Chapter XI

THE FOEGIVENESS OF SINS

" I believe in . . . the forgiveness of sins."
"I acknowledge one baptism for the remis-
sion of sins." The words fall facilely from
the lips of worshippers in every Christian
church throughout the world, as they repeat
the familiar creeds called those of the Apos-
tles and the Nicene. Among the sayings
of Jesus the words frequently recur : "Thy
sins are forgiven thee," and it is noteworthy
that this phrase constantly accompanies the
exercise of His healing powers, the release
from physical and moral disease being thus
marked as simultaneous. In fact, on one
occasion He pointed to the healing of a
palsy-stricken man as a sign that he had a
right to declare to a man that his sins were
forgiven.1 So also of one woman it was
said: "Her sins, which are many, are for-
given, for she loved much."2 In the

1 S. Luke, v. 18-26. 2 IUd. vii. 47.

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famous Gnostic treatise, the Pistis Sophia,
the very purpose of the Mysteries is said
to be the remission of sins. " Should they
have been sinners, should they have been
in all the sins and all the iniquities of the
world, of which I have spoken unto you,
nevertheless if they turn themselves and re-
pent, and have made the renunciation which
I have just described unto 3Tou, give ye unto
them the mysteries of the kingdom of light ;
hide them not from them at all. It is be-
cause of sin that I have brought these mys-
teries into the world, for the remission of
all the sins which they have committed
from the beginning. Wherefore have I
said unto you aforetime, ' I came not to call
the righteous.' Now, therefore, I have
brought the mysteries, that the sins of all
men may be remitted, and they be brought
into the kingdom of light. For these mys-
teries are the boon of the first mystery of
the destruction of the sins and iniquities of
all sinners." 1

In these Mysteries, the remission of sin is

1 G, R. S. Mead, translated. Loc. tit, bk. ii., §§ 260, 261.
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by baptism, as in the acknowledgment in
the Nicene Creed. Jesus says: " Hearken,
again, that I may tell you the word in truth,
of what type is the mystery of baptism
which remitteth sins. . . . When a man
receiveth the mysteries of the baptisms,
those mysteries become a mighty fire, ex-
ceedingly fierce, wise, which burneth up all
sins; they enter into the soul occultly, and
devour all the sins which the spiritual coun-
terfeit hath implanted in it." And after
describing further the process of purifica-
tion, Jesus adds: "This is the way in which
the mysteries of the baptisms remit sins and
every iniquity." 1

In one form or another the "forgiveness
of sins " appears in most, if not in all, re-
ligions; and wherever this consensus of
opinion is found, we may safely conclude,
according to the principle already laid
down, that some fact in nature underlies it.
Moreover, there is a response in human
nature to this idea that sins are forgiven ;
we notice that people suffer under a con-

1IMd., §§ 299, 300.
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sciousness of wrong-doing, and that when
they shake themselves clear of their past,
and free themselves from the shackling fet-
ters of remorse, they go forward with glad
heart and sunlit eyes, though erstwhile en-
clouded by darkness. They feel as though
a burden were lifted off them, a clog
removed. The "sense of sin" has disap-
peared, and with it the gnawing pain.
They know the springtime of the soul, the
word of power which makes all things new.
A song of gratitude wells up as the natural
outburst of the heart, the time for the sing-
ing of birds is come, there is "joy among
the Angels." This not uncommon experi-
ence is one that becomes puzzling, when the
person experiencing it, or seeing it in an-
other, begins to ask himself what has really
taken place, what has brought about the
change in consciousness, the effects of which
are so manifest.

Modern thinkers, who have thoroughly
assimilated the idea of changeless laws
underlying all phenomena, and who have
studied the workings of these laws, are at
first apt to reject any and every theory of

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The Forgiveness of Sins

the forgiveness of sins as being inconsistent
with that fundamental truth, just as the
scientist, penetrated with the idea of the in-
violability of law, repels all thought which
is inconsistent with it. And both are
right in founding themselves on the un-
faltering working of law, for law is but the
expression of the divine Nature, in which
there is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. Any view of the forgiveness
of sins that we may adopt must not clash
with this fundamental idea, as necessary to
ethical as to physical science. "The
bottom would fall out of everything" if
we could not rest securely in the everlasting
arms of the Good Law.

But in pursuing our investigations, we are
struck with the fact that the very Teachers
who are most insistent on the changeless
working of law are also those who emphati-
cally proclaim the forgiveness of sins. At
onetime Jesus is saying: "That every idle
word that men shall speak, they shall give
account thereof in the day of judgment,"1
and at another: "Son, be of good cheer, thy

1 S. Matt. xii. 36.
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sins be forgiven thee.551 So in the Bhaga-
vad Gitd we read constantly of the bonds of
action, that "the world is bound by action,"2
and that a man " recovereth the characteris-
tics of his former body 55 ; 3 and yet it is said
that "even if the most sinful worship me,
with undivided heart, he, too, must be ac-
counted righteous.554 It would seem, then,
that whatever may have been intended in
the world's Scriptures by the phrase, "the
forgiveness of sins,55 it was not thought, by
Those who best know the law, to clash with
the inviolable sequence of cause and effect.

If we examine even the crudest idea of the
forgiveness of sins prevalent in our own day,
we find that the believer in it does not mean
that the forgiven sinner is to escape from
the consequences of his sin in this world ;
the drunkard, whose sins are forgiven on
his repentance, is still seen to suffer from
shaken nerves, impaired digestion, and the
lack of confidence shown towards him by his
fellow-men. The statements made as to
forgiveness, when they are examined, are

1 Ibid., ix. 2. -Loc. cit., iii. 9.

*IMd., vi. 43. 4 Ibid. , ix. 30.

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ultimately found to refer to the relations
between the repentant sinner and God, and
to the post-mortem penalties attached to
unforgiven sin in the creed of the speaker,
and not to any escape from the mundane
consequences of sin. The loss of belief in
reincarnation, and of a sane view as to
the continuity of life, whether it were spent
in this or in the next two worlds,1 brought
with it various incongruities and indefens-
ible assertions, among them the blasphem-
ous and terrible idea of the eternal torture
of the human soul for sins committed during
the brief span of one life spent on earth. In
order to escape from this nightmare, theo-
logians posited a forgiveness which should
release the sinner from this dread imprison-
ment in an eternal hell. It did not, and
was never supposed to, set him free in this
world from the natural consequences of his
ill-doings, nor — except in modern Protestant
communities — was it held to deliver him
from prolonged purgatorial sufferings, the
direct results of sin, after the death of the

1 See ante, Chap. VIII,
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physical body. The law had its course, both
in this world and in purgatory, and in each
world sorrow followed on the heels of sin,
even as the wheels follow the ox. It was1
but eternal torture — which existed only in
the clouded imagination of the believer —
that was escaped by the forgiveness of sins ;
and we may perhaps go so far as to suggest
that the dogmatist, having postulated an
eternal hell as the monstrous result of tran-
sient errors, felt compelled to provide a way
of escape from an incredible and unjust fate,
and therefore further postulated an incred-
ible and unjust forgiveness. Schemes that
are elaborated by human speculation, with-
out regard to the facts of life, are apt to
land the speculator in thought-morasses,
whence he can only extricate himself by
blundering through the mire in an opposite
direction. A superfluous eternal hell was
balanced by a superfluous forgiveness, and
thus the uneven scales of justice were again
rendered level. Leaving these aberrations
of the unenlightened, let us return into the
realm of fact and right reason.

When a man has committed an evil action
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The Forgiveness of Sins

he has attached himself to a sorrow, for sor-
row is ever the plant that springs from the
seed of sin. It may be said, even more
accurately, that sin and sorrow are but
the two sides of one act, not two separate
events. As every object has two sides, one
of which is behind, out of sight, when the
other is in front, in sight, so every act has
two sides, which cannot both be seen at once
in the physical world. In other worlds,
good and happiness, evil and sorrow, are
seen as the two sides of the same thing.
This is what is called karma—a convenient
and now widely-used term, originally 8am-
skrit, expressing this connection or identity,
literally meaning "action" — and the suffer-
ing is therefore called the karmic result of
the wrong. The result, the " other side,"
may not follow immediately, may not even
accrue during the present incarnation, but
sooner or later it will appear and clasp the
sinner with its arms of pain. Now a result
in the physical world, an effect experienced
through our physical consciousness, is the
final outcome of a cause set going in the
past; it is the ripened fruit; in it a particu-
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lar force becomes manifest and exhausts
itself. That force has been working out-
wards, and its effects are already over in the
mind ere it appears in the body. Its bodily
manifestation, its appearance, in the physi-
cal world, is the sign of the completion of
its course.1 If at such a moment the sinner,
having exhausted the karma of his sin,
comes into contact with a Sage who can see
the past and the present, the invisible and
the visible, such a Sage may discern the end-
ing of the particular karma, and, the sen-
tence being completed, may declare the cap-
tive free. Such an instance seems to be
given in the story of the man sick of the
palsy, already alluded to, a case typical of
many. A physical ailment is the last ex-
pression of a past ill-doing ; the mental and
moral outworking is completed, and the suf-
ferer is brought — by the agency of some
Angel, as an administrator of the law — into

1 This is the cause of the sweetness and patience often
noticed in the sick who are of very pure nature. They
have learned the lesson of suffering, and they do not make
fresh evil karma by impatience under the result of past
bad karma, then exhausting itself.

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the presence of One able to relieve physical
disease by the exertion of a higher energy.
First, the Initiate declares that the man's
sins are forgiven, and then justifies his in-
sight by the authoritative word, "Arise,
take up thy bed, and go unto thine house."
Had no such enlightened One been there,
the disease would have passed away under
the restoring touch of nature, under a force
applied by the invisible angelic Intelligences,
who carry out in this world the workings of
karmic law; when a greater One is acting,
this force is of more swiftly compelling
power, and the physical vibrations are at
once attuned to the harmony that is health.
All such forgiveness of sins may be termed
declaratory ; the karma is exhausted, and a
"knower of karma " declares the fact. The
assurance brings a relief to the mind that is
akin to the relief experienced by a prisoner
when the order for his release is given, that
order being as much a part of the law as the
original sentence; but the relief of the man
who thus learns of the exhaustion of an evil
karma is keener, because he cannot himself
tell the term of its action,
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It is noticeable that these declarations of
forgiveness are constantly coupled with the
statement that the sufferer showed "faith,"
and that without this nothing could be done ;
i.e., the real agent in the ending of this
karma is the sinner himself. In the case of
the "woman that was a sinner," the two
declarations are coupled : " Thy sins are for-
given . . . Thy faith hath saved thee; go
in peace.'51 This "faith " is the up-welling
in man of his own divine essence, seeking
the divine ocean of like essence, and when
this breaks through the lower nature that
holds it in— as the water-spring breaks
through the encumbering earth-clods — the
power thus liberated works on the whole
nature, bringing it into harmony with itself.
The man only becomes conscious of this as
the karmic crust of evil is broken up by
its force, and that glad consciousness of a
power within himself hitherto unknown, as-
serting itself as soon as the evil karma is
exhausted, is a large factor in the joy, relief,
and new strength that follow on the feeling

1 S. Luke vii. 48, 50.
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The Forgiveness of Sins

that sin is " forgiven, 55 that its results are
past.

And this brings us to the heart of the sub-
ject— the changes that go on in a man's in-
ner nature, unrecognised by that part of his
consciousness which works within the limits
of his brain, until they suddenly assert
themselves within those limits, coming
apparently from nowhere, bursting forth
"from the blue," pouring from an unknown
source. What wonder that a man, bewil-
dered by their downrush — knowing nothing
of the mysteries of his own nature, nothing
of "the inner God" that is verily himself —
imagines that to be from without which is
really from within, and, unconscious of his
own Divinity, thinks only of Divinities in
the world external to himself. And this
misconception is the more easy, because the
final touch, the vibration that breaks the
imprisoning shell, is often the answer from
the Divinity within another man, or within
some superhuman being, responding to the
insistent cry from the imprisoned Divinity
within himself; he oft-times recognises the
brotherly aid, while not recognising that
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he himself, the cry from his inner nature,
called it forth. As an explanation from a
wiser than ourselves may make an intellec-
tual difficulty clear to our mind, though it
is our own mind that, thus aided, grasps the
solution ; as an encouraging word from one
purer than ourselves may nerve us to a
moral effort that we should have thought
beyond our power, though it is our own
strength that makes it; so may a loftier
Spirit than our own, one more conscious of
its Divinity, aid us to put forth our own
divine energy, though it is that very putting
forth that lifts us to a higher plane. We
are all bound by ties of brotherly help to
those above us as to those below us, and
why should we, who so constantly find our-
selves able to help in their development souls
less advanced than ourselves, hesitate to ad-
mit that we can receive similar help from
Those far above us, and that our progress
may be rendered much swifter by Their aid ?

