Sinless – In Gita Verse 3.3 The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O sinless Arjuna, I have already explained that there are two classes of men who try to realise the self. Some are inclined to understand it by empirical, philosophical speculation, and others by devotional service.
Krishna is saying there are two paths to realise the self, subjectivity. One is Gyan Yoga, and another is Bhakti Yoga.
Both of them reach themselves.
Gyan Yogi is one who adds meditation to thought. He links meditation to the world of thought. He begins to think meditatively. A new practice is added: whatever one does is done with awareness. When the state of thought plus meditation is established the journey towards witnessing begins.
Meditation is a change of direction.
Whatever meditation is joined to becomes a vehicle for moving towards witnessing.
And the Bhakti Yoga – adding meditation to emotion, a deep joining of meditation and emotion, the whirlpool of meditation and feeling! While feeling, become meditative.
Before saying that there are two paths. Krishna addresses Arjuna ‘SINLESS ARJUNA’ and gives a message to all of us that all of us are sinless.
What Is Sin?
To the Upanishads, it is not related to the doing at all. What you do is irrelevant; what you are is the point. It is not the doing but the being itself that is significant.
So what will it mean to call a man a sinner? We mean that he is ignorant, unaware of his own self. Because of this ignorance, his acts become sins. The act can become a sin only because the doer is ignorant, unaware, unconscious, and is living in a state of sleep. Ignorance is sin and awareness is virtue. Your acts are irrelevant because they are not central; in the centre is your consciousness. If something is wrong with your consciousness, your act will go wrong. If the consciousness is set right, your act will follow.
So just to go on changing your acts will not lead you anywhere. You can commit a sin, you can repent a sin, you can replace a sin by virtue, by a virtuous act – but it will not be of any meaning for the Upanishads if you remain the same. Unless you change, your consciousness changes, unless you attain a new plane of being, a new plenitude, just a change of your acts is useless.
So the Upanishads do not think in terms of acts; they think in terms of your being. Alert, aware, conscious, you are virtuous. Why? – Because the more you are alert and conscious and aware, the less is the possibility of committing a sin. The basic requirement for committing a sin is to be unconscious.
For example, you can be angry only if you forget yourself. If you are self-remembering, aware, anger is impossible. It cannot exist with awareness. No coexistence is possible. When you are aware, it is not that you control your anger, restrain your anger, suppress your anger – no! It simply cannot be there. In a fully aware person, anger cannot exist; just as in a fully lighted room darkness cannot exist. Coexistence is impossible.
The moment you bring a lamp into the dark room, the darkness is no more there. With the light the darkness cannot exist. And the Upanishads say it is futile and foolish to fight with darkness because you cannot fight with darkness. If you fight you will be defeated. Howsoever strong you may be, you cannot fight darkness because darkness is only the absence of light. Bring the light and darkness disappears.
The Upanishads say sin is darkness. Bring the light of consciousness and sin disappears. Do not fight with the sin; do not be concerned directly with the sin; do not think in terms of sin. Otherwise you will feel guilty and it will not be a spiritual growth; rather, it will be a fall.
Krishna says to everyone either through Gyan Yoga or by Bhakti Yoga connect through meditation either your thinking or emotion and move towards witnessing.
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