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RELIGION AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION
63.
has been demonstrated in some of the books that have been referred to in the course of this lecture. Hence, the injunction against the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.
(9) The soul is immortal by nature, being a simple substance, but birth and death are imposed on it on account of its embodied condition. Hence, the statement: "In the day 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 religion to what is forbidden is the serpent through which came the temptation.
(11) The ego entangled in the discrimination of good and evil of the objects of the senses has no knowledge of the true nature of the Soul-that it is itself the true God-and hides himself from external deities through superstition. (12) Adam throws the blame for the evil deed on his understanding (Eve), while Eve (Understanding 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, the 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 determined not by that faculty, but by the predominant desires of the ego. As pointed out in the Key of Knowledge, the Intellect is like a lantern to guide the footsteps of the individual, but whether it directs him to a gambling den or to a place of worship depends solely on the inclination of the ego and not on any choice on the part of the intellect itself.
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