Vedanta, Sin and Free Will

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Excerpts from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: volume 8

 

Chapter: Is Vedanta the Future Religion

(Lecture Delivered in San Francisco on April 8, 1900)

 

...So Vedanta knows no sin. There are mistakes but no sin; and in the

long run everything is going to be all right. No Satan-none of

this ...Vedanta believes in only one sin; only one in the world, and

it is this; the moment you think you are a sinner or everybody is a

sinner; that is sin. From that follows every other mistake or what is

usually called sin. There have been mistakes in our lives. But we are

going on. Glory be unto us that have made mistakes! Take a long look

at your past life. If your present condition is good, it has been

caused by all the past mistakes as well successes. Glory be unto

success! Glory be unto mistakes! Do not look back upon what has been

done. Go ahead!

 

You see, Vedanta proposes no sin nor sinner. No God to be afraid of.

He is the one being of whom we shall never be afraid, because He is

our own Self. There is only one being of whom you cannot possibly be

afraid; He is that...God is man's very Self. He is that one being

whom you can never possibly fear.

 

....What does Vedanta teach us? In the first place, it teaches that

you need not even go out of yourself to know the truth. All the past

and all the future are here in the present. ..This present is all

that is. There is only the One. All is here right now. One moment in

the infinite time is quite as good as complete and all inclusive as

every other moment. All that is and was and will be is here in the

present. Let anybody try to imagine anything outside of it-he will

not succeed.

 

....Therefore Vedanta formulates, not universal brotherhood, but

universal oneness. I am the same was any other man, as any animal-

good, bad, anything. It is one body, one mind, one soul throughout.

Spirit never dies. ..The Universe is my body. See how it continues.

All minds are mine. With all feet I walk. Through all mouths I speak.

In everybody I reside.

 

 

...Whatever you dream and think of, you create. If it is hell, you die

and see hell. If it is evil and Satan, you get a Satan. If ghosts,

you get ghosts. Whatever you think, that you become. If you have to

think, think good thoughts, great thoughts. This taking for granted

that you are weak little worms! By declaring we are weak, we become

weak, we do not become better...What good does it to me to say that I

am a sinner? If I am in the dark, let me light a lamp. Yet how

curious is the nature of men! You tell them the truth-they do not see

it; they like darkness better.

 

Worship everything as God-every form is His temple. All else is

delusion. Always look within, never without. Such is the God that

Vedanta preaches, and such is His worship. Naturally there is no

sect, no creed, no caste in Vedanta.

 

...Infinite knowledge abides within everyone in fullest measure. You

are not really ignorant, though you may appear to be so. You are

incarnations of God, all of you. You are the incarnations of the

Almighty, Omnipresent, Divine Principle.

 

...For thousands of years millions and millions all over the world

have been taught to worship the Lord of the world, the Incarnations,

the saviours, the prophets. They have been taught to consider

themselves helpless, miserable creatures and to depend upon the mercy

of some person or persons for salvation. There are no doubt many

marvelous things in such beliefs. But even at their best, they are

but kindergartens of religions, and they have helped but little. Men

are still hypnotized into abject degradation...The hour comes when

great men shall arise and cast off these kindergartens of religion

and shall make vivid and powerful the true religion, the worship of

the spirit by the spirit.