The Spirit Of Spirituality: Getting rid of all accumulated sins

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Getting rid of all accumulated sins

Most of us, who are normal people, are God fearing and worry about the consequences of actions we take. We unknowingly do a wrong act, feel bad and repent for it. Sometimes we knowingly do a wrong thing and repent for it. At the back of our minds, based on the particular family and religious systems we have been exposed to, we think about the consequence of the sinful act in hell. In a typical Hindu system of belief we worry about the type of punishment awaiting us in hell for the wrong acts. Then we hear someone tell us that there is a chance of reducing the sin by doing good acts or by going to a temple or by doing some religious ceremony etc. We go through the motions of doing those and feel relieved that maybe our sins have now come down. We then are told that if we have a bath in the holy rivers, our sins will get washed away. So we make a pilgrimage to all the holy places, making sure that we bathe in all the named holy rivers like the Ganga, Cauvery, and Narmada etc. I am sure other religions have similar type of actions to do to enable a sin to be glossed over and guarantee a place in Heaven.

Let’s try to examine the above behavior using an illustration. Let’s think of a robber who has been robbing in several places and has amassed a wealth of 100,000 USD. Assuming that he gave away 10,000 USD as charity, if he is caught, will he be charged for an offence of stealing $90,000 USD, just because he gave away a portion of his stolen wealth as charity? As ridiculous as this looks, our act of trying to atone for our sins by doing good acts is equally ridiculous. An action once done has sowed the seed for the fruit of that action. So, if we have sinned, no amount of charity, pilgrimage or dipping in holy rivers can cure us of our sinful act. We have to bear the consequence.

Now take the same situation as above where a thief has stolen $100,000. What If the thief was a young innocent child who was directed by his father to steal? The child has not willfully stolen, but has been directed to steal by a cunning father. Will the child be punished? I am sure no court in the world would punish the child for an act done under pressure without any intention of actually doing it. In exactly, the same way any sinful act that we do unintentionally will have absolutely no karmic consequences. A motorist driving on a dark road accidentally hits and kills a deer. This is not at all a sinful act because the driver did not intend to kill. However a hunter killing a deer will face karmic consequence of his sinful act because he willfully killed a deer. So an action will have a karmic influence when we are the willful doers of actions and do an act knowing its consequence.

If all the charities, pilgrimages etc. will not help us get rid of our sinful consequences, what will? Again, let us take the case of the man who willfully has stolen money. Assume that he is caught and is charged with the crime and sentenced to punishment. Before the punishment begins, if he dies, obviously there is no punishment. So, if the doer of an act is no more in the scene where punishment can take place, there is no punishment. In the same way, if the doer of a sinful act is not there in the scene where punishment can take place, there is no karmic reaction.

Doesn’t this sound silly? How can there be a place in the universe where the doer of a sinful act goes to escape the consequences? Now we return to our familiar topic of who is the doer of a karmic action. It obviously is not the body, because the body is just a vehicle which does something at the behest of something else. This something else is not the mind or the intellect, because these are also instruments of emotion and thought. An instrument cannot be charged for a mistake. It is as ludicrous as charging a gun for a murder. So who is the doer behind the body/mind/intellect? We are aware that the cause for any action of a physical body is a desire in the mind which is caused by a thought in the intellect which in turn arises from the vasanas which belong to the ego. The ego here is that sense of identity that each living being has. This is what causes a feeling of doing and causes an act. Any action that we do belongs to the ego. So any karmic influence of any action can only be for the ego. We have seen earlier in the article on reincarnation that due to the unfulfilled desires/actions, the ego/vasana drives the subtle body to take a form to experience the results of the action.

Just as we saw that when a thief dies, his connection with the crime he has committed ends, in the same way, any connection of an entity with karmic influence for an action done ends when the ego which is the real doer of the action dies. This then is the only way to end the consequences of sinful acts or any act. The ego has to die. That feeling of a separate identity from the original and only source, which is Brahman, has to end. The end of ego is nothing but the dawn of consciousness and enlightenment. The instance we realize that we are nothing but the shining Brahman and our ego dies, all our connection with action ends.

Man – ego = God

Man – ego = Brahman or pure consciousness

When one becomes Brahman or God or pure consciousness, there is no more any karmic influence. Just as a cave which has been dark for several thousand years becomes bright as soon as a light is lit, several births of karmic accumulations vanish at the instant, the ego dies.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.

1. My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality