The Greatest (Unrecognized) Sin — And the Great Healing

Inrecent years, I’ve been thinking a lot about sin. Not sin in the religious, guilt-ridden sense — God, no — but in its original, archery-derived meaning of ‘missing the mark.’ Oddly, it occurred to me that almost everyone is missing the mark about sin itself. Thus, one of our primary sins is misunderstanding the true essence of sin!

Why do I even use the word ‘sin’ at all, given its heavy, ominous historical baggage? It’s mainly because I haven’t found an adequate or inspiring replacement. So, for now, I’ll keep using the word, but will re-imagine and redefine it with my own definition.

See, I think that most of the ‘deadly sins,’ such as murder, greed, gluttony, sexual abuse, adultery, envy, hatred, lying, etc., spring from a central, foundational sin. I see this central sin all around us in today’s world, and deep within us as well. The strongest verbal descriptors that come to mind are the adjectives ‘impervious’ and ‘anti-life.’

I’m referring to all the people — and there are billions of them — who are deeply buried within the walls of their little, fragile ‘ego selves’ and never let down their guard. Impervious. I’m thinking of all the people who are NOT open to healing, sharing, caring, and truly enjoying life. I’m thinking of all the people who see life as an endless, grim competition and a desperate ‘battle’ that has to be ‘won’ — and are willing to trample, destroy, or kill others on their way to ‘victory.’

Seek hard, and you shall (usually) find

I used to be one of these people — a messed-up ‘sinner.’ As a child and young man, I had retreated deep within myself and hardened my heart. I holed up within myself and was busy ‘protecting’ myself and my heart from further harm and pain (or so I thought).

In reality, though, I was shutting down my aliveness and shutting out real life and real relationships. Over time, I became increasingly depressed, hopeless, lost, and lonely. And no wonder! On a deep, unconscious level, I was denying life — running from life — and was increasingly impervious to the wild, lovely, wondrous life energies around me and within me.

But I was very fortunate. In my desperation and pain, I started seeking answers and healing. Soon, instead of turning into another lost, frustrated ‘seeker,’ I actually started finding. My search led me to explore and embrace various forms of ‘inner work,’ and with the guidance of some amazing and unorthodox teachers, therapists, and mentors, I slowly learned to ‘open up,’ open my heart, and let other people and life IN.

This last point is crucial. Most of us — almost everyone, apparently— are largely closed off to life and love at a deep, fundamental level. Even people who act like ‘the life of the party’ are often faking it and, unbeknownst to others, feel desperately lonely and unhappy.

Most of us exist within, accept, and believe in a shut-down, closed-off state of ‘separateness’ — from nature, each other, and even our own inner selves — that we cling to and constantly affirm with our thoughts, words, and actions. It is ‘the water in which we swim.’

But that is no way to live. That is a sick, twisted, and miserable way to ‘live.’ We end up impervious to life and love, become ‘hardened,’ and turn into repressed, ‘civilized’ creatures who are, at the deepest level, anti-life — and filled with rage, resentment, and frustration. (In a bizarre twist on this theme, recent right-wing ‘Christian’ teachings attack empathy, of all things, and make it out to be a misguided ‘sin’ in itself. Yet active empathy is the direct result of connectedness and caring — qualities that Jesus celebrates, but today’s ‘Christians’ increasingly seem to abhor. How’s that for being ‘anti-life’?)

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Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

What is our ‘ultimate sin’?

But there IS a way out of our self-created traps. The problem is, it involves commitment to ongoing ‘inner work’ — and most people just will not ‘go there.’ No way. Most people don’t want to work hard, in general — especially in today’s comfort-driven society — or without immediate, tangible outer ‘rewards’ (Thus, the appeal of the ‘prosperity gospel’ and so-called ‘prosperity consciousness.’). Sadly, in almost every culture, ‘inner work’ for its own sake is despised and rejected.

Think of all the taboos and judgments around seeking psychotherapy or counseling. Think of all the snide jokes about ‘head-shrinkers’ and ‘shrinks.’ And there are even stronger taboos against ‘expressive’ therapies that involve consciously acting out or reliving our accumulated traumas, such as Primal Scream, Gestalt, and Psychodrama therapies, as well as extended ‘intensive’ weekends and healing programs.

All this deep social rejection acts to shut us off even further from healing and from our true selves. It pushes us further away from healthy inner growth and personal and social evolution — and instead, encourages dark, painful devolution. It turns us away from love, openness, and consciousness and keeps us horribly ‘stuck’ and in pain.

Thus, our deep resistance to learning and growth is perhaps the ultimate sin — in that literal sense of ‘missing the mark.’ If we’re unwilling to learn, grow, and evolve, our stubborn refusal merely ensures that our misery and all the other, secondary ‘sins’ will spread, intensify, and thrive.

Those results — all of them — are the true, horrifying cost of our stubborn, fearful refusal to grow (and grow up). That’s why I call this widespread condition and thinking pattern ‘anti-life.’ It is deeply antithetical to inner growth, social health, and civilization itself. And importantly, it also creates horrible direct impacts on the natural world around us, as we busily extract, plunder, and ‘consume’ our way through the planet’s resources. In this way, our profound ‘sinning’ is literally ‘anti-life.’

Sin is a real motherfucker.

Opening to the ‘great healing’

What is the way out of our destructive, self-created traps? There isn’t any — UNLESS we decide, on a deep and ongoing inner level, to work on ourselves, ‘grow up,’ and open to our true human potentials. Only if we open our hearts and minds and explore a whole new way of ‘being in the world’ is there any hope of surviving our persistent sinning.

The way is open to us, though. It has been laid out for us by spiritual teachers, guides, gurus, and mentors of every description, over the centuries. ‘Seek (persistently and faithfully), and ye shall find.”

Plus, over the past century, our psychological understanding and so-called ‘depth psychology’ have provided us with many more tools and opportunities for effective inner healing and growth.

So, in the end, it is all up to us — each of us — and our own most personal, innermost choices. We can choose the ‘easy,’ misery-inducing path of ongoing sin — constantly ‘missing the mark’ — or we can make the ‘hard’ (but much healthier and more enlivening and enjoyable) choice to embark on much-needed ‘inner work’ and exploration.

As far as I can tell, this is truly the only way out of our painful human morass of sin, depravity, greed, and suffering.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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