Today, "Christians" call the Garden of Eden, "the fall," but I think there's a more profound moral lesson that's been buried underneath what man has made it out to be ever since; the fables, supernatural, and miracles within being simply a means for people millenniums ago to express complex thought, words like consciousness not coming anywhere close to existing in these ancient languages, e.g., "I AM THAT WHICH I AM." - Exodus 3:14 LSV. And knowledge is knowledge no matter its source and no matter what we've rendered it ever since it's been revealed and labeled.

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The trees in Eden once represented knowledge of things; a tree for the knowledge of what we now call "science," a tree for the knowledge of what we now call "time," math, the experience, etc, and of course of morality — right and wrong; good and evil; love and hate. Making the "Tree of Life," the tree of the knowledge of life. And to know life is to be aware of it, and to be aware of life is to be conscious of both oneself (selfishness) and anything else (selflessness). That's why they're in the midst of the garden. Consciousness is what gives life to any degree of knowledge on an Earth; no consciousness, no knowledge. My theory being that knowledge is what governs over ones capacity for consciousness. When we took a bite of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of morality, and gained its knowledge, we became aware of the right and wrong, good and evil regarding our knowing of anything, including of ourselves, and subsquently increased our level of conciousness so to speak. That's why we became aware of our "nakedness" and felt ashamed. Prior to gaining the knowledge of morality, being naked wouldn't have been right or wrong; a good or a bad thing. The same, of course, can be said about death:

"From every tree of the garden eating you eat; but from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you do not eat from it, for in the day of your eating from it — dying you die." - Genesis 2:16

Prior to gaining that knowledge, death wouldn't have been bad. It wouldn't have been anything. It just would've been a part of knowing what life is. Therefore, in gaining the knowledge of morality, dying, as all things are destined to do, we became aware of our dying, while nature is blissfully unaware of it, just as we were prior to gaining the knowledge of being able to measure morality. Death is a part of everyday life, millions of things die everyday, and of course millions are brought into life everyday, for approximately 4 billion years here on Earth alone so far; not to mention microorganisms. It's us humans, being in possession of both how much more aware we are of ourselves and everything else and our inherency to measure what is good or evil that makes it either a good or bad thing to begin with. I think this is "the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth" Jesus was referring to; the storm of the final precept of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 7:24) represents death, and the shore is our conscience.

If we gained a knowledge that led us to be kicked out of Eden, then that would mean we need to become ignorant (lack of knowledge) of something to gain it back, so to speak. This is why an angel with a flaming sword guards Eden, because if something is aware of its death and subsequently fears it, then it will inherently want to meet the angel with another sword, with violence as a means to overcome it. But if something is absent of itself and isn't worried about what is right or wrong, good or evil for the sake of itself, then this person will just simply walk by the angel without a care in the world; the angel might as well be a bunny with a cucumber in its hand to something that's risen above the passions that are fanned by the flame of our desire for our knowledge of what is good and evil.

"To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion." - Mahatma Gandhi

We ate the fruit of that knowledge, so there's no becoming completely unaware of it. We're cursed with its knowledge forever. But one can push past it's instincts (selfishness; "Sin") in favor of where knowledge (selflessness; God) takes it to strive to become the least aware of oneself and become free of the prison of our passions that are fanned by the flame of our inherent desire to measure what is good or evil in relation to our knowledge of ourselves and everything else, which is where all our fear, worry, or need comes from and subsequently thoughts of suicide, anger, anxiety, hate, narcissism, resentment, deppression, "suffering," violence, you name it; for "it's only what a person thinks that can truly defile them." (Tolstoy’s interpretation of Mark 7:15.) At the root of it all is the extent of how much more conscious we are of ourselves in contrast to nature and subsequently how much more we're able to measure what is good or evil in relation to our knowledge of ourselves and everything else.

"So long as thought is not under complete control of the will, brahmacharya in its fullness is absent. Involuntary thought is an affection of the mind, and curbing of thought, therefore, means curbing of the mind which is even more difficult to curb than the wind." - Mahatma Gandhi

This unimaginable God(s) or creator(s) of some kind wants us to strive to rise above the passions — not our knowledge of morality itself — born from our desire for what is good or evil; right or wrong; for both hate and love (love and our desire for what is right can lead to just as much hate and violence as hate and evil can), that gives birth to our fear, worry, and need for ourselves and everything else to reunite with it, so to speak, and gain this "true life" of a life most lived in the present, that our capacity for knowledge hides from us as we gain more of it the older we become — of time, the experience, and the right and wrong or good or evil we find within it.

