Commentary on the Aquarian Gospel–10–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

Sin and the Forgiveness of Sin

According to the thirteenth chapter of the Aquarian Gospel, when John the Baptist was seven years of age he was taken into the desert by his mother to the hermit Matheno who was to be his teacher. From that time onward he lived with Matheno in what was known as the Cave of David. After two years they went to Jerusalem, where Saint John was horrified at the sight of the animal sacrifices that were being made to expiate the sins of the offerers. When he expressed his disgust, Matheno explained the nature and cure of sin.

“Matheno said, The God of heaven and earth does not require sacrifice. This custom with its cruel rites was borrowed from the idol worshippers of other lands. No sin was ever blotted out by sacrifice of animal, of bird, or man. Sin is the rushing forth of man into fens of wickedness. If one would get away from sin he must retrace his steps, and find his way out of the fens of wickedness. Return and purify your hearts by love and righteousness and you shall be forgiven. This is the burden of the message that the harbinger shall bring to men. What is forgiveness? John inquired. Matheno said, It is the paying up of debts. A man who wrongs another man can never be forgiven until he rights the wrong. The Vedas says that none can right the wrong but him who does the wrong. John said, If this be true where is the power to forgive except the power that rests in man himself? Can man forgive himself? Matheno said, The door is wide ajar; you see the way of man’s return to right, and the forgiveness of his sins.”1

In the previous discourse we considered the meaning of sin as a falling short or failing to manifest our full spiritual potential–that the state of sin manifests in the acts we call sin. Yet, if we only look at the actions and try to merely stop them, the condition of sin-consciousness will persist and in time once more manifest in sinful acts.

The swamp of sin

Evil is like a swamp, as Matheno says, for it has no firm basis, being fundamentally unreal, and those who wander in become sunk and eventually suffocated in its morass. People often wander helplessly in the swamps, becoming completely confused; and sin always produces confusion in the sinner. Yet we all rush headlong into the muck again and again. Matheno’s statement that we must retrace our steps to find our way out of the swampy byways of sin is very significant. It is useless to just say: “Let’s quit doing wrong.” We have to extricate ourselves from the condition which resulted in sin. And that condition is the identification with both ego and materiality that produced ignorance, which then produced desire for objects. “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”2 The word translated “lust” according to its older Elizabethan meaning that was closer to the German root, in Greek is epithumia, which means an intense, even passionate, desire or longing for something. This is the equivalent of tanha–craving–which was used by Buddha is his discourses. Interestingly, the Greek word has thoomos as its root, which means fierceness and anger–the inevitable result of desire, since only a small percentage of desires can be fulfilled, and only a minuscule amount of fulfilled desires really “fulfill.” For this reason Krishna said:

Thinking about sense-objects
Will attach you to sense-objects;
Grow attached, and you become addicted;
Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger;

Be angry, and you confuse your mind;
Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience;
Forget experience, you lose discrimination;
Lose discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose.3

Just as Krishna outlines the steps that lead from attention to material things to the resulting confusion, so we must comprehend the steps that lead us into sin and then backtrack–not whine and beg God to forgive us. Our sins never harmed God–what is to forgive on His part? But we have harmed ourselves through sin, and Saint John will question about that in a little while. But back to the point at hand: the retracing of our steps out of the bog of sin. Meditation is the way, for it repolarizes the consciousness and takes our awareness back along the path we slid down so long ago into the quagmires of sin. Meditation repositions our consciousness and thereby frees us from sin. Through meditation we return our awareness to where it belongs. Then, when the fount of our inner life is opened, love will eradicate the fundamental selfishness and greed of the ego that forces us to reach out and rush into the fens of sin. Furthermore, having a clear sight (vipassana) of things–seeing them as they are, and ourselves as we are–the ordering of our thoughts, words, and deeds according to the ways of righteousness, the Divine Order, Ritam, spoken of in the Vedas becomes possible. Then we will be “forgiven.”

