Genesis 1:1 states "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." This has always been interpreted to mean the universe and the planet Earth, but from what we now know it refers to the third brain which is heaven and the lower portion of the spinal column known as the sacrum. Then in Genesis 2 we are introduced to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but in between these two we have this strange verse 2:10 that says A river went out of Eden. It then begins to name the four branches of the river and the lands to which two of the branches go. This entire segment is out of context, for it seemingly talks about a real physical geography of the earth, giving names to geographic locations at a time when there were no other people save Adam. Remember, earth had only just been created. Surely this cannot be referring to any physical location. Indeed only a few verses later God gives Adam the privilege of naming all the animals, but what do the names Hav'ilah, Assyria and Ethiopia refer to. It most certainly could not be modern day Ethiopia which is a politically created country and not a land mass like Australia.
The people of the Adamic age had an intuitive perception of the Divine symbolism of nature. The lands and rivers of the earth were to them representative of the internal things of heaven. They saw from within that the world of nature was representative of the world of mind.
Why does the first river have no name? It is so because the Divine wisdom, as it is in God, cannot be expressed to finite thought. There is no finite term by which it can be defined. For this reason the river is not named. But when the river entered Eden it was parted and "became into four heads."
The nameless river entering Eden symbolizes the inexpressible Divine wisdom finiting itself - adapting itself to human reception and thus presenting itself to the various faculties of the mind and there finding what distinguishes it in the human quality of loving and thinking.
In general, the mind is formed of three degrees, which we designate as celestial, spiritual and natural, but there is really a fourth degree which is the rational. This is the four fold nature of man. The Ancients believed that the emotions were driven by the alignment of the celestial bodies, the spiritual remains the same, the natural is the physical, and the rational is the intellect. It is the rational, which exists between the spiritual and the natural. As the Divine wisdom flows out of God to man, it is thus parted, like the river in Eden, into four heads. It enters these four degrees of the mind, and wisdom formed in these four degrees is apprehensible by man. The Edenic river is parted into four heads called Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates.
In Hebrew, Pison means literally a change or extension, but spiritually the name stands for the operation of the Divine wisdom upon the human will. As this operation goes on the will undergoes continual changes in its quality - constant improvement by being lifted up. The Divine wisdom directs its affections in the performance of wide and extensive uses. Thus Pison = change and extension.
Gihon, as a Hebrew name, means a stream or a valley of grace. Spiritually, this stream of the river of Eden means the understanding's perception, through the truth, of all heavenly graces. Wisdom from God is the only thing that enables the understanding to distinguish between the graces of heaven and the moralities and virtues of a well-ordered natural life. The grace of heavenly life is a quality that belongs to a purified understanding - an understanding that sees how to classify the virtues of life, distinguishing those that are merely moral and civil from those that are the result of the inflowing wisdom of God. Thus is Gihon = Valley of Grace.
Hiddekel means a sharp voice. Here we have the Divine wisdom pictured to us as the influence which illuminates the rational faculty - the inflowing reason as the sharp voice that guides, by instruction, the rational degree of the mind. Assyria is the great Bible symbol of the rational mind. The word itself means beholding. The rational is the seeing faculty of the mind. The rational faculty receiving the stream of Divine wisdom by which like a voice speaking from within, it is led to look up to God and revelation in all its processes, is Hiddekel.
Euphrates, the fourth stream from the river, means literally to make fruitful. The natural mind, the whole plane of natural life, when it receives the guidance of Divine wisdom, is made fruitful in good works as the true and ultimate expression of the heavenly life. Thus the Lord's wisdom flowing into the natural mind and rendering it prolific in works of genuine charity is Euphrates.
Such is the spiritual meaning of the river in Eden parted into four heads. It is the symbol way of telling us of the influence of the Divine wisdom upon every department of the life of the Adamic people. There was a stream for the will (the celestial); there was a stream for the understanding, (the spiritual); there was a stream for what lies between the spiritual and the natural, (the rational,) and there was a stream for the natural mind and life. The whole mind and life were reached and affected by the wisdom of the Lord which thus adapted itself to every plane of their being.
"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.
"The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."--Genesis 2:11-15.
Most biblical scholars believe that Garden of Eden is located somewhere near the Tigris Euphrates, which is in modern day Iraq, but Ethiopia is nowhere near either. So we are faced with an incongruity.
Let us recap in plain English exactly what has taken place. The word river here is 'nahar', it means, quite simply, 'life force'. It is a great stream of divine energies or life force. While the word water - Nishekah - means to make fertile or productive, to bring life to. 'Heads' is translated from 'neshim', which means to break down, or to decompose. That is, from oneness to become many, like the spectrum in the rainbow from colorless light. (http://www.dreamhawk.com/cabala.htm).
