What is Sin?
We have read the special theme while replacing the word sin with “insanity.” Let’s read the special theme again, and this time let’s replace “sin” with “My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be.”
For example, “My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be are the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue. They are ‘proof’ that what has no reality is real. My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be ‘proves’ God’s Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; eternal life must die. …”
Most people take their ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be to be fact. However, not everyone sees right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be in the same way. Therefore, our ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be are opinions.
NTI calls these ideas “judgment,” and claims that judgment is the building block of illusion. Our special theme makes the same claim:
[My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be are] the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue. They are ‘proof’ that what has no reality is real.
In her book, In the World but Not of It, Gina Lake refers to these ideas as “duality.” She says, “Be aware of the duality and untruth represented in your thoughts. Thoughts do not tell the truth. When you see this very clearly, your thoughts lose the power to make you suffer.”
Here are some tips Gina shared about how to transcend duality:
The duality of better than/less than is transcended by recognizing the truth that everything is perfect just as it is. Everything is as its meant to be and serving its purpose in the Whole. …
The duality of like/don’t like is transcended by holding your preferences lightly, by noticing your preferences but not necessarily letting them drive your actions or decisions. Instead, the divine self determines your actions, which may sometimes take you in directions that go against your conditioned preferences and desires.
The duality of want/don’t want is transcended by holding your desires lightly and by letting everything come that comes and letting everything go that goes. You lay the small will at the feet of Thy will, trusting that the divine self knows best …
The duality of good/bad is transcended by recognizing where those opinions come from and that they serve only the ego, and then holding them lightly or letting them go.
The duality of emotional highs and lows is transcended by coming into right relationship with life, which is experienced as equanimity. … This equanimity is sober, steady, okay with everything, at peace and content. It is a state of causeless, subtle happiness, or inner joy.
The duality of taking too much or giving too much is transcended through selflessness. The ‘self’ that is absent in ‘selflessness’ is the egoic self, which tends to take or give too much, both for the purpose of getting what it wants. Selflessness, on the other hand, is giving appropriately, … the divine self moving in the world, doing or not doing, according to a greater will that knows exactly what action to take when.
Gina goes on to write:
What happens when you become more aware of your thoughts [of duality] and start questioning them is that space, or distance, is created between you and the thought-stream … more time in the spacious Presence that is the divine self.
Let every voice but God’s be still in me.
As today’s lesson says:
Today we let no ego thoughts direct our words or actions. When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and then we let them go. We do not want what they would bring with them. And so we do not choose to keep them. They are silent now. And in the stillness, hallowed by His Love, God speaks to us and tells us of our will, as we have chosen to remember Him.
If you have 30 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation:
If you only have 20 minutes for meditation today or if you have 20 minutes later in the day for a second meditation, I recommend this guided meditation by AHAM and Karen Worth:
