TRANSCRIPTION:
This very ancient concept of sin means a lotta different things to a lotta different people. For many people who have a traditional or a fundamental religious or theological belief, the idea of sin means something that is forbidden, something that is evil, something that is bad, something you’re not supposed to do.
And, at the same time, as many human beings have observed and experienced, those things that are labeled as sin tend to be some of the most frequently sought after or at least thought about, or at least desired experiences that human beings can have. So how do you reconcile this big difference between sin, this ancient concept of what you’re not supposed to do with these quite common, normal, maybe even natural human desires, human tendencies?
And so if we look at the word sin and what it actually means maybe that would be an interesting starting place to find some more relevant personal truths. First of all, the word sin is a Latin word and it means without. And so if we look at the idea of sin or sinning as going without, what that then means is that by sinning there’s something that you’re missing, there’s something that, some component that you would wanna have that you’re not having.
And I think this is where it really becomes valuable, because instead of judging a particular behavior or a desire we can simply look at what is the energy behind it because after all, there is no such thing as right and wrong. Right and wrong are human, subjective judgments. One person’s right is another person’s wrong, one person’s wrong is another person’s right and maybe we can even observe that what’s right for you may not be right for you tomorrow. What was wrong for you may not be wrong for you any longer.
I mean, don’t you as the self-authorized, sovereign individual with the ability to have these free will choices, don’t you get to make the choice about what’s right for you and what’s not right for you right now? Maybe sin is a personal experience, and maybe it’s a lot less about an experience than it is your judgment about that experience. Maybe it’s not the particular activity or thought or desire, maybe it’s the energy around that.
And so, instead of using experiences, instead of using behaviors as a way to fill up some sort of void, maybe we can start to find fulfillment by looking within. And we can start to find fulfillment by making our own decisions about what’s right for us right now. You might find that you need a lot less of the external stuff when you begin to just go within a little bit more. And then maybe from that place of feeling fulfilled on your own, of feeling peace on your own, of feeling more confident and more powerful on your own, maybe the judgment or shame about those other activities begins to wear off a little bit.
In fact, maybe the desire or the urge for certain behaviors goes away altogether, and maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you begin to engage in behaviors from a place of self-authorization. At the end of the day, there is no right and wrong. There’s only what’s right for you right now and nobody outside of you gets to decide what that is, regardless of what you may have been taught or told, regardless of what someone else might have told you in your best interests. You’re the only one living your life.
You’re the only one that can tell what’s right for you right now. In order to do that, all you have to do is take a moment and get present. What are you actually feeling, what are you actually thinking, what do you actually desire to experience? That desire’s inside of you all the time so why not judge yourself a little bit less, why not love yourself a little bit more?
You can live without sin. You can live without the feeling of emptiness, and I don’t believe that has anything to do with lifestyle or behaviors or activities or choices. Those are uniquely personal, uniquely individual. Nobody outside of you can tell you what’s right or wrong. That’s your job.
Every second of every day, you’re the one that gets to decide what do I want. And one more thing, you get to decide what you want. You get to want what you want for no other reason than that it’s in your heart to want that. And once you tap into that frequency, once you tap into that feeling, life becomes an incredible, incredible journey.