Metaphysical meaning of tree (mbd)
trees.
Meta. "Trees" represent nerves, and nerves are expressions of thoughts of unity; they connect thought centers. In Ezekiel 47:7 the trees growing on both sides of the river represent the nerves radiating from the spinal column, and connecting and unifying the whole organism through the nerve fluid.
The "tree" (Gen. 2:9) signifies the connecting link between earth and heaven --between body and mind, the formless and the formed. "Every tree that is pleasant to the sight" pertains to the perceptive faculty of mind. It is always pleasant to perceive Truth. The substance of spiritual thought is the "food" that is good. The "tree of life also in the midst of the garden" represents the absolute life principle established in man consciousness by Divine Mind. The roots of the tree of life are centered in the solar plexus region, and they are symbolized in the physical organism by the nerves.
The generative center in the loins of man is the point at which the physical man contacts life, but when the consciousness has been redeemed and man has placed himself in the "garden" through I AM, Jehovah God, he contacts the "tree of life" at the solar plexus region, or heart center, and from this center exercises authority and dominion over the whole current of life in the organism.
The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" represents the discerning capacity of mind. Man first perceives Truth; then he must discern the relation of ideas before perfect activity is set up within him.
Jehovah God told Adam to avoid the tree whose fruit was a knowledge of good and evil, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." It is evident that this tree is closely related to individual free will, which is in direct touch with the "serpent" or selfhood. In that state of consciousness, or day, the individual shall surely die.
The branch that separates itself from the tree withers away and dies. So a belief by the ego that its life, substance, and intelligence are self-derived cuts off the source of supply, and the ego begins to revolve in a mental vortex whose dominant tones are good and evil, birth and death--duality.
It is through the affections, the feminine in us, that we partake of both good and evil. The soul, or woman, was given to man by Jehovah God, and is the avenue through which the inspirations of Spirit come. When the I AM assumes mastery over the soul it brings forth only good.
If man could lay hold of the tree of life while thinking both good and evil to be real, he would go on living in the negative part of his being and would bring destruction upon himself.
Man lost consciousness of his divine nature in Spirit, and so must begin again to lay hold of the potential ideas in substance and must "till the ground from whence he was taken."
The spiritual life is protected from the coarser consciousness by the "flame of a sword which turned every way," or the word of God and "the Cherubim," sacred wisdom. Man can regain entrance into Eden only by being "born anew" of Spirit.
The "tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month" (Rev. 22:2) is explained as follows:
The "tree of life" is the inherent life of the organism; it is symbolized in the physical by the nerves and the spinal column. The spinal column represents the tree; the nerves, which carry the living waters, are the branches and the leaves of the tree. Every month a transmutation of the living waters takes place, under divine order; thus are the "twelve manner of fruits" produced by the "tree of life . . . in the midst of the garden," the spiritualized body. (This latter text reverts to Gen. 2:9.) Man is kept from partaking of this precious, healing, life-giving fruit only by thoughts of sensuality. When this phase of sense consciousness is taken up in Truth and eliminated, and the idea of purity is built in, man's body begins to express its original holiness and perfection. We eat of the fruit of the "tree of life" when we appropriate ideas of divine life, ceasing to dwell on life as something that comes and goes, or something that is governed by birth and death.
________________________
Preceding Entry: transfiguration
Following Entry: Trinity