Forgiveness is the paying of debts

Spiritually we must apply the law: “For every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction.” Sin must be counteracted, neutralized. How? “The Vedas says that none can right the wrong but him who does the wrong.” (By this we see that John–and Jesus–were taught the Vedic wisdom even in childhood; and we need to study the same if we want to understand their perspective.) Sin cannot be cleansed or set right except by the sinner–by none other, not even God. “You made the mess; you clean it up” is the rule. No one can forgive us our sins in the usual sense, and certainly no sensible person (including ourself) will want to just overlook it. The wrong must be set to rights by us. What about the Churchian doctrine of the atonement? It is nonsense based on a complete incomprehension of the nature and mission of Jesus. There you have it; there is no need to mouse around about it and call it diplomacy or tact. The doctrine of the Lamb of God4 is an interpolation by those who were still obsessed with the idea of shedding blood to redress sin, and who wanted to make Jesus an extension of that perversion rather than the liberator from it.

“John said, If this be true where is the power to forgive except the power that rests in man himself? Can man forgive himself?” To the first question the answer is: Nowhere Else, and to the second: Yes. For: “Matheno said, The door is wide ajar; you see the way of man’s return to right, and the forgiveness of his sins.” Once we grasp the truth of our responsibility and our innate power to expunge our sins the door to liberation opens wide.

What is man’s will
And how shall he use it?
Let him put forth its power
To uncover the Atman [Divine Self]
Not hide the Atman:

Man’s will is the only
Friend of the Atman:
His will is also
The Atman’s enemy.5

Let us then purify ourselves and enter.

More Commentary on the Aquarian Gospel:
• The Seven Pillars of Aquarian Christianity • The Silence and the Word 1. Introducing the Aquarian Gospel 2. Revelations in the Temple 3. Revelations in Egypt 4. The Two Selfs 5. Deliverance From Gods and Demons 6. About God the Tao 7. The Wisdom of Buddha  8. God and Prayer 9. The Mission of Jesus and John the Baptist 10. Sin and the Forgiveness of Sin 11. The Universal Law of Man’s Free Will and the Divine Will For Man 12. Understanding Death 13. The True Teacher 14. Vision of the Child Jesus 15. The Law Behind All Laws 16. Opening To The Truth 17. The Twelve-Step Ladder To Perfection 18. What is Truth? 19. What Is Man? 20. What is Power?	21. Understanding 22. Wisdom 23. Faith 24. Healing and Healers 25. The Destiny of All Men 26. God and Man 27. The Voice in the Heart 28. Seeing the Unseeable 29. To God Through Man 30. Who Is Jesus? 31. The Real Versus The Apparent 32. The Brotherhood of Life 33. God…and Man 34. Relating To God 35. The Worthy Host 36. Come to the Light 37. The Kingdom Revealed 38. The King Revealed 39. Perspective On Death 40. Fire and Sword 41. Evolution: The Path of Glory 42. The Real Heaven
Text of The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi H. Dowling • Sections I and II –Birth and Early Life of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and Birth and Infancy of the Harbinger, and of Jesus • Section III–Education of Mary and Elizabeth • Sections IV and V–Childhood and Early Education of John the Harbinger, and Childhood and Early Education of Jesus • Section VI–Life and Works of Jesus in India • Sections VII through X–Life and Works of Jesus in Western India, Tibet, Persia, Assyria, and Greece • Section XI–Life and Works of Jesus in Egypt • Sections XII and XIII–The Council of the Seven Sages; The Ministry of John the Harbinger • Sections XIV and XV–The Christine Ministry of Jesus–The First Annual Epoch • Section XVI–The Christine Ministry of Jesus–The Second Annual Epoch • Section XVII–The Christine Ministry of Jesus–The Third Annual Epoch • Sections XVIII and XIX–The Betrayal, Arrest, Trial, and Execution of Jesus • Sections XX through XXII–The Resurrection and Appearances of Jesus–Establishment of the Christine Church

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1) Aquarian Gospel 13:13-22 [Go back]

2) James 1:15 [Go back]

3) Bhagavad Gita 2:62,63 (Swami Prabhavananda’s translation). [Go back]

4) Here is what Saint John really said about Jesus: “Behold the king who cometh in the name of God!” (Aquarian Gospel 65:4). “Behold the Christ!” (Aquarian Gospel 66:2). [Go back]

5) Bhagavad Gita 6:5 (Swami Prabhavananda’s translation). [Go back]