A Lesson from the Beyond Ordinary View Study Course
The Fall from Heaven:
"That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." (Genesis 6:2)
This passage disturbs us. We read it and feel confused. Sons of God? Daughters of men? Who married whom? But beneath the strange words lives a teaching about something we do every single day.
We are the sons of God. Not some. Not the special ones. All of us. We come from the divine Source. We carry eternal Awareness in our very being. This is our true identity, our original home.
But we forget. We see the daughters of men. We see the beautiful forms of this world. We see objects and people and experiences that catch our eye. And we become so captivated by what we see that we forget who is doing the seeing.
The Divine in us falls in love with the temporary. The eternal in us becomes mesmerized by the changing. The vast Consciousness in us shrinks down to focus on one small thing, then another, then another.
This is the great fall. Not a fall that happened once long ago. A fall that happens inside you today. A fall that happens every time you lose yourself in something outside yourself.
Look at your phone. How many times today did you pick it up and lose track of time? In those moments, where did you go? The divine Witness in you became completely absorbed in the glowing screen. The son of God married the daughter of men.
This is not about blame. This is about seeing clearly. The world is beautiful. Forms are attractive. Experiences pull at us with real power. The problem comes when we forget what we are in order to chase what we see.
Think about falling in love with another person. In the beginning, you cannot stop thinking about them. You see their face in your mind all day. You check your phone hoping for their message. You plan your life around being near them.
Where is your Awareness in those moments? It has left its throne. It has abandoned its home. The son of God has become so enchanted with the daughter of men that he forgets his own Nature.
The same thing happens with money. With success. With approval. With comfort. With anything that catches the eye of Consciousness and pulls it away from itself.
Here is the pattern: We are meant to be aware of the world. But we become lost in the world instead. We are meant to experience form. But we become identified with form instead. We are meant to love creation. But we forget the Creator within us.
The ancient text says they took wives of all which they chose. This is the key. There was choice involved. There was desire. There was reaching. The divine aspect in us reached out toward the material aspect and said, "I want that. I must have that. I cannot be complete without that."
Pause right now. What have you married in your mind? What thought or desire or fear has captured your full attention? What form has become so important that you have forgotten the formless Awareness watching it all?
This is the daily practice: catching ourselves in the act of falling. Recognizing when we have left home. Noticing when the divine Witness has become a desperate seeker.
Try this tomorrow. Set a quiet alarm on your phone for three different times. When it sounds, stop everything. Ask yourself: "What am I lost in right now? What has captured me? What have I married with my attention?"
You might find you are married to a worry. You might find you are married to a fantasy. You might find you are married to a judgment about yourself or another person. In each case, the son of God has forgotten himself and become enslaved to the daughter of men.
The teaching does not say these marriages are evil. The teaching says they lead to consequences. When spirit forgets itself and becomes totally identified with matter, something in us dies. Not physical death. Spiritual death. The death of remembering what we truly are.
We walk through life like sleepwalkers. We think we are the worry. We think we are the desire. We think we are the body, the role, the story, the past, the future. The son of God has so completely married the daughter of men that he no longer knows his own name.
But here is the hope hidden in this strange verse. The text says "the sons of God saw." This means seeing is still happening. Awareness is still present. Even in the fall, even in the forgetting, the divine aspect remains. It has simply become hypnotized by what it perceives.
Right now, something in you is reading these words. Something in you is aware of the room around you. Something in you watches your own thoughts come and go. That something is the son of God. That something has never actually left home. It has only become fascinated by the journey away from home.
We can return. We return by remembering what we are. We return by releasing our grip on what we are not. We return by letting the daughters of men be beautiful without needing to possess them, control them, or become them.
Here is another practice. Tonight before sleep, lie still. Let your body relax. Then gently ask: "Who is aware of this body? Who is aware of today's events? Who is watching these thoughts?" Do not answer with words. Simply rest in the question. Let it point you back to your Source.
The sons of God did not lose their divine Nature when they married the daughters of men. They simply forgot it. They covered it over with layer after layer of identification with form. But underneath every layer, the original Consciousness remains untouched, waiting to be remembered.
This is why we practice. This is why we pause. This is why we return again and again to the simple recognition of Awareness itself. Not to become something we are not. But to remember what we have always been.
The fall is real. The forgetting is powerful. But the possibility of remembering lives in every moment. The son of God can wake up inside the marriage and recognize himself again. He does not need to divorce the world. He simply needs to remember he was never really captured at all.
You are that son. You are that daughter. You are the divine Awareness that has become enchanted by its own creation. And you are also the one who can wake up right now and know yourself again.
5 principles for reflection
1. The Principle of Divine Captivity: Our eternal Nature becomes mesmerized by temporary forms through the power of attention. Awakening begins when Consciousness recognizes its own hypnotic spell.
2. The Principle of Mistaken Identity: We forget the observer and become the observed, losing ourselves in passing experiences. Daily pauses restore our memory of boundless Awareness within.
3. The Principle of Sacred Attraction: The world draws us powerfully because it reflects divine beauty back to itself. Loving form without enslaving Consciousness requires wisdom and gentle vigilance.
4. The Principle of Repeated Remembering: The fall happens continuously throughout each day as attention fixates on objects. Liberation comes through patient return to the witnessing Nature we are.
5. The Principle of Unchanging Presence: Beneath every layer of identification with form, original Awareness remains whole and untouched. This truth lives closer than breath, waiting for recognition.