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PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
295
violence does not amount to moral offence then commission of violence also cannot amount to moral offence. This means that one who commits sin and one who concedes to the commission of sin are bound by Karmic bonds. Only those who have repented for and retrograded from sins are not bound by Karmic bonds. Person enjoying concession which commits sin incurs double sins. Firstly he incurs sin for committing sin and secondly for enjoying the concession. If one does not commit the sin though he is allowed the exception, then he incurs sin of exception allowed, but if he retrogrades from sinful acts and decides, "I henceforth shall not commit sin". Then he does not incur sin and spiritual progress is just at his doors.
THREE KINDS OF PERSONS
Some persons abandon sinful acts inspired by their own experience or by others' advice, some do so inspired by preaching of their religious preceptor while the others do not abandon sinful acts at all.
Here we are reminded of a verse : 'Worst of the people commit sins without any reluctance and with audacity; those who act sinfully only as an alternative left under compulsion are worse, but the best are those who do not forsake the path of virtue even at the cost of their life as the ocean does not transgress the highest pitch of Tide'.
Authors on moral philosophy have described the best, the normal and the low types of people, as follows :
"The best type of people get enlightened in adversity but the low types of persons are enlightened neither in prosperity nor in adversity". This means that the low persons hardly get enlightened.
SINS BEGET MISERIES, MERITS BEGET HAPPINESS
The maxim that sins beget miseries and merits beget happiness is equivocally accepted by all great men; so those who expect to be happy by committing sins only expect to swim with a heavy load of stone tied to the neck. If man is consciously awake to the fact that he has to reap the fruits of his sin unfailingly then he would never be inclined to commit sins. Even if he commits by chance
