Want to talk sin anyone?

[wayfaringwordhack]

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 (what is their reason for avoiding sinful behavior/actions)? Just enlightenment? Become one with Something Greater? How is a "sinner" viewed by others? Pitied, reviled, something else?

I have a religion that believes in reincarnation without regression (You can stagnate, but you can't be reborn as a lower lifeform), and I'm trying to get a good grasp on how people would view offenses, punishment, crimes, "wrong turns," evil, wickedness, guilt... I do have some ideas of how and why things should be done, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

I don't think my questions are necessarily hitting at what I want to know (probably because I'm open to all information and don't want to "steer" too much), so I'd be happy to hear anyone's ideas--even ideas/thoughts on sinning from people who are not practitioners of a faith, organized/recognized/or otherwise.

Step right up and stir my brain...

Comments

[renakuzar.livejournal.com]

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.

So a prostitute who never cheats the customer of coin or "service" but makes each act of life an act of worship will become not only enlightened but also liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth to achieve union with Krshna.

So, a wrongful act would be one not appropriate for who you are. That is as close as the religion gets to sin. The consequence will be suffering either in this life or the next. This suffering will often be related to the wrongful act, such as being a battered wife if you battered your wife in a previous life. Reincarnation to a lower form is not viewed as regression, but as the best chance to grow beyond the particular mistakes you've made.

I hope some of this helps.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.

There is no concept of good Karma or bad Karma, there is just Karma. If you beat your wife, you will be beaten at some future time. The beaten should learn from the beatings, take them like Krshna and his wife did (can't remember her name - shame on me - I will be condemned to be reborn as some one who no one can remember perhaps?) and those witnessing the beatings are acting in their witnessing, so they can't avoid acting, so how else must they act? That will determine what suffering they must endure. If they take no action to prevent the beatings, it is likely that they will be beaten while no one takes action to prevent the beatings they must now endure. If they take action to prevent the beatings, it is likely that they will have to endure the "humiliation" of having your authority over your wife taken from you by a stranger who intervenes as you discipline her.

However, the husband is under no obligation to beat the wife, even if that is why the person was reborn as the wife - to endure the beatings. The husband may act in a completely different way - and the wife will be reborn again as a wife again and again until she is beaten as a consequence for the beatings given when she was the husband beating his wife.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna doesn't want to kill people. Krshna points out that they must die, and that his refusal to kill them won't prevent their deaths. Not taking action just prolongs the problem. As he is a soldier, killing is part of who he is, and he needs to kill so that killing is an act of worship. That Arjuna doesn't willingly do this condemns him to being reborn while his enemies achieve liberation. Arjuna is Krshna's friend and the hero of the story.

So the husband who does not beat the wife may achieve liberation for himself ( or not) but condemns his wife to rebirth (if she needed to suffer beating before liberation), the husband who does beat his wife may allow the wife to achieve liberation, but is condemned to rebirth and suffering. If the wife acts in her current incarnation in a way that merits beating, and the husband refuses to beat her, then he will suffer for that in a future incarnation.

If the beating is given as an act of worship not of cruelty (and worship not only of Krshna but of the woman you've married), then perhaps you'll not suffer rebirth for this. I don't know. I do know that this is one of the many ethical dilemmas that Hinduism has. This is why the story of Arjuna is so important - he didn't want to kill innocents (though they will die anyway, as we all must) and so was forced to endure another incarnation and suffer until he learns how to be true to self and act so that the very action is an act of worship.

An enlightened being knows what actions are necessary to be true to self and acts - letting go of the ownership of those actions - and in doing so, achieves liberation.

Does that help?

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

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.

[renakuzar.livejournal.com]

Sounds great! Robert Jordan's never ending The Wheel of Time provides IMHO a great example of how not to do reincarnation. Have fun with it and clue me in when its ready to be read. I'd love to see the results.