So just what are the terms gold, bdellium and onyx alluding to? The gold, bdellium and onyx that Genesis 2:12 speaks about refer to the 'Sun of God' which sits at the solar plexus and rises up to the point of the Ajna chakra or sun chakra commonly referred to as the third eye, which is located at the juncture of the brow and the pineal gland between both eyes. All cerebral creatures have an Ajna chakra. Genesis 32:29 "And Jacob asked him Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. Genesis 32:30 And Jacob called the name of the place Pen'iel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." The energies at this location radiate as three lights: 1. The golden ring, 2. The opaline blue disc, 3. The white, colorless star. The third eye goes by many names, most of them having mysterious or gem-like references such as 'the pearl of great price,' the pearl being one of the numerous dictionary references for bdellium as is myrrh. From this information you can clearly see that the Bible is referring to a geographical location, but not one to be found on this earth or in the heavens above. No, this is a map of a different kind. It is not a land map, but an anatomical map of the door to the higher planes of existence and it is telling us where we can find it. It is said that in those in whom the third eye opens they will obtain magical, mystical powers or siddhis according to Patanjali. The following is from Matthew 7:21, Jesus is speaking: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," and 6:22 "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:"--Galatians 2:20. "Now ye are the body of Christ, ..."--1Corinthians 12:27. It is you who are the body of Christ. "And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."--Luke 9:58. Unless you open up to Jesus then he has no place to live. The only place on Earth where Jesus can dwell is in your mind. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you."--John 14:20.
The following is from Thomas (76), Matthew 13:45 and 6:20, and Luke 12:33, Jesus said, "What the kingdom of the father resembles is a merchant who owned some merchandise, and learned about the existence of a certain pearl. - That merchant was shrewd, sold the merchandise, and bought the single pearl. - You (plur.), too, seek the ceaseless and enduring treasure, where moth does not approach to eat nor worm to destroy."
The Ajna chakra, much like the start button on your PC, cannot be found by dissecting the hardware of your brain. You might compare it to a software created image. It is there and only discernible to you, no one else.
"And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh."--Matthew 2:11. These gifts correspond to the gold, bdellium, and the onyx stone of Genesis 2:12, "And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone." the color of the bdellium portion of the third eye is most definitely more like a blue sapphire, and myrrh is an amber color, but the Bible refers to bdellium as being the color of coriander seeds which are amber "And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium."--Numbers 11:7.
"Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you."--Thomas (70).
Seeing the third eye is an overwhelming experience as everything you have ever seen or done as a human seems to deny that there exists any such mechanism, but there it was. At the advent of spring the fire of the Sun rises up in the sky and consumes Aries the Lamb of God, which internally is the pineal gland which represents the Christ within you. This is the biblical burnt offering, and not the offering up of dead farm animals. Rather than try to explain my own personal experiences dealing with this realm, I will defer to someone who has had far greater success in this area than I. The following is from 'The Spiritual Science of Kriya Yoga' by Goswami Kriyananda (James Donald Walters), a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda:
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."--1Corinthians 2:14.
THE ETERNAL COSMIC VIBRATION
The deeper level truths in relationship to meditation reveal that, Spirit is everywhere: it's ever conscious and ever new bliss.
And that creation is a multi-leveled, many faceted process. Spirit projects out of itself and first manifests as the cosmic intelligent vibration. The sincere meditator can tangibly contact this Spirit and experience the three materializations of the cosmic intelligence. These are:
1. BLISS
Bliss (ananda) is the cosmic consciousness of the material universe. It is the guiding force of all creation. It is the feeling-element. It is balanced self-conscious awareness radiation as bliss, joy, peace, tranquillity, harmony, equanimity, and equipoise.
2.VISIBLE COSMIC ENERGY
Visible cosmic energy is the light of the sun center (ajna chakra) of all cerebral-spinal creatures. This light can be condensed at the sun center, and thus seen. Through the ages, this center has been called by many different names: the single eye, the third eye, the seat of wisdom, the spiritual eye, the cave of the ancients, and the pearl of great price. This energy radiates as three lights, which form the spiritual eye. These three lights include:
a. The golden ring,
b. The opaline blue disc,
c. The white, colorless star.
Figure: The Third Eye or the Eye of God, as it is sometimes called, is the gateway to the inner world.. It is the gold, bdellium and onyx referred to in Genesis 2:10. It is also the gift of the Magi.
The Golden Ring
Within the golden ring you perceive the primal energies of physical creation, the substratum of gross form. As you penetrate the golden ring you experience the golden dawn of astral life and gain an understanding of the mystery of this golden ring. Consequently, you enter into the garden of creation and come to understand the mystery of matter.
The Opaline Blue Disc
The opaline blue disc telescopes out into a tunnel. When you enter the blue disc, you experience an awareness called cosmic consciousness. Other names are Krishna consciousness or Buddhi-chit. It relates to consciousness existing in every unit of cosmic energy that is within each unit of matter (prakriti). Experiencing this light stills the mind, indicating your great success spiritually.
The Colorless 5-pointed Star
The colorless 5-pointed star is also called the silver star. It is a fluctuating 5-pointed body contained within the opaline blue disc. The star opens and closes.
You should know that,
The golden ring is the astral gate between the physical and astral worlds.
The opal blue disc is the causal gate between the astral and the causal worlds.
The 5-Pointed Star
The colorless 5-pointed star gate opens to higher worlds. Astral simply means those mental forces that precipitate & give form in and to the physical universe, the five senses. The causal energies give form and impetus to the astral universe. The astral energies exist within an astral universe, while causal energies exist within a causal universe. If you do not see the star, it is very difficult to find the entrance into the causal world. However, there are other entrances into the causal universe. The value of entering through the Ajna chakra is that this entrance is easiest and the safest. If you enter through any other passage you tend to become unconscious."
My Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines hallucination as "a perception of objects with no reality usually arising from a disorder of the nervous system or in response to drugs. Hallucinations change with one's mood and thoughts." They are not usually shared by others, especially at different times. There is nothing hallucinatory about the 'Sun of God' located at the Ajna chakra.
"For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."--2Corinthians 4:16, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."--John 8:32.
Continued Table of Contents