Dear friends,
There is much confusion over this term. It has the connotation that Spirit has been offended. This is somehow then followed by either anger or punishment or both. However, this is merely a reflection of our own limited consciousness. We ourselves can get angry, feel offended, or want to lash out at someone, and so assume Spirit is the same. Nothing can be further from the truth. What, then, is meant by “sin”? Glad you asked… :)
Life is the only game where the goal is to learn the rules. The only “sin” is violating the rules. But the result is not imposed on us. If you touch a hot stove, the stove is not mad at you. The stove is not offended. The stove is not punishing you. In fact, pain is Spirit’s way of saying you are not playing the game right. If touching a hot stove didn’t hurt, we’d cause ourselves serious damage! There is an approach to life and a way of living, thinking, and being that promotes a happy joyful life. Other ways do not. Sin, then, is the result of “touching the stove” and feeling pain and suffering as a result.
Does that make us inferior in any way? No! We wind up here to be educated and entertained (as Yogananda said). Sometimes it seems a lot more “educating” than “entertaining” but on some level, even that is up to us. When a third grader makes an error on a math test, has he “failed”? Should he feel ashamed or hide the error from the teacher (and himself)? That just prolongs the learning process.
Yogananda was on a train sharing a compartment with a fundamentalist minister. Being from India, with his long hair and flowing robe, he certainly looked like a “heathen”. The minister seemed more and more displeased and uncomfortable. He finally erupted with, “You, sir, are going to hell!” Yogananda calmly replied, “I may get there by and by, but you, sir, are there already!” A closed judgmental heart is a sin not because it offends Spirit, but because we are hurting ourselves by touching the hot stove of anger and resentment. Do you feel better when you love or when you hate? We punish ourselves. No help is needed.
Our errors need to be faced with a full and open heart. “Thank you, Spirit, for showing me a way to play the game better.” And if the math problem is beyond our grasp currently, that’s O.K. too. Keep the heart open and receptive, and the time will come when we can absorb what has been shown to us.
So how can we improve our chances of knowing what the lesson is and learning what we need to learn…? That’s a subject for a future letter.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the Gang at East West