Sin

From The Mahabharata Santi Parva, Section CLVIII

Yudhishthira said: I desire, O bull of Bharata’s race, to hear in detail the source from which sin proceeds and the foundation upon which it rests.

Bhishma said: Hear, O King, what the foundation is of sin. Covetousness alone is a great destroyer of merit and goodness. From covetousness proceeds sin. It is from this source that sin and irreligiousness flow, together with great misery. This covetousness is the spring of also all the cunning and hypocrisy in the world. It is covetousness that makes men commit sin. From covetousness proceeds wrath; from covetousness flows lust, and it is from covetousness that loss of judgment, deception, pride, arrogance, and malice, as also vindictiveness, loss of prosperity, loss of virtue, anxiety, and infamy spring. Miserliness, cupidity, desire for every kind of improper act, pride of birth, pride of learning, pride of beauty, pride of wealth, pitilessness for all creatures, malevolence towards all, mistrust in respect of all, insincerity towards all, appropriation of other people’s wealth, ravishment of other people’s wives, harshness of speech, anxiety, propensity to speak ill of others, violent craving for the indulgence of lust, gluttony, liability to premature death, violent propensity towards malice, irresistible liking for falsehood, unconquerable appetite for indulging in passions, insatiable desire for indulging in ear, evil-speaking, boastfulness, arrogance, non-doing of duties, rashness, and perpetration of every kind of evil act,- all these proceed from covetousness.

In life. men are unable, whether infants or youth or adults, to abandon covetousness. Such is the nature of covetousness that it never decays even with the decay of life. Like the ocean that can never be filled by the constant discharge of even immeasurable rivers of immeasurable depths, covetousness is incapable of being gratified by acquisitions to any extent.

The covetousness, however, which is never gratified by acquisitions and satisfied by the accomplishment of desires, that which is not known in its real nature by the gods, the Gandharvas, the Asuras, the great snakes, and, in fact, by all classes of beings, that irresistible passion, along with that folly which invites the heart to the unrealities of the world, should ever be conquered by a person of cleansed soul.

Pride, malice, slander, crookedness, and incapacity to hear other people’s good, are vices, that are to be seen in persons of uncleansed soul under the domination of covetousness. Even persons of great learning who bear in their minds all the voluminous scriptures, and who are competent to dispel the doubts of others, show themselves in this respect to be of weak understanding and feel great misery in consequence of this passion. Covetous men are wedded to envy and anger. They are outside the pale of good behaviour. Of crooked hearts, the speeches they utter are sweet. They resemble, therefore, dark pits whose mouths are covered with grass. They attire themselves in the hypocritical cloak of religion. Of low minds, they rob the world, setting up (if need be) the standard of religion and virtue. Relying upon the strength of apparent reasons, they create diverse kinds of schisms in religion. Intent upon accomplishing the purposes of cupidity, they destroy the ways of righteousness.

When wicked-souled persons under the domination of covetousness apparently practise the duties of righteousness, the consequence that results is that the desecrations committed by them soon become current among men. Pride, anger, arrogance, insensibility, paroxysms of joy and sorrow, and self-importance, all these are to be seen in persons swayed by covetousness. Know that they who are always under the influence of covetousness are wicked.

From The Mahabharata Anusasana Parva, Section LXI

Sin of Abortion

(Sin of foeticide)

Addressing King Yudhishthira, Bhishma said:

There are no men more sinful than those upon whose food children look with wistfulness without being able to eat them duly. If within thy kingdom any learned Brahman languishes with hunger like any of those children, thou shalt then incur the sin of foeticide(abortion) for having allowed such an act.

From The Mahabharata Santi Parva, Section CLXV

Addressing King Yudhishthira, Bhishma said:

One guilty of foeticide (abortion) becomes cleansed if he dies of wounds received in battle fought for the sake of kine (cow) and Brahmanas. 

He may also be cleansed by casting his person on a blazing fire.

From the Mahabharata Santi Parva, Section XV

There is no act that is wholly meritorious, nor any that is wholly wicked.Right or wrong, in all acts, something of both is seen.

Arjuna said: He that takes up a weapon and slays an armed foe advancing against him, does not incur the sin of killing a foetus, for it is the wrath of the advancing foe that provokes the wrath of the slayer.

