5944. About the tree of knowledge

Few know what is meant by their having sinned against God by eating from the tree of knowledge, and this is something those who are spiritual cannot know, but only those know who are heavenly. This may be illustrated by the following: 1) Just as anyone is capable of thinking well from the analytical faculty implanted in every person and from its rules, which are numberless, and then wants to think from rules of metaphysics and logic, constantly thinking about them in thinking and then thinking from them, when anyone does this his first mentioned faculty perishes. 2) Similarly, when someone can conduct himself in a well-mannered fashion so that nothing is lacking, if he afterwards learns the rules of manners from a set of rules and conducts himself on the basis of these, his native faculty then perishes, and he regulates his self by pretense. 3) The case is the same if a dancer who is already accomplished then wants to learn steps and dance from these, and more so if he wants [to do so] from a knowledge of the muscles. 4) In a word, to the extent that a person wants to think and act from knowledge in the memory, then to that extent he acts from his cerebral self, but to the extent he acts from affection, to the same extent he acts from a different source. As regards truth and goodness, to the extent he thinks, wills, and does these from awareness of them in his memory, thus from obedience alone, then to that extent he acts from his own understanding, thus from what is evil. What is a person's own is evil. 5) From this is evident that to the extent a person is led by the Lord, to the same extent he is led from affection within himself, and by uncountable laws, almost all of which are unknown. If he then wants to act from knowledge, then the previous state, which was produced from a Divine inflow of the Lord, perishes, and a state arises from what is his own self, which stems from evil. 6) This is what is to be understood by the Lord's words, ԙour speech must be Yes or No, what goes beyond is from evil" [Matt 5:37].