Now among the changes that go on in a
man's inner nature, unknown to his lower
consciousness, are those that have to do with
the putting forth of his will. The Ego,

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glancing backward over his past, balancing
up its results, suffering under its mistakes,
determines on a change of attitude, on a
change of activity. While his lower vehicle
is still, under his former impulses, plunging
along lines of action that bring it into sharp
collisions with the law, the Ego determines
on an opposite course of conduct. Hitherto
he has turned his face longingly to the anim-
al, the pleasures of the lower world have
held him fast enchained. Now he turns his
face to the true goal of evolution, and de-
termines to work for loftier joys. He sees that
the whole world is evolving, and that if he
sets himself against that mighty current it
dashes him aside, bruising him sorely in the
process ; he sees that if he sets himself with
it, it will bear him onwards on its bosom
and land him in the desired haven.

He then resolves to change his life, he
turns determinedly on his steps, he faces the
other way. The first result of the effort to
turn his lower nature into the changed
course, is much distress and disturbance.
The habits formed under the impacts of the
old views resist stubbornly the impulses

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flowing from the new, and a bitter conflict
arises. Gradually the consciousness work-
ing in the brain accepts the decision made
on higher planes, and then " becomes con-
scious of sin " by this very recognition of
the law. The sense of error deepens, re-
morse preys on the mind ; spasmodic efforts
are made towards improvement, and, frus-
trated by old habits, repeatedly fail, till the
man, overwhelmed by grief for the past,
despair of the present, is plunged into hope-
less gloom. At last, the ever-increasing
suffering wrings from the Ego a cry for
help, answered from the inner depths of his
own nature, from the God within as well as
around him, the Life of his life. He turns
from the lower nature that is thwarting
him to the higher which is his innermost
being, from the separated self that tortures
him to the One Self that is the Heart of all.

But this change of front means that he
turns his face from the darkness, that he
turns his face to the light. The light was
always there, but his back was towards
it; now he sees the sun, and its radiance
cheers his eyes, and overfloods his being

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with delight. His heart was closed; it is
now flung open, and the ocean of life flows
in, in full tide, suffusing him with joy.
Wave after wave of new life uplifts him,
and the gladness of the dawn surrounds
him. He sees his past as past, because his
will is set to follow a higher path, and he
recks little of the suffering that the past
may bequeath to him, since he knows he
will not hand on such bitter legacy from his
present. This sense of peace, of joy, of free-
dom, is the feeling spoken of as the result
of the forgiveness of sins. The obstacles
set up by the lower nature between the
God within and the God without are swept
away, and that nature scarce recognises
that the change is in itself and not in the
Oversoul. As a child, having thrust away
the mother's guiding hand and hidden its
face against the wall, may fancy itself
alone and forgotten, until, turning with a
cry, it finds around it the protecting mother-
arms that were never but a handsbreadth
away; so does man in his wilfulness push
away the shielding arms of the divine
Mother of the worlds, only to find, when he
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turns back his face, that he has never been
outside their protecting shelter, and that
wherever he may wander that guarding love
is round him still.

The key to this change in the man, that
brings about "forgiveness," is given in the
verse of the Bhagavad- Gitd already partly
quoted: "Even if the most sinful worship
me, with undivided heart, he too must be
accounted righteous, for he hath rightly
resolved" On that right resolution follows
the inevitable result : " Speedily he becometh
dutiful and goeth to peace."1 The essence
of sin lies in setting the will of the part
against the will of the whole, the human
against the Divine. When this is changed,
when the Ego puts his separate will into
union with the will that works for evolu-
tion, then, in the world where to will is to
do, in the world where effects are seen as
present in causes, the man is "accounted
righteous"; the effects on the lower planes
must inevitably follow; "speedily he becom-
eth dutiful" in action, having already be-

1 Loc. cit.y ix. 31.
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The Forgiveness of Sins

come dutiful in will. Here we judge by
actions, the dead leaves of the past; there
they judge by wills, the germinating seeds
of the future. Hence the Christ ever says
to men in the lower world : "Judge not.'51

