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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES 191 that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die "* (Genesis, ii, 17). It is noticeable that Adam did not die on the day that he ate of the fruit of discrimination, but lived for a very considerable period of time thereafter, dying at the age of 930 (Genesis, v. 5). The true interpretation of the text of Genesis, ii, 17, then, can only be this that the liability to death is incurred as the result of the eating
of the forbidden fruit. (10) The force of desire which drags the soul
away from the path of dharma to what is forbidden is the serpent through which came the temptation.
Tbe ego entangled in the discrimination of good and evil of the objects of the senses has no knowlege of the true nature of the Soul that the self is the true God-and bides himself from external deities through
superstition, (12) Adam throws the blame for the evil deed on“
his understanding (Eve), while Eve (Under
standing or Intellect) asserts that she was misled and overpowered by desire (the serpent). This is fully in keeping with the psychological functions of the will, intellect and desire. For our will is guided by the intellect, and the intellect in its turn is governed by desires, the subject of intellectual discrimination being
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