Awareness and
Sin
Greek philosopher Heraclitus touches
the deepest problem of man, that is – fast asleep even while awake! We sleep
when we sleep, but we also sleep while we are awake. What does this mean? This
is what Heraclitus says. We look wide awake, but that is only appearance; deep
within us the sleep continues.
Even right now we are dreaming
within: a thousand and one thoughts continue and we are not conscious of what
is happening, we are not aware of what we are doing, we are not aware of who we
are. We move as people move in their sleep. We live in a world of illusion
within an illusion so far removed from ‘reality’!
Many people have committed crimes;
many murderers when in the court say that they don’t know, they don’t remember
ever having done such a thing. It is not that they are deceiving the court —
no. Now psychoanalysts have come to find that they are not deceiving, they are
not being untrue; they are absolutely truthful. They did commit the murder —
when they were fast asleep, they did commit it — as if in a dream. This sleep
is deeper than ordinary sleep. This sleep is like being drunk: one can move a
little, one can do a little, one can be a little aware also — but drunk. We
don’t know what is exactly happening. What have we done in our past? Can we
exactly recollect it, why we did what we did? What happened? Were we alert when
it was happening? We fall in love not knowing why; we become angry not knowing why.
We find excuses, of course; we rationalise whatever we do — but rationalisation
is not awareness.
Awareness means that whatsoever is
happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are
present there. If we are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen.
It can happen only when we are fast asleep. When we are present, immediate,
transformation starts in our being, because when we are present, aware, many
things are simply not possible. All that is called sin is not possible if we
are aware. So, in fact, there is only one sin and that is unawareness.
The original word sin means to miss.
It doesn’t mean to commit something wrong; it simply means to miss, to be
absent. The Hebrew root for the word sin means to miss. That exists in a few
English words: misconduct, misbehaviour. To miss means not to be there, doing
something without being present there — this is the only sin.
And the only virtue: while we are
doing something we are fully alert — what is also called self-remembering, being
rightly mindful, or being in awareness. To be there! — that’s all that is
needed, nothing more. We need not change anything, and even if we try to change,
we cannot.
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