"Truly I say to you, if you may not be turned and become as the children, you may not enter into the kingdom of the heavens" - Matt 18:3 (The kingdom of heaven being a state of mind.)

"It is idle to adjudicate [judge] upon the right and wrong of incidents that have already happened. It is useful to understand them and, if possible, to learn a lesson from them for the future." - Mahatma Gandhi

Instinct leads us to be more inherently drawn to ourselves, and to live and shape our lives around what we want most from it, but when one holds the knowledge of a God(s) to be true to whatever degree, it passively leads our minds to be the least aware of ourselves and the most selfless, leading us to posses an ability no other species comes anywhere close to being able to parallel, born out of our unique and profound ability for "logos" — divine revelation to whatever degree via our capacity for letters; words; speech; language, and therefore, 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦: To strive and even be willing to consider subjectively "suffering" to push past our instinct in favor of where a knowledge takes us, and to even be willing to give ones life for something that isn't itself; for even the smallest, most insignificant, or most hated of creatures. Also known as, the "Holy Spirit", or, the Holy 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭. Provided of course your knowing of God(s) doesn't point you back to selfish thoughts and behaviors, as most of what we now call "religions" do today.

"Time is an illusion to life: the life of the past or the future hides the true life of the present from people. And therefore man should strive to destroy the deception of the temporal life of the past and future. The true life is not just life outside of time — the present — but it is also a life outside of the individual. Life is common to all people and expresses itself in love. And therefore, the person who lives in the present, in the common life of all people, unites himself with the father — with the source and foundation of life." - Leo Tolstoy

The Serpent is "Instinct"

Additionally, the serpent represents pride and all the arrogance born from it; hypocrisy — an acting like other people; like everyone else; "playing a part." (Tolstoy) The serpent was renowned to be a symbol of wisdom and cunning; it slithered its way into knowing as much as a human does within Eden, but it was no God, and not being guided by God as Adam and Eve were, it turned arrogant, prideful, evil, and selfish in its journey in gaining great knowledge. It's ability to reason darkened by the extent of how much more conscious it was of itself (selfishness; "Sin"), while Adam and Eves was illuminated by holding the knowledge of a God as a truth; with great potential for knowledge comes great vulnerability to being blinded by this false sense of self-assurance born out of the love we gain for ourselves along the way. While belief in the divine humbles us; it reminds us of how little we puny humans really know and are incapable of knowing when contrasting ourselves with the scale of an unimaginable God(s) or creator(s) of some kind (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and even Einstein believed in a God). And when God wasn't around, the serpent revealed itself to the humas and its arrogant influence was introduced to them, claiming the opposite of what God warned us of, that dying they won't die.

“I am wiser than this man; for neither of us appears to know anything great and good, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know.” - Apology 21d “The greatest deception is the belief that one knows.” - Socrates

If it wasn't for the serpents arrogant influence, the humans would've done what God warned them not to do without question, not knowing right from wrong at this point, but the idea of becoming more like a God ourselves — that they wouldn't have even considered otherwise if not for the serpents influence — led them onto a different path that again wouldn't have been there otherwise; lack of knowledge being a blindness. The snake represents all the arrogant humans that unknowingly — via this false sense of self-assurance born out of the overwhelming influence of our contemporaries — lead us to build our life out on the sand along with them; on what's temporary: "Lying vanities." - Jonah 2:8, rather then out on the rock — on what can withstand the storm of death, at least "continuously" or potentially even "eternally," making the gold of life given to us (Matt 25:14), or that you've stumbled upon, all about making more life for the sake of ourselves all throughout it, within the way mankind has made the world up until now — "the ground [dust] of which we've been taken", making gods of our sense organs. Rather than going as far as even building pyramids for the poor or homeless, the starved, or collectively despised; for the sake of everything else.

"Know thyself." - The first of three Ancient Greek maxims chosen to be inscribed into the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle of Delphi resided in Ancient Greece

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The Consequence of Consciousness: To Know Is to Not Know: https://lemmy.world/post/45807093