Krishna's New Definition of Sin

Despite the absence of specific divine law and the flexibility of the internal path to spiritual liberation that Krishna emphasizes in The Bhagavad-Gita, the term “sin” is still used to describe those who stray from this path. According to a more explicit religious text, The Qur’an used “sin” to describe the deviance from God’s strict code of conduct. God demands certain behavior of his followers, and those who fail to abide by his word are proclaimed corrupt. Krishna does not outline specific guidelines of moral behavior. The “sin” that Krishna speaks of is not direct dissent against a specific set of rules. Since the individual path is much more subjective, no such rules exist. Therefore, a deeper explication of the use of “sin” is needed to clarify this misleading translation and to discover what Krishna truly means by it. In understanding the context in which it arises, Krishna’s ideas about liberation and goodness are also more aptly understood.

Krishna encourages depth of understanding through disciplined action as a means to attain liberation. He also specifies that detachment is vital to this disciplined action. “Always preform with detachment anything you must do; preforming action with detachment, one achieves supreme good,” (Miller, 45). In order to achieve supreme good, and thus liberation, one must remain detached. It is then through attachment that Krishna defines evil and sin. Krishna categorizes three specific attachments that lead to such sin, which are attachment to the senses, desire, and the ego. These three sins are closely related and all important to Krishna’s understanding of sin.

Attachment to the senses is one way that Krishna qualifies sinful behavior. He believes that abolishing this false reliance on the senses is the first step to liberation. “First restrain your senses, Arjuna, then kill this evil that ruins knowledge and judgment,” (Miller, 49). As this quote illustrates, senses are evil because they infringe upon knowledge and judgment. Captivity to the sensory world inhibits spiritual progress because of this inhibition of knowledge. “He who fails to keep turning the wheel here set in motion wastes his life in sin, addicted to the senses, Arjuna,” (Miller, 45). Krishna warns Arjuna that by remaining attached to the sensory world, he will never benefit from greater knowledge. According to Krishna, this superficiality is a sin.

Krishna also constitutes attachment to selfish desire as a sin. These desires are a product of the senses, which Krishna has already established as detrimental to knowledge. “Knowledge is obscured by the wise man’s eternal enemy, which takes form as desire, an insatiable fire, Arjuna,” (48). Again, the restriction of knowledge remains a source of sinfulness of selfish desire. Krishna believes the attachment to desire to be sinful because of the way it limits knowledge and disciplined action.  

Finally, Krishna describes sin as activity that promotes attachment to the ego. When talking about sacrifice, Krishna says, “good men eating the remnants of sacrifice are free of any guilt, but evil men who cook for themselves eat the food of sin,” (Miller, 45). Krishna believes that favoring the self over sacrifice refutes the oneness that is essential to higher knowledge. This selfish prioritization therefore restricts knowledge and defies the disciplined action of sacrifice.

In looking at these examples, it is clear that Krishna ascribes sin as that which defies disciplined action and knowledge through the attachment to the senses, desires, and the ego. According to Krishna, sinful action is not relative to a God-given standard. Instead, attachment to these superficial entities is only evil because it inhibits one’s own liberation. This shows the importance of achieving moksha on an individual level. Krishna values the oneness of all people and therefore categorizes all that prohibits the acquisition of knowledge of the supreme good as sinful.