"Open your eyes."
The first sensation experienced by a human being was the hearing of this imperative, spoken in the original and perfect language. The command was obeyed, and the next sensation was the sight of an orange sky streaked with clouds.
"Arise."
The man stood upright. As he looked about himself, he saw that he was in a clearing of a forest next to a small lake. All around the clearing were trees, which ascended mountains on both sides of him. The sun was rising between the mountains, and the shadows were long. He watched as the sun rose, the shadows decreased, and the trees, the lake, and the grass in front of him became more clearly visible. The colors changed from a dark orange to a strong green and blue.
As he looked upon the great mountains, the voice said to him, "What will you call these things?" The man replied, "Mountains," in the same flawless language, of which our languages are distant derivatives. He was not merely defining the word; he was correctly naming the only word that it could have been, for the name of the object is one and the same as the object itself. No other utterance would have been adequate.
"What will you call these things?" the voice repeated, as the man looked upon the trees of the forest. The man again spoke in the perfect language, "Trees," which was a word that described the form of the tree. When the man's eyes came to the lake, the voice again repeated the question, to which Man replied "Water."
As the man wandered across the face of the earth, the voice continued to ask him these questions, and the man was able to draw from a hidden memory the names of the things that were shown to him. "Desert." "Valley." "Ocean." And he saw forms of land that we would not recognize, for they no longer exist on our world. And as he wandered, he saw many creatures, and he named them in the same manner.
At night, when there was not sufficient light to see the features of the land, he was shown the features of the heavens. His eyes could see far into the night sky, and he named many other planets, stars, and moons, and also galaxies and distant nebula. The colors of the night sky inspired the man, and though he loved the beauty of the planet on which he stood, he desired greatly to leave it so that he may visit these distant worlds.
"For this end have I created you in My likeness, you who are far greater than all other creatures of this universe, that you may please Me," the Creator told him. "In time, you will claim all of this world as your domain, and then you will travel among the heavens that you see before you, and you will claim distant worlds as your own. Your dominion will grow, and you will control all of the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the animals on the ground, and even the stars in the sky. I will enable you to do this great task.
"Yet you will do all of this for Me and not yourself. The whole of your domain you will give to Me, and your very self you will give to Me. In this you will find happiness, and your love for Me will grow as My love for you will grow. For your greatest joy and My highest Glory will be accomplished through you, My noblest creation, in seeking after Me. For My pleasure you were created, and by the satisfaction of your purpose will you be pleased."
Once the man had learned a great deal about the planet that was his home, he desired to create using the resources that were given to him. By his hand he fashioned tools with rock, wood, and metal, and he used these tools to build ornate structures. These structures had no roofs, for he had no need of shelter on his world. For many hundreds of thousands of years, this man built his structures by the power of his Creator, and they were both joyful in their work.
One morning, the man was summoned by the Creator. "Come," He said, "and I will show you something."
The Creator brought the man to a wood, and to a tree with fruit hanging from the limbs.
"I have created this tree, but its purpose is not for you. You must not eat its fruit or touch it. The fruit of any other tree in your domain you may touch and eat, but this tree will never be a part of your domain. If you do, you will die."
The man listened to these words, and while he continued his work, he gave little thought to the tree except to leave it in the hands of the Creator. He built a wall around the wood, to continually remind himself not to approach the tree so that he may not touch it or eat of it.
Upon the completion of a structure that spanned the continent on his world, the Creator again spoke to the man.
"You have done this work, and you have brought me great pleasure. Yet from the beginning I did not create you to be the only creature formed in My likeness. I will create for Myself another, like yourself in many respects, but different in substance. You will love her greatly, and she will love you. Together you will act as one, and both serve Me and love Me, and I will love you both and provide for you."
The Creator then put the man into a deep sleep on the pinnacle of the structure that he had just built, and after a time the man awoke to see the new creature, the woman. Her beauty was far greater to him than anything else in all of creation, greater than the mountains and valleys, greater than the distant stars and nebula. At the sight of her, he loved her, and his passion for her overwhelmed him.
The man looked upon the woman and saw that there was joy on her face when she looked upon him, for the woman's passion for the man was also great. Each desired greatly to please the other.
And the Creator spoke to them both. "Listen to My words: I have given you power to create more like yourselves, and you two will act as one to accomplish this. The woman will be the Mother of Mankind, and the man will be the Father of Mankind. Your offspring will be My people just as you are My people, and I will be their God. I will love them and they will love Me. I will provide for them and they will serve Me.
"Like you, they will have the power to create more of your kind, and your kind will love one another greatly, though they will love Me more than any created thing."
The man and the woman were filled with great joy, but the man's love for the woman was greater than his love for the Creator.
