What is sin and what is repentance || Acharya Prashant on Jesus (2015)
Video Information: Shabdyog Session, 21.06.2015, Advait BodhSthal, Greater Noida, India
Context:
What is sin?
How to repent?
Are all human beings sinner?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Context:
What is sin?
How to repent?
Are all human beings sinner?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 The Bible says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
00:22 So the question is, what is my sin and what is the meaning of glory of God?
00:46 Falling short of sin has a very central place in Christianity.
00:59 The Bible repeatedly refers to it and it is supposed to be a pious Christian's duty
01:24 to repent for his sins.
01:36 This repentance is interpreted in several ways and there are several ways in which it
02:00 is advised that the atonement can take place.
02:11 But obviously any question of repentance is meaningless without first understanding what
02:23 the sin is.
02:29 Otherwise there is the absurd situation of a man trying to correct a mistake without
02:44 knowing at all what the mistake is.
02:53 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
03:06 What is my sin?
03:12 There is nothing called your sin.
03:25 The simple fact is that you are the sin.
03:40 You are not a sinner.
03:48 You are the sin itself.
03:55 You are not mistaken.
04:00 You are the mistake itself.
04:09 The moment this my comes into picture is the moment of the beginning of sin.
04:21 It is the point of beginning of all moments.
04:29 Without this my there is no moment and no beginning either.
04:43 All that begins is this my.
04:51 And this my itself is the sin.
05:04 In what sense is it the sin?
05:24 In the ultimate sense there can be only one sin which is to be dissociated from God, which
05:43 is to be separated from the one truth.
05:58 Now what do you say the moment you say I?
06:04 Do you say I am God?
06:06 Ever heard anybody saying that?
06:11 The moment you utter this I you declare yourself to be somebody short of God.
06:25 You declare yourself to be somebody other than God.
06:30 The moment this I comes into picture is the moment of birth of duality.
06:41 And duality implies that an alternate reality other than God, other than truth exists.
06:55 You start talking of yourself and you do not refer to yourself as God.
07:02 And it is not merely a question of verbal reference.
07:07 It is a question of your entire feeling.
07:12 When you refer to yourself as I, you surely do not refer to the total, to the one, to
07:23 the absolute.
07:26 Instead you start referring to a fragment, to the limited.
07:35 Now what are you doing?
07:41 You are saying that you exist.
07:45 By uttering I you are saying that you exist.
07:53 And you are also saying that the world exists.
07:59 And you also probably do not mean to deny that God or truth exists.
08:07 So what have you done?
08:09 You have created parallel and multiple realities.
08:14 You are saying I exist, the world exists and God also exists.
08:22 Now is the truth many?
08:25 Then how can there be many realities?
08:28 How can there be these three?
08:32 You, others and God?
08:42 To believe in many gods is sin.
08:47 To believe in yourself is sin.
08:54 To have an identity separate from God is sin.
09:01 This my itself is sin.
09:06 Do you get this?
09:12 It is impossible for you to be and not be a sinner.
09:22 It is impossible for you to be and not be a sinner.
09:28 Now what does this imply?
09:31 Does this imply that as a human being you have to live a life mired in the guilt of
09:39 sinning?
09:43 And this is what religious men sometimes end up implying and advocating.
09:52 And Christianity has done a lot of this.
09:58 They talk of sinning so much that repentance becomes a standalone virtue in itself.
10:20 Now repentance is no dissolution of sin.
10:31 Repentance is just the dual opposite of sin.
10:39 Repentance always goes along with sin.
10:43 Repentance arises from a feeling of guilt.
10:49 You cannot ask somebody to repent without first declaring him guilty.
11:01 So what is the implication?
11:03 Are we to spend this human life in guilt?
11:11 Feeling bad, feeling small, oh we have sinned.
11:19 Repentance to be born is sin.
11:26 If you be a little attentive you will see that there is only one way out which is to
11:41 not to believe in any identity except the God identity.
11:52 You acquire any identity and you have sinned because acquiring an identity implies, I am
12:00 repeating, a belief in many truths and a belief in separation from the one truth.
12:13 And both of these are surely sins.
12:25 You take on any identity, it is as good or as bad as the previous one.
12:36 You believe that you are a sinner, you are believing that you are a sinner.
12:43 You believe that you are a repenter and you are just believing that you are the one who
12:54 is repenting.
12:57 In either case, you are still maintaining an identity apart from the truth.
13:06 Repentance does not mean that your central sin has been dissolved.
13:14 It only means that you have moved from one type of sin to another type of sin.
13:23 To feel guilty is sin and to repent is sin reinforced.
13:32 That is why I said it is the dual opposite and companion of sinning.
13:37 Repentance is simply the dualistic companion of sinning.
13:42 It does not absolve you of your sins.
13:46 It only gives you a new type of sin.
13:51 If sinning is sin, then repentance is just a new type of sin.
13:57 I am repeating this because religion has been making this mistake of advocating repentance.
14:14 What really then is repentance?
14:25 There is only one real repentance possible.
14:30 I had just talked of it.
14:32 It is to live in the God identity.
14:35 That is the only real repentance possible.
14:41 If you say I am a sinner, I am repeating, if you say you are a sinner, then you are
14:48 only extending and deepening your sin.
14:55 If you say you are repenting, you are again only extending and deepening your sin.
15:04 The only way to get rid of sin is to get rid of the sinner itself.
15:14 You will have to very clearly live in the deep faith that because truth is one, hence
15:27 you cannot be separate from God.
15:35 After all, this too is just a belief that you are separate, the world is separate.
15:46 If you can be misled into cultivating and nourishing this belief with a clear mind,
16:06 then you can also clear away this belief.
16:13 This belief is not innate, not really natural.
