Why Woman, and not Man? (Part-2)

…continued

Scenario 4: [Woman loses despite man’s defence]

Devil – Good afternoon woman

Eve – Good afternoon, and you are?

Devil – Am an angel

Eve – Nice to meet you. I’ve always wanted to talk to an angel.

Devil – Nice to meet you too.

Eve – Will you be staying for a while? My husband will be back in sometime. He will be very happy to meet you.

Devil – I am leaving already. Just came along to wish you as I was passing by.

Eve – So nice of you but I don’t feel lonely even when I am alone. All these animals and creations of God are so lovely and friendly. Just by wondering about each of these amazing creations, I can spend centuries alone. Me and my husband walk around this garden every morning and evening interacting with them and enjoying every single wonderful creation of God. Most days God also joins us.

Devil – Good

Eve – So, where do you live?

Devil – I live in Heaven.

Eve – This garden is such a lovely abode too. However, my husband always says that Heaven is a thousand times more beautiful than life in this garden.

Devil – hmmm

Eve – If you can wait a bit more, my husband usually brings very tasty fruits. I shall offer you the best ones. You are our special guest today.

Devil – I don’t think I can wait.

Eve – Pineapple is my favourite. Mango is my husband’s favourite.

Devil – hmmm

Eve – You don’t seem to be much interested anyway. If you are too busy now please do come again some other day.

Devil – I pity you, woman

Eve – What do you mean?

Devil – Never mind. Have a nice day.

Eve – Kindly tell me. What happened suddenly? Did I offend you in any way? What makes you say that you pity me?

Devil – Forget it. That is beyond your scope of understanding.

Eve – No. Please tell me. God said all creation including living beings is under man’s dominion and so we lack nothing at all. We have everything in every sense including the love of God Almighty.

Devil – No, you don’t. You don’t even have a clue about it. You are so naive.

Eve – What is it about? Please tell me.

Devil – You believe that you are the queen of the whole earth but you don’t even have the right to eat fruits from all trees in this garden.

Eve – That’s not true. We can eat from all trees. Just one tree at the centre is exempted.

Devil – Have you ever wondered why?

Eve – No

Devil – That is why I pity you. That fruit is 1000 times tastier than pineapple or mango or any other fruit on the face of this earth.

Eve – Really? Lovely. Good to know.

Devil – Poor woman. You are a slave of God.

Eve – No, God is our dear friend. He is like a loving father to us. I shall ask him in the evening if I can have just one fruit from that tree. If he agrees, I’ll have one immediately. Am sure he’ll allow it.

Devil – You are not just silly, you seem to be foolish too.

Eve – [Poor innocent Eve feels bad and is sad that the tone of this angel’s language is becoming rude. She stays silent.]

Devil – You just said that all creation is under your dominion then why not the tastiest fruit on earth?

Eve – Because God said so. Let me ask my husband about it. He also warned me several times not to even go near that tree.

Devil – He seems to be ignorant too.

Eve – Don’t you think that obedience to God is the highest form of wisdom?

Devil – If so then why did God name that tree as the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’? It was a clue to you that you were supposed to think for yourself and do the right thing.

Eve – I am confused. I hope my husband helps me with it.

Devil – I hope your husband is smarter than you. The fruit of this tree of knowledge of good and evil will make you like God. This means you’ll immediately know why God asked you not to eat this fruit. As simple as that.

Eve – Have you eaten this fruit?

Devil – Is that even a question? What do you think? It is the tastiest fruit on earth. Most importantly, from the very moment I ate that fruit for the first time long back, I have been able to read God’s mind. That is why I can tell you that God was just testing you both to see how smart you are. If you eat that fruit and later in the evening when you tell Him about it, he’ll appreciate you for being bold enough to do the right thing instead of blindly believing His words. He will be proud of both of you.

Eve – wowwwww

Devil – Yes

Eve – Hold on a few more moments. My husband will reach now. Thank God, here he is. Please come with us. We can have that fruit together.

