Skip to main content

Paradises Lost


The choice was between awareness and paradise. Paradise was lost in that conflict. That is how the Bible tells the story of the origin of humankind. The great English poet, John Milton, converted that myth into one of the most moving epic poems titled Paradise Lost. Paradise had to be lost if the human creature had to rise above the state of being a mere animal, a creature with a lower consciousness level. Adam and Eve were innocent until they ate the fruit of knowledge, the forbidden fruit. The only condition that God had put on the first couple was that they should not strive to rise above being mere animals. “Do not eat the fruit of knowledge” meant that Adam and Eve should remain as ignorant and hence as innocent as the other animals in Paradise. Paradise is a state of innocence. It is not a place. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they lost innocence but gained awareness or a higher level of consciousness.

Milton’s epic poem presents Eve as “our credulous mother.” It is because of her credulousness that Satan tempted her rather than Adam. Credulousness is a version of innocence. Eve gets punished for her credulousness. Is credulousness a vice and cunning a virtue? In order to escape Satan’s temptation, what Eve really required was cunning. She lacked that cunning. Is that a vice? Well, in the creation myth of the Bible, yes. At least Milton suggests so.

Centuries after the creation myth became part of the Jewish scriptures, Jesus taught his followers to be as innocent as doves and as cunning as serpents. You have to be good at heart but keep the gun ready while dealing with others. Oh, no, don’t take that literally. Jesus wouldn’t have endorsed a real gun though he said, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.” It’s a metaphorical gun that is required. Shoot the cunning devils as they come. Metaphorically, of course. Be cunning enough to know how to preserve your innocence. How to preserve your paradise.

That’s not easy. It is almost impossible to preserve dove-like innocence when you are struggling with wolves and serpents. Even Jesus didn’t succeed in the struggle. He ended up on the cross crying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Loss of paradise is an inevitable fate of human beings. We all lose our individual paradises in childhood itself. There is no escape from that loss. That is the real tragedy of our species, I think.

PS. I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 

Previous Post: Oceans are restless

Tomorrow: Que sera, sera

 

Comments

  1. Afshan ShaikApril 19, 2022 at 1:30 PM

    This post me really sad------ specially when I read last two lines -- I thought of my child growing up and inevitable loss of paradise like u told :( :( Yes at tiems it feels like clinging on to paradise but its not possible - "That’s not easy. It is almost impossible to preserve dove-like innocence when you are struggling with wolves and serpents. " --- so true! A very thought provoking post

    Dropping by from a to z "The Pensive"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 19, 2022 at 4:16 PM

      The most tragic thing is that innocence is now seen as a vice or a weakness. I wrote an earlier post on this: https://matheikal.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-idiot.html

      Delete
  2. Yamini MacLeanApril 19, 2022 at 4:10 PM

    Hari OM
    How interesting, as close to a Preachy Post as you've come! Which is just fine, for I enjoyed every word. YAM xx
    P=Psykadelika

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sonia dograApril 19, 2022 at 5:45 PM

    I was nodding a yes all along. Is being credulous a vice. A personal one, yes! And one that's almost like a loop. You never learn. Human life is a dichotomy between the credulous and the cunning, is it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 20, 2022 at 7:15 AM

      Yes is the answer to that question. The pendulum keeps swinging between those extremes. Without learning the vital lessons.

      Delete
  4. Pandian RamaiahApril 19, 2022 at 5:53 PM

    I liked the conclusion. Yet This is an eye opener //Paradise is a state of innocence. It is not a place.//

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 20, 2022 at 7:15 AM

      Let's hope some day some visionary comes to give us that innocence, at least a fraction of it, back.

      Delete
  5. SinjanaApril 20, 2022 at 10:57 AM

    Loved reading this post. It's so true - you can't remain a dove when left among the wolves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 20, 2022 at 12:01 PM

      Being a dove in such situations will be inviting ruin upon yourself.

      Delete
  6. KalpanaApril 22, 2022 at 3:31 PM

    I've loved the poem Paradise Lost for as long as I can remember. It's where I first came across the idea that Satan is a fallen angel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 22, 2022 at 7:03 PM

      And Satan is the real hero of Paradise Lost. Milton was a naughty poet!

      Delete
  7. moondustwriterApril 28, 2022 at 1:13 AM

    It's been a long time (another century) when I read Paradise Lost. The scripture you pull in is interesting. I think because it was lost - we have hope. (in Jesus) Cheers

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Everything is Politics

Politics begins to contaminate everything like an epidemic when ideology dies. Death of ideology is the most glaring fault line on the rock of present Indian democracy. Before the present regime took charge of the country, political parties were driven by certain underlying ideologies though corruption was on the rise from Indira Gandhi’s time onwards. Mahatma Gandhi’s ideology was rooted in nonviolence. Nothing could shake the Mahatma’s faith in that ideal. Nehru was a staunch secularist who longed to make India a nation of rational people who will reap the abundant benefits proffered by science and technology. Even the violent left parties had the ideal of socialism to guide them. The most heartless political theory of globalisation was driven by the ideology of wealth-creation for all. When there is no ideology whatever, politics of the foulest kind begins to corrode the very soul of the nation. And that is precisely what is happening to present India. Everything is politics
14 comments
Read more

Mango Trees and Cats

Appu and Dessie, two of our cats, love to sleep under the two mango trees in front of our house these days. During the daytime, that is, when the temperature threatens to brush 40 degrees Celsius. The shade beneath the mango trees remains a cool 28 degrees or so. Mango trees have this tremendous cooling effect. When I constructed the house, the area in front had no touch of greenery as you can see in the pic below.  Now the same area, which was totally arid then, looks like what's below:  Appu and Dessie find their bower in that coolness.  I wanted to have a lot of colours around my house. I tried growing all sorts of flower plants and failed rather miserably. The climate changes are beyond the plants’ tolerance levels. Moreover, all sorts of insects and pests come from nowhere and damage the plants. Crotons survive and even thrive. I haven’t given up hope with the others yet. There are a few adeniums, rhoeos, ixoras, zinnias and so on growing in the pots. They are trying their
7 comments
Read more

Brownie and I - a love affair

The last snap I took of Brownie That Brownie went away without giving me a hint is what makes her absence so painful. It’s nearly a month and I know now for certain that she won’t return. Worse, I know that she didn’t want to leave me. She couldn’t have. Brownie is the only creature who could make me do what she wanted. She had the liberty to walk into my bedroom at any time of the night and wake me up for a bite of her favourite food. She would sit below the bed and meow. If I didn’t get up and follow her, she would climb on the bed and meow to my face. She knew I would get up and follow her to the cupboard where bags of cat food were stored.  My Mistress in my study Brownie was not my only cat; there were three others. But none of the other three ever made the kind of demands that Brownie made. If any of them came to eat the food I served Brownie at odd hours of the night, Brownie would flatly refuse to eat with them in spite of the fact that it was she who had brought me out of
4 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart
13 comments
Read more