16:23 It has been given to you by circumstances, by body, by society, by books.
16:36 If it has been given to you, it can also be cleared away.
16:42 This clearing away of this 'I' belief, this clearing away of this 'I' identity
16:50 is the only real repentance.
16:57 That is the only way to get rid of both the sin and the sinner.
17:09 I am repeating this, there is no way to get rid of your sins except by coming very very
17:21 close to God.
17:24 You have to come so close to God that you are left with no individual identity of your
17:32 own.
17:36 That is the reason why the Upanishadic Mahavakya, Aham Brahmasmi is the heart of all spirituality.
17:53 Without that utterance, there is no redemption possible for man.
18:01 You may say a thousand things about yourself, about truth and about God and about the world,
18:12 yet nothing will absolve you, nothing will give you peace.
18:20 There is only one declaration, one article of faith which will bring you to rest and
18:35 that is, "I am that", "that am I".
18:47 Nothing else is sin.
18:50 You may say, "You are a son of God", it is a statement of sin because the son, after
18:58 all, is separate from the father.
19:02 He may be quite close to the father, yet he is not the father himself.
19:08 So, even to say that I am a son of God is sin and obviously it is a great sin to say
19:18 that I am a creation of God.
19:21 Unless you say that the creator himself is the creation, then it is alright.
19:28 If you say you are a creation of God, you will have to simultaneously say that the creator
19:37 himself is the creation.
19:39 Only then is this a proper statement.
19:44 But if you say that the creator is somebody else and his creation is separate from him
19:58 and you are a part of that creation, then it is a statement of sin.
20:03 Are you getting it?
20:13 Kindly see that all your suffering and sorrow and misery arises from your fragmented identities.
20:28 Sin is something that leads to sorrow.
20:32 See where your sorrow comes from.
20:35 It comes from your identities.
20:39 It comes from your belief in your individuality.
20:44 Till the time you keep believing that you are you, a bundle of identities, your sorrow
20:54 will continue.
21:00 Dissolution of your identities is just the same as a return to the identity-less identity
21:09 and that is the God identity.
21:14 To not to have any identities is to have the ultimate identity and that is the God identity.
21:27 Are you getting this?
21:41 Hmm?
21:49 This is not merely a concept.
21:58 This is what we all are living daily.
22:09 See that not even one of your problem is there without you being attached to some or the
22:25 other identity.
22:30 See that you cannot suffer without a belief in your limitations.
22:41 You will have to be attached to some sense of limited being for you to suffer.
22:59 What does it mean to say that I am God?
23:02 It is not to declare that I am grand and big.
23:08 On the contrary, to declare that I am not separate from God is just to declare that
23:17 I am not going to be attached with anything that is petty, limited, small and trivial.
23:30 It does not mean that there is something big called God and I can declare myself to be
23:41 that.
23:43 No.
23:46 Because whatever you will declare to be big will actually be very small.
23:52 The biggest that you can think of will just be as big as your mind is and that is very
24:00 small.
24:03 How big can your mind think of?
24:06 The biggest that you can think of is nothing compared to the immensity of infinity and
24:16 your mind cannot conceptualize infinity.
24:21 So even your biggest identity is shallow and petty.
24:31 So to have God identity is not to have a big identity.
24:36 It is to have no identity.
24:42 Many people are apprehensive of this statement, Aham Brahmasmi.
24:49 They say that if man declares himself to be God, it is just ego.
24:56 They say it is a proof of your arrogance if you say that I am God.
25:06 They are mistaken and mistaken are those who utter I am God in the wrong sense.
25:20 If you have a concept of God and then you say you are God, then surely you are committing
25:28 a heresy.
25:31 If you have a concept of God and then you say I am God, then this is surely blasphemy.
25:41 Because to say I am God would then be similar to saying I am a husband, I am a Hindu or
25:49 I am a Christian.
25:54 All concepts, you had ten conceptual identities, now you have an eleventh conceptual identity
26:01 also.
26:04 What is that eleventh conceptual identity of God?
26:08 No.
26:10 It is not really a statement of ego because the man who honestly says I am God is actually
26:21 saying I am nothing.
26:24 It is a statement hence of great humility.
26:29 Only a greatly humble man can say I am God.
26:37 It is not at all a work of ego.
26:47 So there is no need to be apprehensive of the man who honestly declares himself to be
26:55 God because this man is actually saying I am nobody.
27:07 It is a statement of great humility along with great boldness.
27:14 I am nobody.
27:17 And if somehow you dislike to say you are God, it happens.
27:25 In some religions, for example, it is prohibited.
27:30 You cannot say you are God.
27:34 Then no issue.
27:36 Honestly say I am nobody.
27:40 No religion prohibits this statement.
27:44 There are religions who prohibit man to declare identity with God.
27:52 They say you cannot say I am God.
27:59 But no religion prohibits man to utter I am nobody.
28:06 So there is no need for unnecessary confrontation.
28:14 Simply say I am nobody.
28:16 That is just the same as saying I am God.
28:20 Because when you are nobody, then you are the closest to God, actually one with God.
28:29 Just say I am nobody.
28:31 Your humility, your deep humility is identical to saying Aham Brahmasmi.
28:41 Aham Brahmasmi and Naham are the same statement.
28:49 Aham Brahmasmi says I am the truth.
28:55 I am God.
28:56 I am Brahm.
28:58 And Naham says I am not.
29:03 And both of these are same.
29:06 Just say Naham.
29:07 I am not.
29:10 I am not.
29:15 Both these statements are one and both of them absolve you of your sin.
29:22 You are the sin.
29:26 Get rid of yourself and you have fully repented.
29:33 This is the only repentance possible.
29:37 Is that clear?
29:41 Thank you.