Want to talk sin anyone?

[mnfaure]

Can anyone tell me how religions which believe in reincarnation view sin and what are the terms/ideas applied to it? What is the principle behind it? Is it like "missing the mark"? Is it a crime against self? A higher power? Fellow human beings? Are there degrees of transgressions or are all sins equally bad? What do the practitioners strive toward

Comments

[renakuzar]

I don't know much about Buddhism, but in Hinduism, the concept of sin doesn't really apply. All actions (Karma) have consequences and these consequences must be dealt with either in this life or in subsequent lives. If you are able to make all of your actions an act of worship (the principle idea behind Bhakti) then the consequence of these actions is enlightenment and liberation. Most strive to be the best x they can be, where x is who they were born to be. Most people believe that who they were born to be is determined by their caste - and that they need to be a brahmin to live a life of worship, but this is not what Krshna teaches in the Bhagavad Gita. Krshna taught that who ever lives so that their acts are acts of worship, though that person be a prostitute or a dung sweeper will achieve that liberation

[mnfaure]

Thanks, Walt. I was counting on you to respond. *g* Does Hinduism have a set number of needed reincarnations or is liberation possible after one "perfect" life?

Also, using your battered wife analogy, how does society act toward the wife? Does anyone try to help her or do they regard her situation as being necessary to her liberation and therefore something she must suffer through for her own good? And on the opposite side of the coin, if the current wife-beater is *needed* to be a wife-beater in order to punish a previous-life wife-beater, is his accrued karma bad or good? And if it is good, how can he then be reborn as a battered wife? My head is starting to go in circles. :P

[renakuzar]

Hinduism doesn't have the concept of a required number of reincarnations. Getting it right once is enough. Doing that is not an easy thing. There is a great scene in the The Mahabharata, of which the Bhagavad Gita is but one chapter, in which Krshna is visited by a Brahman who begins making very unreasonable demands on Krshna and his wife - to which they submit without question even though these demands are cruel and humiliating. No one tries to stop the Brahman from making these demands, nor to alleviate the suffering that both Krshna and his wife endure without complaint

[mnfaure]

Yes, it does help. Thanks. Since I don't want to copy another religion point for point, I have some things that resemble what you described and others that twist it a bit differently/further. It is a great exercise to approach these matters from another level.