Devil – No, I am too late already. I’ll finish my other work and reach there in a short while. You both may proceed. I’ll meet you there.

Eve – Dear, leave all those fruits here and come with me immediately.

Adam – Where are you dragging me to?

Eve – It’s a surprise. You’ll know when we reach.

Adam – You seem to be brimming with happiness. What happened?

Eve – An angel spoke to me. A wise angel. He explained to me what God really wanted us to do. Here we are. Come on. Let’s eat that fruit.

Adam – Are you mad?

Eve – Be silent my dear. Don’t worry. The angel explained it all to me. It was God’s way of testing us when He warned us not to eat from that tree. The tree is named the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil for a reason. We should have been smarter. It had a clue for us to do the right thing and then proudly go to God and tell Him that we ate that fruit and became more knowledgeable about good and evil. This is the decision God wanted us to take using our free will so that He can rightfully give us the credit for doing it.

Adam – You are out of your mind, woman. Who is it that fooled you by saying all these lies? Disobedience to God is never a smart way out. God knows what is best for us, even better than us. Don’t forget, He is our Creator. Don’t try to outsmart your Creator.

Eve – [blinking and confused again]

Adam – Come let’s go. Don’t ever talk to strangers in my absence my dear.

Eve – I am sorry dear. I won’t repeat it.

Devil – Did you guys already have one? Isn’t it mind-blowing?

Adam – Who are you?

Eve – This is the angel who came home sometime back.

Devil – Looks like you are still confused. Take a good look at me. I’ll give you a live demo. [Plucks 2 of those fruits and enjoys the taste and chews it slowly to tempt Adam who looks at him eating.] I didn’t die, did I? No. On the contrary, I am as knowledgeable as God since I have gained the said knowledge of good and evil.

Eve – See, I told you so dear. God actually loves us so much that He expects us to become knowledgeable like Him.

Adam – Don’t be in a hurry, my dear. Let us first talk to our God today evening and then take a decision.

Devil – Yes, you may do so. But that way you will miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make God proud of His greatest creation, which is man, to be smart enough to take the right decision without going back to Him for consultation.

Eve – Yes dear. Listen to me. Let us make our loving God proud of His children.

Adam – I am still having a bad feeling about it.

Devil – Take your time to think. Don’t stress out. Remember that when you eat that fruit, you will be able to understand my logic more clearly. That is the whole point. Knowledge of good and evil.

Eve – Hold on dear. I’ll eat one first and then I’ll be able to easily explain to you why this is the right thing to do.

Devil – You are a smart woman.

Adam – [silently sits down on the nearby rock staring at a yellow-coloured bug on the leaf lying next to him.]

Eve – I am going to pluck one and eat now. Am sure you’ll thank me for being so bold.

Adam – Please don’t my dear. Hold on. Give me some time to at least think. What if you die? God will never lie to us.

Eve – [just about to pluck one fruit] Ohhh dear. I am sure I will not die. Take a good look at that angel. He just ate 4 of these right in front of us. He should have died 4 times today. Don’t be childish my dear.

Devil – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Eve – [plucks a fruit. Takes a bite]

Scenario 4: [Woman defeats satan with Man’s support]

Devil – How is it going?

Eve – Good. Lovely day, isn’t it?

Devil – You have a sweet voice woman

Eve – Thank you. All thanks and praise to God.

Devil – Where is your husband?

Eve – He is in the valley picking fruits. You look like an angel. What is your name? God did not mention any visiting angel when we spoke yesterday.

Devil – By when is your husband expected here?

Eve – He might reach anytime now.

Devil – I am in a hurry. Just dropped by when I saw you alone.

Eve – Please wait. Would you like to have a few fruits? We have a tasty jackfruit. My husband will be happy to see you.

Devil – Is that it? Don’t you have any wisdom fruits?

Eve – No. Where can we find that fruit in the garden?

Devil – The cute little tree at the centre of the garden.

Eve – But my husband says that it is a poisonous fruit. God asked us not to eat that fruit so that we may not die.

