Metaphysical meaning of Eden (mbd)
Eden, e'-den (Heb.)--sensible duration; time; pleasure; delight; pleasantness.
a The name of the place where, we are told, God put the first man and woman--Adam and Eve (Gen. 2:8; Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 28:13). b A place that i8 prophesied against (Amos 1:5; Ezek. 27:23; see II Kings 19:12 also). c A man named Eden. a Levite, is mentioned in II Chronicles 29:12.
The Hebrew "Gan heden" commonly rendered Garden of Eden is a compound of surpassing greatness. The word Gan means any organized sphere of activity, a garden, a body, a world, a universe. The word Heden, Eden, means a time, a season, an age, an eternity, as well as beauty, pleasure, an ornament, a witness. Thus it can be seen that only the most limited and restricted material acceptation would bring this remarkable word down to a small, hedged-in inclosure, a small area somewhere in Asia where the human race first emerged from the dust of this planet.
Meta. 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 instate of bliss in a harmonious body.
The "garden" symbolizes the spiritual body in which man dwells when he brings forth his thoughts after the original divine ideas. This garden is the substance of God (Eden) or state of perfect relation of ideas to Being. The Garden of Eden is the divine consciousness. Having developed a consciousness apart from his divine nature, man must "till the ground from whence he was taken," that is, he must come into a realization of God as the source of his Being and must express ideas in harmony with Divine Mind. Wisdom and love are joined in God, and a perfect balance is struck in consciousness between knowing and feeling when man spiritualizes his thoughts.
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