Even after the new direction has been
definitely followed, and has become the nor-
mal habit of the life, there come times of
failure, alluded to in the Pistis Sophia,
when Jesus is asked whether a man may be
again admitted to the Mysteries, after he
has fallen away, if he again repents. The
answer of Jesus is in the affirmative, but he
states that a time comes when re-admission
is beyond the power of any save of the high-
est Mystery, who pardons ever. "Amen,
amen, I say unto you, whosoever shall re-
ceive the mysteries of the first mystery, and
then shall turn back and transgress twelve
times [even], and then should again repent
twelve times, offering prayer in the mystery
of the first mystery, he shall be forgiven.
But if he should transgress after twelve
times, should he turn back and transgress,

*S. Matt. vii. 1,
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it shall not be remitted unto him for ever,
so that he may turn again unto his mystery,
whatever it be. For him there is no means
of repentance unless he have received the
mysteries of that ineffable, which hath com-
passion at all times and remitteth sins for
ever and ever."1 These restorations after
failure, in which "sin is remitted," meet
us in human life, especially in the higher
phases of evolution. A man is offered an
opportunity, which, taken, would open up
to him new possibilities of growth. He
fails to grasp it, and falls away from the
position he had gained that made the
further opportunity possible. For him, for
the time, further progress is blocked; he
must turn all his efforts wearity to retread
the ground he had already trodden, and to
regain and make sure his footing on the
place from which he had slipped. Only
when this is accomplished will he hear the
gentle Voice that tells him that the past is
out-worn, the weakness turned to strength,
and that the gateway is again open for his

lLoc. cit., bk. ii. § 305.
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The Forgiveness of Sins

passage. Here again the " forgiveness " is
but the declaration by a proper authority of
the true state of affairs, the opening of the
gate to the competent, its closure to the in-
competent. Where there had been failure,
with its accompanying suffering, this declar-
ation would be felt as a "baptism for the
remission of sins," re-admitting the aspirant
to a privilege lost by his own act; this
would certainly give rise to feelings of joy
and peace, to a relief from the burden of
sorrow, to a feeling that the clog of the past
had at last fallen from the feet.

Kemains one truth that should never be
forgotten: that we are living in an ocean of
ligfrfc, of love, of bliss, that surrounds us
at all times, the Life of God. As the sun
floods the earth with his radiance so does
that Life enlighten all, only that Sun of the
world never sets to any part of it. We shut
this light out of our consciousness by our
selfishness, our heartlessness, our impurity,
our intolerance, bat it shines on us ever the
same, bathing us on every side, pressing
against our self-built walls with gentle,
strong persistence. When the soul throws
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down these excluding walls, the light flows
in, and the soul finds itself flooded with sun-
shine, breathing the blissful air of heaven.
"For the Son of man is in heaven," though
he knows it not, and its breezes fan his
brow if he bares it to their breaths. God
ever respects man's individuality, and will
not enter his consciousness until that con-
sciousness opens to give welcome; " Behold
I stand at the door and knock " 1 is the atti-
tude of every spiritual Intelligence towards
the evolving human soul; not in lack of
sympathy is rooted that waiting for the
open door, but in deepest wisdom.

Man is not to be compelled ; he is to be
free. He is not a slave, but a God in the
making, and the growth cannot be forced,
but must be willed from within. Only
when the will consents, as Giordano Bruno
teaches, will God influence man, though He
be "everywhere present, and ready to come
to the aid of whosoever turns to Him
through the act of the intelligence, and
who unreservedly presents himself with the

1 Rev. iii. 20.
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affection of the will. " 1 " The divine potency
which is all in all does not proffer or with-
hold, except through assimilation or rejec-
tion by oneself. " 2 " It is taken in quickly, as
the solar light, without hesitation, and makes
itself present to whoever turns himself to
it and opens himself to it . . . the windows
are opened, but the sun enters in a moment,
so does it happen similarly in this case."3

The sense of " forgiveness," then, is the
feeling which fills the heart with joy when
the will is tuned to harmony with the Di-
vine, when, the soul having opened its win-
dows, the sunshine of love and light and
bliss pours in, when the part feels its one-
ness with the whole, and the One Life
thrills each vein. This is the noble truth
that gives vitality to even the crudest pres-
entation of the " forgiveness of sins," and
that makes it often, despite its intellectual
incompleteness, an inspirer to pure and
spiritual living. And this is the truth, as
seen in the Lesser Mysteries.

1 G. Bruno, trans, by L. Williams. The Heroic Enthu-
siasts, vol. i., p. 183.

2 Ibid., vol. ii., pp. 27, 28. *IMd., pp. 102, 103.

21 321