Once, Adi Sankara went to Benaras and prayed to Lord Viswanath there and
asked specifically for three of his sins to be excused. The disciples who
followed Sankaracharya were surprised and were wondering what those three sins
for which he was seeking pardon were. Sankaracharya then explained the first
sin in the following words.
He addressed the Lord and said that knowing fully well that the Lord is
omnipresent and all powerful, he had undertaken the journey all the way to
Benaras to have the Lord's Darsan as if the Lord was present only in Benaras.
This, according to Sankaracharya, was the first sin. The significance of this
is that his practice was contrary to what he already knew.
His second sin was that after recognising the Lord as one whose glory
cannot be described or as one whose infinite nature cannot be described in mere
words, he had attempted to describe him in a string of words and thus had
ignored what he had already known about the Lord.
His third sin was that having recognised that the human body is the
temple of the Lord and having recognised that the body is made of five
destructible elements, he had not put this knowledge into practice. The Jiva
that lives in the body is indestructible and if studied carefully, we come to
the conclusion that one who resides in the body has no birth and has no death
and has neither attachment nor detachment. He realised that the almighty is
residing in him as the Atma and yet he undertook the long journey to get the
Darsan of the almighty in a place external to his body. This was his third sin.
Knowing that the Lord is in him, he has committed the sin of undertaking the
journey to see the Lord.
If we examine the matter in such detail, we will realise what actually is
sin. When we think of what sin is, we ask the Lord "I have not killed anyone. I
have not hurt anyone and yet why do I get this punishment". Sin does not
consist of these things. Sin is no separate entity. Similarly there is no God
who is quite separate. All the sins and all the good deeds are contained in
your own actions and in what you do and are not external to you.
- From Swami's Summer Course Discourses in May/June 1974 in Brindavan.
Om Sai Ram
