RESCUE SNAKE
Ever since I began working with awareness, I often experience as if someone (myself) was swapping the lenses in my glasses. I go through a thick inner process, and afterward, nothing on the outside looks the same as it used to. So, I walk around with these new lenses of reality and observe the world as if I were born yesterday. The same movies, books, people suddenly manifest differently to me. I look differently.
And so it happened with the Bible as well. Now, firmly seated on my nose are glasses of low drama (victim-rescuer-persecutor). And through them, I looked at the scene of the expulsion from paradise. I saw how the tempting rescuer could easily bring down the divine Beeing.
The snake invites Eve to taste the apple, telling her that by doing so, she will be like God — knowing good and evil. Do you see how it suggests to her that she is not complete? That she is not whole? That something (knowledge) is missing from her and she should change it? “You are a victim,” says the Snake, “God/Source is your tormentor, but I have a solution for you.” And the big game of low drama begins. If I’m not whole here and now, I need something from the outside to fill the hole that forms within me. So, my awareness begins to break into pieces, ceases to be integrated. When I believe the rescuer-snake that I am powerless — that’s when I start to become addicted to illusion. I reach for the apple. Then I cover myself with fig leaves out of shame. I hide. I start seeking more and more crutches to survive. Home, tools, money, car, status. I fortify myself with these and believe that it will bring me closer to the Source and Knowing, when in reality, it distances me from it, creating a layer of mud that obscures my own light.
But this is the path of awareness. This is the path of knowing that one goes through in their spiritual development — from unconscious awareness (Eden), through fall, spiritual death, to rebirth in conscious awareness. You don’t have to hide anymore; you can stand naked before the world — everything you need is already within you.
When you cut off the rescue snake and simply let go of everything in trust — that’s when you can truly discover your Beeing. It’s time to check what apples you carry in your life survival basket. And decide whether you still want to go with them.