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Re: Sin.
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To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Re: Sin.
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From: mpt@mail.utexas.edu (michael tandy)
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Date: 21 Jul 1995 16:16:17 GMT
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From news@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu Fri Jul 21 12: 07:07 1995
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
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References: <3um2jp$qu3@babbage.ece.uc.edu>
In article <3um2jp$qu3@babbage.ece.uc.edu>, dwaite@aladdin.co.uk (Dennis Waite) says:
>
>susarla@owlnet.rice.edu (Hari Krishna Susarla) wrote:
>
>
>>How excellent can such a commentary be, if it justifies unrestricted sense
>>gratification?
>
>It does not justify any such thing. It is made clear that desire leads
>only to frustration, anger, delusion and death - man must lose all
>desires to regain himself.
That is all well and good, but I don't think you have really
addressed Mr. Susarlas's question, have you?
>
>>If we take that logic to its natural extreme, then theft, rape, and murder are
>>not sins because there are people who commit them who feel absolutely no
>>guilt. I know for certain that there are looney serial killers/rapists who
>>certainly do NOT feel guilt for their crimes.
>
>Do you really know this to be so?
I do, yes.
I suspect most if not all *do* feel
>that they are doing wrong but cannot help themselves. If they
>genuinely do not then no, they are not committing sin. Clearly they
>are acting inappropriately
Why? Allegedly they aren't committing sin, so what is the
problem?
>An even more startling viewpoint I have encountered is that the very
>notion of sin is nonsense. Who is there to sin? Only the individual
>ego, which after all is an illusion. The Self is clearly unaffected by
>any of this play.
All due respects, I think you and I are definitely affected by
this, otherwise we wouldn't be impelled to sin in the first
place. What you have mentioned above is hypothetically true,
or even absolutely true, yet so far beyond the realization of
most of us as to be irrelevant for all practical purposes.
Ironically, it is an argument often used to justify sin, and
if I understand him correctly, this is what Mr. Susarla was
trying to point out.
>(Criticism is, in any case, always negative and never justified.)
Consider the following statement, from the Gita (7.15):
na mam duskrtino mudhah
prapadyante naradhamah
mayayapahrta-jnana
asuram bhavam asritah
"Those miscreants who don't surrender to Me
are asses; they are the lowest of men. Their
knowledge is stolen by maya, and they have taken
shelter of demoniac attitudes."
It would be very difficult, by any stretch of the imagination,
to construe this as anything but criticism.
>One final point, relevant to your comments (although I have only been
>told this and have not verified it from any written source):- Was not
>Valmiki (correct sp.?), later in life the author of the Ramayana (?),
>originally a thief and a murderer? ("Some rise by sin, and some by
>virtue fall.")
I don't find any correlation between Valmiki's past sinful life
and his later spiritual success, except perhaps that his condition
was so undeniably fallen that he could hardly avoid submissive
reception of great souls, which is factually what elevated him.
Perhaps you could explain.
Respects,
-m
