Life's Big Questions #14

Q: Is sin real, and if so what is it?

A: This is a fearful topic that drives people either farther away from the creator, or more deeply into the dogma of whatever religion they consider themselves to be a part of.

If one perceives there to be good and bad in the world, as well as right and wrong, then all good and right actions could be construed as being the appropriate path through life, and in alignment with God's purposes. While anything else would be a deviation from this path, and viewed as error, or sin, (depending on your viewpoint), varying only by degree.

Now rational thinking implies that ignorance of God's laws, and the path, results in human error, while sin is viewed as the "intentional," and willful deviation from the path by one who is "not" ignorant. Sin is viewed as a choice of your own ego will, over the will of the Creator.

The error in this line of thinking is the supposition that, anyone who is "intentionally" choosing to oppose God's will could be educated enough to know the real consequences of their actions. We know they are not.

Enlightenment is based on the raising of ones consciousness, and involves far more than "knowing" the path. You have not become enlightened until you both "know" and "follow" the path. Enlightenment is a "complete process" that does not incorporate shortcuts of any kind. Period!

Therefore, to know the truth, and not follow it, is equal in the last analysis, to not knowing it at all, in that, the end result of either will be identical. To know and not do, is not to know. If it were otherwise you would have just created a new shortcut to enlightenment, and there would certainly be a lot of pi__ed off gurus in the world.

Those who can recite the ten commandments verbatim, are viewed as having sufficient knowledge that, any transgression on their part, has to be viewed as willful disobedience toward God's laws.

This is a fundamental error.

Knowing something and not using it, is equal to someone who knows it not. The end result is the same. Consciousness is about both knowledge and experience. Either one by themselves is incomplete and is the reason why we are here. Those who know the path and deviate from it, are incomplete in their consciousness, and know not what they do.

Only those who know the path and follow it, have a consciousness capable of sin, everyone else is only capable only of error.

Yet how likely is it that those who know, and have fallen in line with God's purposes, because they have embraced them, and become one with them, would willfully sin?

How likely is it they would abandon their own purpose and God's for something in the world they gave up long ago?

As long as there exists the possibility of ignorance in the world, revealed through actions that do not follow beliefs, then the fact of error, will continue to dominate over the possibility of sin.

Are You Limping Through Life

Each of us has a left side brain (logic) and a right side brain (emotion). To be dominated by the left side use of your brain, is to live in a world of physical reality and logic by anywhere from a marginal amount, to a very large degree.

I can personally vouch for this, having lived it, therefore, I feel amply qualified to speak on the matter.

Now you are probably familiar with the fact that people have two hemispheres in the brain. Simplistically, we will say that the left side deals with logic, while the right side deals with emotion. They deal with far more, but for our purposes, that is enough.

You have probably also noticed that people have two eyes, ears, arms, and legs.

To a logical person locked into physical reality through the constant use of one side of their brain, it would seem to be a ridiculous action for someone with two good, fully functional legs, to be hopping around through life on one leg. Or, to be dragging one good leg through life but not using it, all because that person didn't have the good sense to realize they were given two good legs, for a reason.

Well the same can be said about both sides of the brain.

Of course it has been my experience that when one starts talking about the logical approach to life, reason goes out the window.

Logical reasoning can be accomplished by using one side of the brain, but intelligent reasoning can not, because intelligent reasoning takes all aspects of reality into consideration, not just those viewed from one side.

Formulating an intelligent hypothesis requires both sides of your brain, that is why you have two sides. A logical man, or an emotional woman is only half a person because they may be dominantly using only one half of their brain, and of course these people will have a definite and unique slant on life.

How much conflict exists between people caused by opposite viewpoints, based on logic or emotion? Far more than there has to be I think.

Defending the idea that either the left brain logic or right brain emotion is a superior way to deal with life is as silly as trying to build a case for limping through life on one leg, as opposed to using both.

So possibly it might be time to start going to the world gym and start working out that other side that has grown weak from neglect.

Or not.