Hurdles Of Sin

[Guest guest]

Namaste

Hurdles of Sin

 

Vishwanath Naik writes:

........ What should I start reading, to know the

basics ? .....I wanted to know hurdles of SINS in the path of

spirituality. .......Knowingly or unknowingly we would have done

something wrong.

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Namaste, Vishwanathji. Your question is welcome. The very fact

that you have joined the advaitin list and are willing to

question and learn about the path of spirituality speaks well of

you. You are asking where to start. You have started. Why do I

say you have started? Not because you have joined advaitin. But

in the second paragraph of your post, you are saying: ‘I wanted

to know’. This wanting to know is the starting point. This is

the major difference between animals and us human beings.

Animals go by their instinct. Human beings have an innate urge

to know. To know and investigate, to question and seek answers,

to understand and apply – these are natural to us human beings.

Now let us take the question of ‘sin’ which you have raised. Sin

is not external to us. It arises in the mind. It is the mind

that is the villain of the piece. First we desire to get

something. Then we get attached to that thought. Due to the

intensity of that attachment, everything else becomes small (at

that time) in our view, and we go headlong into the pursuit of

what we desire. And that leads to commissions and omissions in

our further actions and some of these become sins from an

ethical or a legal standpoint. You are right when you say that

‘knowingly or unknowingly’ we would have done something wrong.

What we have done is done. Not much can be done now about the

past, except to take a hard decision about the future, that ‘I

will not again get into doing a similar thing’. This is where

mind and willpower enter the picture. So everything depends on

how one can control one’s mind and exert the will power to

direct the mind into ‘right’ channels. For children and

teenagers, one can say they should seek advice from experienced

people. But, for an adult, the only suggestion could be: Analyse

yourself. Anatomise your own mind and try to stand in judgement

of your own mind over its past behaviour, its present

tendencies, and its future inclinations. The whole purpose of

the Gita is to enable you to make this self-analysis and train

your mind, to monitor the present tendencies and pilot itself,

with the help of discretion, through its potentialities.

Well, Vishwanathji, you have started right and I wish you all

the best.

 

praNAms to all advaitins

profvk

 

 

 

 

=====

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.

 

 

 

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