Devil – That fruit is the tastiest fruit on the earth. My eyes were opened to all the knowledge of good and evil only after eating that fruit.

Eve – Maybe as an angel the rule might not apply to you.

Devil – Once you eat that fruit, you’ll never touch any other fruit. It has an unimaginable taste.

Eve – Sounds so nice. Let me recheck with my husband. He has more clarity regarding this matter since he has been interacting with God for a longer time, even before I was created.

Devil – That doesn’t make him more intelligent than you by default.

Eve – I don’t like anyone talking about my husband disrespectfully.

Devil – I didn’t mean that.

Eve – Never mind.

Devil – I was trying to point fingers at God. He is the one who tricked your husband.

Eve – Please leave. I don’t want to interact with you anymore.

Devil – What happened?

Eve – My husband reminds me every day that God is our dear loving Father and any word, thought or action in contrast to that Love is supposed to be detested immediately without any second thought.

Devil – I didn’t mean to disrespect God or your husband.

Eve – I am done with you. You are free to wait here till my husband gets back or you may leave now and come back later when my husband is at home.

Devil – Kindly do not be offended. I am sure your husband will understand my good intentions.

Eve – [Moves far away from the devil. Caresses few flowering plants on the other side]

Devil – I shall wait till your husband reaches.

Eve – [No response and doesn’t seem interested in continuing the interaction]

Adam – Dear

Eve – Where were you for so long? Weren’t you right behind me?

Adam – Sorry dear. I found another ripe jackfruit on the tree near the stream so I thought of bringing it home.

Devil – I like jackfruits a lot.

Eve – Dear, this angel has been here for some time. He is waiting to talk to you regarding the forbidden fruit. I didn’t like the way he disrespectfully addressed God.

Adam – Don’t worry dear. I’ll handle him.

Devil – I do not intend to intrude into your personal space. I am leaving. Have a nice day.

Adam – You may have the jackfruit if you want to.

Devil – Thank you so much for the courtesy man, but I think I should come back some other day. The woman is disturbed by one of my earlier statements.

Adam – We do not entertain anyone who doesn’t love God more than even themselves.

Devil – Maybe it was a slip of my tongue. I was just casually trying to talk about the taste and more importantly the benefit of eating the wisdom fruit.

Adam – I can guess that you are hinting at the forbidden fruit.

Devil – You are mistaken, my friend. Our God is so loving that He cannot keep you away from such a wonderful fruit. Forget the taste. The fruit is the only access to a deeper knowledge of good and evil.

Adam – God is the source of all good. Obedience to God opens the gates of Wisdom.

Devil – You are right. God was just testing the smartness of your rational mind. He did the same with me too. I cleared His test. I was initially confused about this just like how you are confused now.

Adam – I am not confused.

Devil – I was wondering why God says that I shouldn’t eat the fruit and that I will die but also says that the fruit is the easiest access to the knowledge of good. It took me 6 seasons to decipher that statement.

Adam – I don’t want to hear any of these stories. In any case, I am not going to even touch it until God asks me to.

Devil – I do not want you to eat or even touch that fruit. Am sure you won’t lose anything by just listening to how I made God proud with my smart decision-making skills.

Adam – [remains silent but is highly sceptical and seems uninterested]

Devil – The crux of the learning in my case was that God wanted me to take the toughest decision of my life for the sake of the love of God.

Adam – [though he seems uninterested, his ears are keen to hear how the devil made God happy and proud]

Devil – I had to decide if I am keen to learn more about the knowledge of good by eating the fruit even at the cost of my precious life, as warned by God. It never occurred to me that it was a test by God to check if I was really sincere about becoming good by knowing more about good and evil.

