What if the creation story is primarily meant to be an allegory of the drama that happens within each one of us in microcosm, with us at the center?1

We eat the fruit, we fall, being buffeted by Satan. We die spiritually, being separated from the Father.

Joseph said Satan was the next heir, and he fell seeking to excel. Well, when a child is born, they could also be considered the next heir. We are authentic, pure, holy, free, full of love. Little children are godly and divine, and if they die, inherit Celestial glory. They fall seeking to excel to a false image of perfection, and being buffeted and full of that poison, like a snake, they become the role of Satan for others.

When we fall, we believe the lies about our imperfection. We set up false images and worship them, never able to achieve something that is a lie. We fight against ourselves and seek to excel in those images. We are our own destroyer.

We worship satan when we worship these false images. Satan tells us not that we are a son of God, but lies and calls is something deficient, something less, a son of man. He does this in many ways, through false education, false religion and other false ideas.

In this "death" from ourselves we fall from Celestial glory into this Telestial Kingdom which is like a lake of fire and brimstone. The hell we are in causes us to weep and wail and gnash our teeth at one another. When we tire of our weakness and our weak selves, we return to ourselves. The fire and brimstone is cleansing.

At the end of a previous era Satan appeared with his words that if you follow me, not one soul shall be lost. At the end of this life we see the same, as Paul said Satan rising up, sitting in the temple. Taking for himself power that belongs to God alone.2 This happens frequently in the world in many ways, but it also happens in us.

A friend of mine had a son who was wayward. She was utterly distressed and did everything humanly possible to try to reclaim her son who was rejecting her. In a moment of desperation and prayer she related that the Lord spoke to her and said: "Let me be the Savior." In her own way, she was trying to atone, and bear him with her blood, sweat and tears in a personal Gethsemane. We try to atone for what we see are the sins of others we love, and we wind up creating more problems.  

We say in our hearts, "not one soul" of my family "shall be lost, and surely I (as in the ego) will do it" and since it is by our might, mind and strength, when we believe ourselves to be successful, we say "wherefore give me thine honor". We are proud of our accomplishment, but it is an empty victory. Our machinations (a false love) have only created an outward form of compliance to an image in our mind, even if its compliance that the target is in agreement with. Just as Satan, in Moses' narrative could never accomplish what he set out to do, neither can we. The Light of Christ lights every man that comes into the world, and it does so, because being full of love, he gives to man his agency and gives man the very power to accomplish whatever he desires.

When we speak of God, we speak about what an extremely democratic creator put into each one of us—His spirit. Within each is the kingdom.

Christ is the Son of God. He was begotten by Him. When we fall, we have the need to be born again, or be begotten of the Father. "Only" because when you experience the love of God, only you matter in existence, all other things "pass away."

Christ asks us to "put it aside, be my child."

When we have been born of God what comes to us? What abides in us but the Father and the Son? The Son because of the flesh, because in the flesh we did the will of the Father in us, and the Father because we are finally at one with His spirit. We are finally like a little child again, authentic, full of love. We are the Son, because we have returned to the Father, His spirit being tabernacled.

How difficult to bear, ye know not.

We receive the First Comforter when born. The First Comforter being the Holy Ghost that we all have at every minute and only need to receive. We are born unencumbered, our true self. We receive the Second Comforter after we fall and return, when we are given awareness to disbelieve the liar and the dreams he created.

When we come to the Holy Spirit we are like Christ because we have born every burden and forgiven it. We have turned ourselves to, and become one with the light within us. We will live worlds without end, and in worlds without end we will bear every burden. We will have born every ill that it is possible for humans to bear, and if we return to the Holy Spirit within us and we come from a place of love in our hearts despite having born them all, born all injustices then we have atoned for the sins of mankind and having looked upon all sorts of mankind with love and respect. Having loved God, and loved our neighbor. It would take many eternities to bear them all. We would've born them "in eternity."  We would have saved ourselves, and in the same way can all mankind be "at one" as we are one.

Saying this another way, we are all in the Garden of Gethsemane now and we will be for a long time yet to come.

"He declared who He was when He introduced Himself to the Nephites and He said, He suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning. From what beginning? For you, why cannot that be a beginning starting now?" (Denver Snuffer, Forty Years in Mormonism, Lecture 7, Christ)

"Our own participation in ordinances are vital to our own renewal, and the renewal of all creation through redemption of each individual soul." (DS, 3 Nephi 11:26)

"The Lord dresses you in plenty of ceremonial attire designed to convey symbols with meaning. But they are not an end, they are merely symbols. Six days of creation symbolized by six articles of clothing in the present temple rites. Each one of which can be associated with one of the days of creation. Therefore as you enter through the veil, it is as if the entirety of creation is redeemed in your person. You represent salvation for the entirety of creation. Because in you, should you be able to be rescued, creation itself continues." (Be of Good Cheer, Be of Good Courage)

We have what can be considered the Male and Female in each of us. The Male represents Knowledge, or the thinking mind. The Female represents Wisdom or the emotional body. The masculine produces thoughts, but it is not until it is planted in the hidden emotional body (the soil in which seeds are planted is dark, mysterious, hidden, as is the womb), that it sprouts and produces fruit.

 

Notes

1. Are these related?

“The setting of God’s throne tells us we are looking at the pinnacle. This is the seat of power. We see here a throne setting. It is “surrounded” or in a middle. The point from which the compass draws a true circle must be fixed by the center point. God is that center point. It is in the middle. He is that fixed, central position from which all creation arises. “Surrounding” it are the “numberless concourses” of angels. That is, the center of the infinite is God. From Him all blessings flow. From Him all sustaining power and authority rises. The surrounding concourses, infinite in number, are all engaged in “singing and praising” Him. Here the ceremony is designed to communicate to the mind of Lehi (and in turn to our own minds) the notion of God’s central position and fixed center-point, from which glory proceeds and to which all praise and thanks should be returned.” (Denver Snuffer, The Second Comforter, Ceremony and Knowing God)

"And it came to pass that while they were thus conversing one with another, they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven...it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake." (3 Nephi 11:3)

Article: Cherubim and a Flaming Sword

2. What does this mean, when we say God the Holy Ghost?

See also: War of the Gods