Separated Within Ourselves

I just read an interesting commentary called "We Must Advance from the Innocence of Babyhood" by Don Murray of the Truro Daily News in Nova Scotia. Murray is a retired minister.

Murray uses the mythic Adam and Eve story to illustrate how Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit is a metaphor of how we reach our own awareness at a young age and become "separated within ourselves", and ultimately separated from everything else. This is seen as the negative result of achieving knowledge, which on one hand allows us to mature, to attain truth through consciousness and free will, but on the other hand exposes us to the realities of the world, which cause us to cover up our true selves. Murray concludes that the loss of innocence is a necessary part of life.

But can people return, in a sense, the The Garden of Eden? Can lost innocence be found?

Nudism is, in part, an effort to recover some of that wonder of childhood, to end the separation within ourselves which causes modesty and shame, and rejoin the child with the adult. Many people are simply unable to wash away the years of social conditioning which teach us to cover up with clothing on the outside, and with lies on the inside. The search for true self never ends, we are never fully known or understood by ourselves or by others, but some come tantalizingly close to the truth and achieve a certain sense of peace and well being.

Nudists/naturists believe that the shedding of clothes brings us a little closer to becoming who we really are. By not being able to hide behind an outer covering and exposing the flesh, the inner walls also are let down. therefore exposing some of the authentic inner self.

After eating the apple, which gave them knowledge, Adam and Eve were unable to get past the fact that they were naked. They looked at each other and were ashamed at the sight of their own bodies, so they fashioned a means to cover up and therefore shattered what was left of their innocence and separated themselves form what had been an idyllic existence.

The comparison of the Genesis story to childhood innocence does not completely work. For one thing, Adam and Eve were adults, and they were directed by God to be "fruitful and multiply", so they were sexual beings. Also, God gave them dominion over creation, so they were given responsibility. Adam and Eve, according to the tale, were really not all that innocent after all.

It's the nakedness of Adam and Eve that seems to fascinate people the most, and the story has reinforced over time the connection between nudity and sin. It makes little sense that any intelligent designer would create a being that was ashamed of it's own body, but this is the paradox that has never been resolved. Most people simply ignore the contradiction and accept the fact that they must be clothed in order to avoid being sinful.

So is it inherent within human beings to cover up with clothing, or is the centuries of indoctrination which have given us this gymnophobia? I believe that it is the latter, that deep down all of us have the desire to be naked, to be free, to be innocent. We all possess the need to tear down the barriers which separate us from ourselves and others, but not all have the strength to overcome the obstacles that society imposes.

True enlightenment is not something which divides, but rather unites. Knowledge, as portrayed by the forbidden fruit, is seen as something self-destructive, as something which takes us away from who we really are, but it does not have to be that way. It's emotions that get in the way, forcing people to distort knowledge and make irrational assumptions and decisions. Fear of nakedness is irrational because knowledge shows us that the body is good, that it is natural and wholesome, and it is only the illusion of sinfulness and shame that force us to cover up.

Adam and Eve, in donning fig leaves, made an irrational decision. God did not tell them that nakedness was sinful - they came to that conclusion themselves based upon their own fears and irrational emotions over what they had done. It was not the nudity itself, it was the perception that made them feel sinful.

Innocence is not lost, it is merely hidden within ourselves, waiting for us to begin the process of self-unification.

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