Adam – [his eyes are turning confused but remains silent]

Devil – [quickly captures the slightest change of mind of Adam and gets more energised to continue the cunning story]

Adam – [turns around facing away from the devil]

Devil – With a very heavy heart I finally decided to take the most risky step to sacrifice my life. Deep inside I knew that God will somehow save my soul even if I lose my life. My only desire was to know more about good. I plucked the fruit and ate it. To my pleasant surprise, God came to me immediately and praised me for my brave step. He said that He was so proud of me because I passed that very difficult test.

Adam – [still remains silent]

Devil – [Waits eagerly to hear Adam’s response. The devil is super confident that this lie is highly loaded and has the potential to dismantle even God’s intellect]

Adam – [remains silent]

Devil – [Is losing patience and grinding his teeth]

Adam – [turns around to face the devil]

Devil – Didn’t you hear what I said?

Adam – [remains silent]

Devil – [is on the verge of losing calm and becoming violent but is still trying very hard to camouflage his emotions]

Adam – [turns back again and starts walking towards Eve without even saying a single word to the devil]

Devil – [loses all control and his good-looking face turns blackish blood red]

Eve – [who has been watching them from far away all this while sees this transformation of the devil’s face and starts waving to Adam and attempts to shout]

Devil – You son of an idiot. Respond to me.

Adam – [hearing this devilish rude voice stops walking towards Eve and looks straight at Eve] Stay where you are dear. Don’t be scared. I’ll be there in a few moments. [Turns around and starts walking towards the devil]

Devil – You fool. Respond to me. Son of a mad God.

Adam – Thanks be to my dear God Almighty for giving me the strength to resist the temptation which I just defeated. Thank you Lord for helping me out of the trap hidden in the statements and questions by the devil camouflaged as an angel of God. [The devil took three steps back hearing the sharpness of the words ‘GOD ALMIGHTY’. The words were resounding.]

Devil – [is speechless and staring at Adam who is more confident and daring this time]

Adam – Thank you for giving me an opportunity to prove my strong faith in my dear loving Father, the God of Heaven and the entire universe.

Devil – [grinds his teeth and becomes visibly impatient]

Adam – I know that you are most eager and getting impatient to know how I unhooked myself from the trap set by you. Now that I have understood that you are a devil, I won’t talk to you anymore because you are not capable of understanding or appreciating any goodness. I am sorry for you.

Devil – [his appearance is becoming more and more devilish and disturbing for anyone to even look at but is very eager to know how Adam defeated him. Kneeling in front of Adam to get an answer from him. The curiosity seems unbearable.]

Adam – [turns around and silently walks towards Eve.]

Devil – [yelling and rolling on the floor]

Adam – [reaches near Eve] Don’t look there, my dear. Look at me.

Eve – [is standing like a rock staring at the devil’s behaviour]

Adam – See how our loving God saved me from that disastrous trap set by the devil.

Eve – really??? how?

Adam – Come, let’s walk away from this place. Don’t look back at the devil.

Eve – How did you manage the situation?

Adam – I’ll tell you when we reach the stream. On the way let’s thank our dear Father together for being with us during the period of trial. [Both of them close their eyes and thank God for a while]

Eve – Here we are at the stream. Now please tell me.

Adam – I was on the verge of getting trapped in those very rationally sounding questions and statements. Halfway into the conversation, I got a weird feeling as if I was sinking into it and I was starting to doubt God’s words more and more. So I quickly tried to close my mind and ears to his questions consciously at least until I hear a word from God. Then right before that last question from the devil I prayed to God earnestly asking His help to handle the confusion that was rising in my mind. I didn’t get any response from God that time so I decided to focus and tune all my senses to God more keenly so that I do not miss even a single word from His answer. Since I was not able to concentrate properly, I turned away from the devil and closed my eyes and ears tight enough to focus my mind and thoughts on the words of God thinking that I wasn’t able to hear anything from God because of the gurgling sound of the stream and the voice of the devil. But after staying that way for a short while I felt a heavenly peace in my mind. I knew for sure that the solution is at hand even though I didn’t get any answer from God. So I opened my eyes and turned to look at the devil. The answer was right on the face of the devil.

Eve – Interesting. Answer on the devil’s face???

