Introduction to Tantra Sastra - Aghori

SIN AND VIRTUE 143
what makes for progress on the one path is a hindrance
on the other. The matter, when rightly understood, is
not (except, perhaps, sometimes popularly) viewed from
the juristic standpoint of an external Law-giver, His
commands, and those subject to it, but from that in
which the exemplification of the moral law is regarded
as the true and proper expression of the jīva’s own
evolution. Morality, it has been said, is the true nature
of a being. For the same reason wrong is its destruction.
What the jīva actually does is the result of his karma.
Further, the term jīva, though commonly applicable to
the human embodiment of the ātmā, is not limited to it.
Both pāpa and puṇ ya may therefore be manifested in
beings of a lower rank than that of humanity in so far as
what they (whether consciously or unconsciously) do is a
hindrance to their true development. Thus, in the Yoga-
Vaśiṣṭ ha it is said that even a creeping plant acquired
merit by association with the holy muni on whose
dwelling it grew. Objectively considered, sin is concisely
defined as duhkhajanakam pāpam. It is that which has
been, is, and will be the cause of pain, mental or physical,
in past, present and future births. The pain as the
consequence of the action done need not be immediate.
Though, however, the suffering may be experienced as a
result later than the action of which it is the cause, the
consequence of the action is not really something separate,
but a part of the action itself—namely, the part of it
which belongs to the future. The six chief sins are kāma,
krodha, lobha, moha, mada, mātsarya—lust, anger,
covetousness, ignorance or delusion, pride and envy. 1
1 This in part corresponds with the Christian classification of the “seven
deadly sins”: pride, coveteousness, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth
which if deliberately persisted in, drive from the soul all state of grace.