Jehovah, one of the Elohim, forbade eating from the Tree of Knowledge, and... after the Luciferic temptation, once human beings had in fact eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, they were barred from also eating from the Tree of Life. How strange that the Elohim should speak of trees!
I have often said that the language of a document such as the Bible should not be taken lightly. If trees are spoken of in the Bible, if the Elohim speak of trees, you can be sure it's significant. Something essential is meant by this expression. It has been said of Homer that he declared that each thing has two names, one in the language of the gods and one in the language of ordinary mortals. With this in mind, we might imagine that the gods' referring to trees may have something to do with this divine language. Considering the subject more deeply, we may wonder what the Elohim are actually talking about when they speak of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. What do they mean?
If you consider our teachings in their entirety, my friends, you will realize that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge must have something to do with the essence of the human being. Being forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge means, as you will eventually discover, that the human soul is not to strive for the kind of knowledge bound to the physical body. This has led to the kind of sense-bound perception we know today. “Eating from the Tree of Knowledge” means becoming bound up with the physical body to the extent that the kind of knowledge brought about by Lucifer now prevails...
Thus, the Elohim were referring to something inherent in human beings when they spoke of the Tree of Knowledge. And they must also have meant something intrinsic to the human being when they spoke of the Tree of Life.
We may wonder why we see as we do today, how it came about that we perceive as we do. It came about because our soul and spirit, permeated with the being of Lucifer, have become embedded in our physical body and are consuming it, although this is not what was originally intended. This physical body is the Tree of Knowledge, and the ether body is the Tree of Life. After having let themselves be seduced by Lucifer into using their physical body for purposes of perception as we know it now, human beings were prevented from also acquiring knowledge through the ether body. That has been denied us. If you are really thinking, my friends, you will arrive at trains of thought like this one.
The next question to be asked, then, is why the physical body is called the Tree of Knowledge in the language of the gods.
Why do they call it a tree, and why do they also call the ether body the Tree of Life? Why are they talking about trees? It is easy to understand what is meant by this if you recall that the gods in question evolved during the Sun period for the most part and thus assumed some essentially Sun-like qualities. For a moment, just reflect on the fact that during the ancient Saturn period, everything was at the mineral level, while during the ancient Sun period, everything was at the evolutionary stage of plants. Since the gods we call the Elohim developed their characteristic way of speaking during the Sun period, it is natural for them not to speak of things that could only be experienced later, during the Moon and Earth stages of evolution, but about what evolved in the universe during the Sun stage, namely plant life. When using their own language, which is the language of the Sun, it is only natural for them to speak of trees.
-Rudolf Steiner
The evolution of the I of man during the Earth epoch finds physical expression in the interaction between the red blood, without which there could be no Life, and the blue, without which there could be no Knowledge. Blue blood is the physical expression of those forces which give us Knowledge- forces which, however, taken by themselves and in their human form, are very nearly akin to Death. Red blood is the physical expression of Life- which however in its human form and by itself, could never give us conscious Knowledge. Together and in their mutual interaction they represent the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life or the two pillars on the foundation of which the life and cognition of the I can grow and develop to that degree of maturity where at long last man will be fully united with the universal forces of the Earth.
The Initiate foresees a future condition of mankind in which the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life .... will be intertwined and united within man himself. At the present stage the aspirant to spiritual development should inscribe the message of the two pillars in his heart. Separated though they still are, they summon us to transcend the present state of mankind and to direct our footsteps to the place where through our widened consciousness the two will be interwoven - a secret that is indicated in the J-B. The verses inscribed on either pillar will bring home to us their meaning. Those on the first pillar relate to Knowledge, those on the second to Life itself. Thus at the former stage the formative, creative powers are revealed to man; at the latter he himself reveals them, magically. Progression from the mere faculty of cognition to that of magical activity in life is the significance of the transition from the power latent in the first inscription to that which is latent in the second.
-Rudolf Steiner
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