Adam – My silence had already killed his patience and he was getting madly furious. His eyes were burning with hatred. That was the answer. Those few moments of silence on my end to talk to God did the magic.

Eve – Wonderful. Awesome. Thank God.

Adam – On the contrary, if I had fallen into that seemingly rational question trap and tried to defeat the devil using my intelligence, I would have got washed away like that leaf floating in the steam.

Eve – My God! But isn’t our God the source of all wisdom? So aren’t we supposed to be equipped enough to destroy all such questions from anyone? Even if it is from the devil himself? Why is it that we seem to get cornered by a few of these so-called smart questions?

Adam – That is a very good question. The simplest generic answer to that is that a negative/bad-intentioned question from someone whose negativity grade is 90% can only be countered/answered by a man whose intellect is at least 91% positive/good-intentioned. But since man isn’t capable of reading another man’s mind easily, he will not be able to precisely perceive the intentions of the questioner and thus will not be able to know if his intellect is good enough to counter a question or statement which could be a negative trap. There are cases when the other person in the conversation might set a negative trap even without his own knowledge but the damage done is damage done either way. That is why it is always better to stay away from any interaction which disturbs our ‘Systemic Rhythm. Later if you think you are confident enough to handle it, you may attempt that interaction or question again. But remember that it is dangerous to entertain any interaction which disturbs the rhythm of your system. The moment you sense a disturbance, take a pause and remain silent. Resign from whatever you are engaged in currently and talk to God your Creator.

Eve – What did you mean by ‘Systemic Rhythm’?

Adam – Calmness, inner peace, the undisturbed normal rhythm of the heartbeat. The slightest disturbance or change in the rhythm is to be taken very seriously.

Eve – Good to know. Now if you are in total control of your rhythm, can you try and counter that last question from the devil?

Adam – No

Eve – Why?

Adam – Because I didn’t hear that question at all. Ha ha ha ha ha

Eve – ohhhhhh, yes. I’ll repeat it for you my dear. I am so eager to know how we can respond to such a question.

Adam – Sure, but ensure that your curiosity should not end up as a hook that drags you deep into it. Get inquisitive only if you are truly ready for it.

Eve – Certainly, my dear. You are always with me so I have no such fear of getting drowned. If I don’t know any answer, I’ll simply drop it there and wait for you to do the heavy lifting. Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Adam – Fine. What was that question?

Eve – It wasn’t a question. It was more of a statement. An emotional statement. When I heard it, I fell flat and believed him completely.

Adam – See, I told you so. You would have gone ahead and taken that disastrous step right into his trap and eaten that fruit already. Not just you, I would have done the same too. Thank God, I was able to distract myself at the right moment and focus all my senses on God.

Eve – Yes, really scary.

Adam – Go ahead.

Eve – The statement was as follows- “With a very heavy heart I finally decided to take the most risky step to sacrifice my life. Deep inside I knew that God will somehow save my soul even if I lose my life. My only desire was to know more about good. I plucked the fruit and ate it. To my pleasant surprise, God came to me immediately and praised me for my brave step. He said that He was so proud of me because I passed that very difficult test.”

Adam – My God!!! Had I heard this then, I would have certainly praised him too.

Eve – ha ha ha ha ha ha

Adam – But that question doesn’t suffocate me anymore and my rhythm isn’t disturbed now so I’ll respond to that now. God told me not to eat from that tree even though that is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. To make my own assumptions that a tree of knowledge of good and evil is good and that it is not dangerous for man is a flawed thought process. To be more precise it is simply arrogance. Arrogance, that even as a creation I know what is better for me than God the Creator Himself. If you knew the basic character of God, you would never have thought that God would praise you for disobeying His clear instructions. God never puts you to the test. That is a wrong way of understanding the personality of God. God may choose to allow the devil to put me to the test or even tempt me. He allows that only because He wants me to decimate that temptation and come out of it as a conqueror. Such temptations are invaluable opportunities to earn huge credit for oneself.