Bobby Beausoleil Reference Archive

Dear Dima,

You’ve asked me some interesting questions:

“Do you think there are sins that cannot be forgotten or forgiven? You must know this better than anyone. And also, is the moment when you can forgive yourself for the sin the moment when the sin is absolved? Since it is the God in us that suffers for our sins, isn’t it? I think when God is in a good mood he says there is no sin at all.”

In the most ancient of Asian spiritual traditions God (Brahman) is said to be changeless and immovable. In this understanding God would not be subject to moods, and certainly untouched by sin. Would God stand in judgement of God?

The very notion of “sin” is a human invention. Any forgiveness or absolution required must, therefore, be the responsibility of the human sinner. What human culture has come to think of as sin, that of sin being some sort of black mark on our soul or some violation written in God’s book, misses the point — literally. Sin is a most unfortunate error that has been perpetuated by biblical scholars and clerics for millennia, an error that has wrought great strife and needless suffering in the world, the result of an incorrect translation of scripture.

The Holy Bible we know today was originally written in Greek. The word sin in Greek in literal translation means “to miss the mark”, as an arrow shot from a bow may miss the target. So the term was never intended to refer to some stain on the sacrosanct, unblemishable soul. A sin is simply a poorly aimed shot. We sin when, either through ignorance or forgetfulness, we fail to connect ourselves properly in the consciousness of God. It may be necessary to forgive oneself for making a mistake, by admitting it, but the only absolution necessary is to correct one’s aim.

Purity is inherent in all of existence. No misbegotten notion of sin can make us impure, and there is no devil that has the power to come between us and our own divine nature. The only satan or adversary is the ego that wrestles incessantly in the mind to perpetuate the error of believing oneself to be separate from that purity — to keep one missing the mark. The devil is a make-believe character in a story told to children in an attempt to make them obedient, and sins are merely tricks of this devil used to throw off our aim. The sooner we disabuse ourselves of such silly notions the sooner we will know the unfettered freedom that is our birthright.

Bobby