No such thing as sin Posted in: Freedom From Judgement, The Self Divine

In the dharmic tradition there is no such thing as sin*. Or at least no such thing as non-contextual sin. Why? Because that would require absolute laws, pre-established by God, as to what is acceptable action, word, thought, etc. Step outside such laws and one becomes sinful. Simple. It’s a very Christian idea. But not at all a dharmic tradition idea.

The dharmic tradition is very much one of accepting things favourable/rejecting things unfavourable. It has a fundamental neutrality about it. For example, if you wish to progress in the practice of bhakti-yoga the Upadesamrta of Sri Rupa Gosvami lists six things favourable for the execution of pure devotional service. Not if you don’t do these you are a sinner regardless of your chosen life goals. Favourable or unfavourable are thus contextual. Different objectives = different contextual sins.

And I believe that setting own objectives, life-goals (spiritual or otherwise) for example, is fundamental to the divinity of the soul. To have such objectives set by another (even by God?) seems to deny, or at least radically play down, the divinity of the self. For me that is not what the dharmic tradition is about. Unless you choose it to be**.

But perhaps ‘contextual-sin’ is not a satisfactory expression to use for what simply amounts to self-sabotage in realisation of ones dreams. After all the word sin does have a lot of baggage, especially in the West. Perhaps better would be something neutral along the lines of simply ‘unhelpful’?

Having said all this, I know many followers of the dharmic tradition, mostly westerners, who do have a pretty Christian concept of sin mixed in with their understanding of dharma 🙁

* Okay, the Sanskrit word pāpa is often translated as sin. But my understanding is that pāpa is something that does you harm. It is not the Christian idea of sin.

** Don’t get me wrong. Souls are entitled to consider themselves sinners. In fact I would say it’s their divine prerogative. And whether they actually are or not sinners in truth is not pivotal to the power of the belief setting the stage for a particular flavour of role-play in the material world. That role-play adventure might be appropriately titled the  ‘Quest for redemption’. And who am I to deny others that particular enjoyment?