The Spirit Of Spirituality: Rise From The Depths Of Sin

Monday, September 30, 2013

Rise From The Depths Of Sin

This is one of the articles in a book I have written on spirituality. The book is available on Amazon.com.

The Spirit Of Spirituality

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Every religion in the world talks of the concept of sin. In the Indian belief, a dip in the hoy Ganges is seen as a way to remove all accumulated sins. I am sure every religion has similar beliefs about sin and its removal. Several belief systems start with the assumption that our birth in this world is an act of sin and we need to look up to some mysterious super power to redeem us from this sin. These concepts of sin are ingrained us right from childhood and rarely do we ever grow out of these. While we mature in age and thoughts, we learn to discard many beliefs of childhood. We no longer as adults believe that the moon is a big piece of cheese as we were told in childhood, nor do we believe that Santa Claus really comes down the chimney and gives us whatever gifts we had asked. But for some unknown reason we refuse to grow out of our childhood ingrained concepts of sin.

Let us start off with what is sin. We can answer this from a worldly perspective and a spiritual perspective. Let me start off with a worldly perspective. I believe a sinful act is something that knowingly causes hurt/harm to someone or something without any reasonable reason. Let us take a few illustrations to conceptualize this.

Imagine a scene where a young child is catching butterflies in a garden and tearing off the wings of the butterfly. Is this a sinful act? All of us unanimously will say that the child is ignorant and innocent and does not know what it is doing. Hence it is not a sinful act. Now, let us move the canvas so we get a better picture. As the child is removing the wings of the butterfly, its mother is happily capturing it on the camcorder. Is this an act of sin? We may hesitate to answer. But going by the definition above, the mother is knowingly causing harm to a butterfly by not asking the child to stop. This clearly is a sinful act.

Let us look at another illustration. We see a room where Joe, a big burly man is standing with his back to us. There is a lot of noise in the room. As we watch, we see John holding a knife coming from the side and plunging it into Joe. Is John’s act a sinful act? Duh, I hear people say. It surely is a sinful act. Let us now shift the canvas so we know what is happening in the room. The big man Joe is actually holding a young child and is trying to snatch away her gold ear-ring. John is the child’s father and he has knifed Joe. Now, is John’s act a sinful act? Now I hear people say, not at all. John did the right thing. Now, going by above definition John is knowingly causing harm, but the reason is valid. He is trying to protect his child. Hence it is not a sinful act.

Let us see one more illustration. We see Tom on his back and several people are holding him. Pete comes into the room and starts hammering away at Tom’s chest. After Pete hammers a couple of shots, Tom dies. Is Pete’s act a sinful act? Let us see the bigger picture and find out. Tom has a heart attack and Pete is the doctor. Pete is trying to revive his failing heart by beating it. Unfortunately the heart does not respond and Tom dies. Pete has knowingly caused harm to Tom. But the reason was to try and save him. Hence it is not a sinful act.

There are several stages of doing a sinful act and in parallel several stages of withdrawing from it.

The most sinful act is of knowing causing harm to another and repeating the same. In our first example, the mother could have stopped the child from hurting the butterfly. But she did not. This is the worst form of a sinful act when one knows that an act is wrong, but still cannot stop doing it.

The next less sinful act is when an act is done, but not repeated again. In the above example, if after the child hurt the first butterfly, even if the mother felt the desire to let the child play, if she stopped the child, that would be a less sinful act. Please note here that she still had the desire to let the child hurt the butterfly, but she used a little bit of her intellect to prevent it.

The least sinful act or a “non-sin” act is when even the desire to do such an act does not arise. As soon as the mother sees the child doing the act, she immediately stops the child from doing it realizing that it is the right thing to do. She had no desire to see her child enjoying it or capturing it on her video.

So, what is a sin from a spiritual perspective? Any act or thought that derails us from the act of realizing our true nature is a sin. Why is it a sin? From a spiritual perspective, we have been given a human life with its highest intellect for only one reason and that reason is to understand our true self, which readers by now know. If in spite of being given the faculty of a superior intellect compared to other life forms, we are unable to use it to find our true nature, but go outside in search of objects of desire, that is a sin. We are then like filthy animals searching in the gutter for filth and not realizing a golden jewel even if we see it. Just as a filthy animal would prefer to eat the filth in a gutter and ignore the gold, we in our ignorance are doing the cardinal sin of not going on the road to spirituality.

Our true self is nothing but Absolute Truth or Brahman or God or Divinity. Any other living form does not have the intellectual capability to be able to realize this and be free from suffering. Only a human being has this capability. However most of us associate ourselves with a limited existence consisting of our individual identity, body, mind and intellect. This is the individual Jiva. As individuals with a distinct identity separate from Divinity, we do acts which take us away from the purpose of life. We desire worldly objects not realizing that we in our Divinity own everything and do not need to desire anything. We fear another person thinking he or she will prevent us from getting what we want or will take away what we have. We do not realize that in our infinite Divinity, there is no second entity that can take away what we have. Can an ocean be worried that a wave is taking away some of its water? However we are like the little wave always thinking of the bigger wave which will crush us and never realizing that a wave is also in reality the ocean and does not have to fear the bigger wave.

Due to this ignorance of our true nature, we indulge in activities like acquiring worldly objects or desiring them to fill a void we feel within ourselves. Each unfulfilled desire attaches to our “separate identity” and ensure that we take birth after birth to experience what we desired. Again, the law of nature is very strict and principled. If I as an individual, thinking my identity as the limited ego, perform an act, the fruits of that act will come to the same limited ego in some form. If I plant a mango tree in my backyard, I can be sure that after several years I will get mango fruits. If I plant a cactus, I can be sure I will get pricks after several years. Similarly, the limited ego or Jiva plants a desire/thought that will give exactly the same fruit. If the desire/act is something to do with realizing the true divinity, then the fruit wil be true divinity. If the desire/act is worldly with its accompanying impact of good/bad, the result to the ego or Jiva will be good/bad.

In summary, no individual is born a sinner without reason. Nobody is born a cripple or poor or blind. There is a reason behind it. There must have been some act done at some point of time and the fruit of that action is a wretched birth. Similarly for someone born to a rich, well to do, pious family, there must have been an equivalent act at some point. But we as humans have the ability to change our destiny. If we realize that our purpose is to realize our divinity and all thoughts/actions are in that direction, we will become divine rather than being condemned to be sinners forever. Even a wretched birth, if one realizes why he is in a wretched birth and takes necessary action/thoughts to realize the truth, he will no more be wretched and will attain divinity.

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