cultures.
As used in the Hebrew word for son (Nun-Beth), Nun symbolised the posterity of the house. The word Nun also has ancient Egyptian origins and it means “the superior light.” The Nun is the hidden sexual energy or male seed. It is through the Nun, the fish in the waters, the male seed that life emerges.
Symbolically and figuratively, the ‘Garden’ is our own physical bodies that we should “work it and take care of it”. (Genesis 2:15)
Inside the Garden, that is within our physicality, are found the two trees: that of Life (nervous system) and of Knowledge of Good and Evil (discernment, which is the capacity to distinguish and comprehend), which we should access with due caution.
Through ignorance, humanity falls and through “knowing thyself” it redeems itself.
Eden
In Hebrew, this is spelt as ‘Ayin-Dalet-Nun” (ADN). The letters are as follows: Ayin –whose picture letter is an eye meaning, “to know, see and reveal”.
Dalet – symbolised by a door meaning, “pathway or to enter,” and Nun – symbolised by a fish meaning, “activity and life.”
Collectively, it means “knowing and entering a door to life”.According to Strong’s Hebrew Concordance #5730a, Eden means “a luxury, dainty, delight”.
The NOBSE Study Bible Name List says it is “delight, pleasantness,” while the Jones’ Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names renders it as “paradise, a place of delight”.
The term was derived from a term of an older civilisation than that of Hebrews, Akkadian “edinu,” from Sumerian e’den (plain, desert).
Sumerians referred to Mesopotamia as the valley of E’din, meaning the fertile lands between the Tigris and Euphrates. One can see that the word “eden” for the Hebrew Scriptures was adopted from Sumerians, themselves tributaries of ancient Egyptians.
Garden of Eden
When we combine the two, Garden and Eden, the Garden of Eden means a place of delight, excitement or pleasure.
“And a river went out of Eden to water the Garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” (Genesis 2:10)
In mystical Judaism, Eden is considered to have two levels or aspects: “Daath”is the Upper Eden (shamayim) and “Yesod” or foundation is the Lower Eden (mayim).
The Garden of Eden is nourished by a river from Upper Eden (Daathor experiential and causal knowledge, called “gnosis” in Greek). This means that there are two Edens – Upper (masculine energy) and Lower Eden (feminine energy). To nourish is to give strength and power.
Eden is metamorphically knowledge-based pleasure, bliss, excitement or delight.
“And a river went out of Eden to water the Garden…” (Genesis 2:10) As indicated in the previous articles, this is the union of the male and female.
According to the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, the Garden of Eden is “a pleasant, harmonious, productive state of consciousness in which are all possibilities of growth.
When man is expressing in harmony with Divine Mind, bringing forth the qualities of Being in divine order, he dwells in Eden, or in a state of bliss in a harmonious body … The garden symbolises the spiritual body in which man dwells when he brings forth his thoughts after the original divine ideas.
“The Garden of Eden “represents a region of Being in which are provided all primal ideas for the production of the beautiful; the elemental life and intelligence placed at the disposal of (humanity), through which (it) is to evolve.
“(Humanity’s) body temple is the outer expression of the Garden of Eden. Humanity is ‘to dress it and to keep it’. (Genesis 2:15) (Humanity’s) primary work in the earthly consciousness is to use (its) creative power to preserve harmony and order in (its) world and to conserve (its) powers for divine direction.” (Metaphysical Bible Dictionary).
Resources:
“The Secret Doctrine in Israel: A Study of the Zohar and its Connections” (1922), Professor Arthur Edward Waite
“Sex: The Secret Gate to Eden DVD: Alchemy, Tantra and Kabbalah in the Mysteries of Adam and Eve” (2007)
“Secret Teachings of Moses: Sex, the Soul, and God in the Garden of Eden” (2010), Aunel va Daath
Feedback: [email protected] and Twitter @shingaiRndoro. A gallery of previous articles is found at www.sundaymail.co.zw/author/shingairukwata