There is no act that is wholly meritorious, nor any that is wholly wicked. Right or wrong, in all acts, something of both is seen. Subjecting animals to castration, their horns again are cut off. They are then made to bear weights, are tethered and chastised.   In this world that is unsubstantial and rotten with abuses and rendered painful, O monarch, do thou practise the ancient customs of men, following the rules and analogies cited above. Perform sacrifices, give alms, protect thy subjects, and practise righteousness. Slay thy foes, O son of Kunti, and protect thy friends. Let no cheerlessness be thine, O king, while slaying foes. He that does it, O Bharata, does not incur the slightest sin.

From Manu Smriti (The Laws of Manu)

There is no sin in eating meat, in drinking spirituous liquor, and in carnal intercourse, for that is the natural way of created beings, but abstention brings great rewards. V.56

By subsisting on pure fruit and roots, and by eating food fit for ascetics, one does not gain so great a reward as by entirely avoiding the use of flesh.  V.54 

Confession of sin

The Mahabharata Anusasana Parva, Section CLXII

Addressing King Yudhishthira, Bhishma said:

The heart of the sinful man always proclaims the sins he has committed. Those men who have deliberately committed sins meet with destruction by seeking to conceal them from the good. Indeed, they that are confirmed sinners seek to conceal their sinful acts from others. Such persons think that their sins are witnessed by neither men nor the deities.   The sinful man, overwhelmed by his sins, takes birth in a miserable order of being. The sins of such a man continually grow, even as the interests  the usurer charges (on the loan he grants) increase from day to day.

If, having committed a sin, one seeks to have it covered by righteousness, that sin becomes destroyed and leads to righteousness instead of other sins. If a quantity of water be poured upon salt, the salt  immediately dissolves away. Even so, when expiation is performed, sin dissolves away. For these reasons, one should never conceal a sin. Concealed, it is certain to increase. Having committed a sin, one should confess it in the presence of those that are good. They would destroy it immediately.

From The Mahabharata Anusasana Parva, Section CXI

Vrihaspati said: That man who, having perpetrated sinful acts through stupefaction of mind, feels the pangs of repentance and sets his heart on contemplation (of the deity), has not to endure the consequences of his sins. One becomes freed from one’s sins in proportion as one repents for them. If one having committed a sin, O king, proclaims it in the presence of Brahmanas (priests) conversant with duties, one becomes quickly cleansed from the obloquy arising from one’s sin. Accordingly as one becomes cleansed therefrom fully or otherwise, like a snake freed from his diseased slough.

Karma

From The Bhagavad Gita

The Blessed Lord said:

Even if the most sinful person worships Me with devotion to none else, he should be regarded as righteous, for he has righly resolved (for he has made the holy resolution to give up the evil ways of his life).   - Gita, Ch,9,Verse 30.

Soon he becomes righteous and attains to eternal peace; O Arjuna, know thou for certain that My devotee is never destroyed. - Gita,Ch 9, Verse31.

[Note: By abandoning the evil ways in his external life and by the force of his internal right resolution, he becomes righteous and attains to eternal peace].

Even if thou art the most sinful of all sinners, yet thou shalt verily cross all sins by the raft of knowledge. Gita, Ch,4, Verse 36

As the blazing fire reduces wood (fuel) to ashes, so does the fire of knowledge reduce all actions to ashes. Gita, Ch.4, Verse 37.

[Note: Just as the seeds that are roasted cannot germinate, so also the actions that are burnt by the fire of knowledge cannot bear fruits, i.e., cannot bring man to this world again for the enjoyment of the fruits of his actions. This is reducing actions to ashes. The actions lose their potency as they are burnt by the fire of knowledge. When the knowledge of the Self dawns, all actions with their results are burnt by the fire of that knowledge just as fuel is burnt by the fire.

When there is no agency-mentality (the idea "I do this") when there is no desire for the fruits, action is no action at all. It has lost its potency. The fire of knowledge can burn all actions except the prarabdha karma, or the result of past action which has brought this body into existence and which has thus already begun to bear fruits or produce effects.

According to some philosophers even the prarabdha karma is destroyed by the fire of knowledge. Sri Sankara says in his 'Aparokshanubhuti':

"In the passage 'His actions are destroyed when the Supreme is realised' the Veda expressly speaks of actions (karmas) in the plural, in order to signify the destruction of even the prarabdha."

There are three kinds of karmas or reaction to or fructification of past actions:

1. Prarabdha, so much of past actions as has given rise to the present birth.

2. Sanchita, the balance of past actions that will give rise to future births - the storehouse of accumulated actions

3. Agami or Kriyamana, acts being done in the present life. If by the knowledge of the Self only the Sanchita and Agami were destroyed and not Prarabdha, the dual number would have been used and not the plural.(Sanskrit language grammar has singular, dual and plural numbers).]