[121] World Scripture - Inherited Sin and Karma - 1. The Legacy of Past Dee

[대태양/김현수]

World Scripture Ⅱ

Part Two - Sin and Salvation
Chapter 6 - Evil, Sin and the Human Fall

5) Inherited Sin and Karma

Religions often explain differences in people’s fortunes and native endowments as the consequence of an inheritance from the past. It is conceived in two ways, either as karma from past lives or as the sins of the fathers visited on their descendants. These doctrines encourage people to accept their lot in life and suffer it patiently, in order to expiate past deeds and earn merit for the benefit of future generations.

Karma means action, specifically one’s own actions committed either in this life or in past lives. In Hinduism and Buddhism, religions that hold to a belief in reincarnation, it is taught that people are bound to reap the fruit of their actions in another lifetime. However, these religions part company over whether a person’s situation is fated by karma. For Hinduism indeed it is. Karma determines one’s present circumstances. Hence inequalities of wealth, race, gender or caste are only apparent; in fact the universe is absolutely just and fair. Buddhism, on the other hand, denies that karma is a deterministic principle. As but one of the twenty-four factors (paccaya) that condition a person’s life, karma need not be actualized when other conditions are fulfilled. Through spiritual discipline and meditative practice, a Buddhist aspirant seeks to attain liberation and be released from the bonds of karma.

Most other religions, in both the East and the West, recognize sin to be inherited through the lineage. An individual is burdened by the sins of his or her ancestors, who also bequeath their traditions, attitudes and personality traits, not to mention physical traits. Their lives leave an impression that can endure through the centuries, coloring the experiences of many generations to come. A wise person, therefore, seeks to resolve these inherited problems, so they will not plague his offspring. He would rather leave merit for his children’s benefit. Father Moon teaches many insights about inherited sin, how it comes to pass and how it can be resolved.

1. The Legacy of Past Deeds

World Scripture

For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. Exodus 20.5-6

Loose us from the yoke of the sins of our fathers and also of those which we ourselves have committed. Rig Veda 7.86.5 (Hinduism)

If at death there remains guilt unpunished, judgment extends to the posterity… When parties by wrong and violence take the money of others, an account is taken, and set against its amount, of their wives and children and all the members of their families, when these gradually die. If they do not die, there are disasters from water, fire, thieves, and robbers, from losses of property, illnesses, and evil tongues to balance the value of their wicked appropriations. Treatise on Response and Retribution 4-5 (Taoism)

You who are so powerful as to enter inside the small medicine gourd to shelter yourself from danger, Have you forgotten your children? Have you forgotten your wife? The evil seeds a man sows Shall be reaped by his offspring. Cruelty is never without repayment. However late it is, The repayment will come when it will. Yoruba Song (African Traditional Religions)

In this world the fate of every posterity is similar to that of its ancestors. Neither death leaves of the work of destruction, nor the survivors give up their sinful activities. Human beings follow in each others’ footsteps; groups after groups and nations after nations end their days without mending their ways. Nahjul Balagha, Sermon 86 (Shiite Islam)

Happy are the righteous! Not only do they acquire merit, but they bestow merit upon their children and children’s children to the end of all generations, for Aaron had several sons who deserved to be burned like Nadab and Abihu, but the merit of their father helped them.

Woe unto the wicked! Not alone that they render themselves guilty, but they bestow guilt upon their children and children’s children unto the end of all generations. Many sons did Canaan have, who were worthy to be ordained like Tabi the slave of Rabbi Gamaliel, but the guilt of their ancestor caused them [to lose their chance]. Talmud, Yoma 87a (Judaism)

Subha, the son of Toddeya, asked the Exalted One, “What is the cause and what is the reason, O Gotama, for which among men and the beings who have been born as men there is found to be lowness and excellence? For some people are of short life span and some of long life span; some suffer from many illnesses and some are free from illness; some are ugly and some beautiful; some are of little account and some have great power; some are poor and some are wealthy; some are born into lowly families and others into high families; some are devoid of intelligence and some possess great wisdom. What is the cause, what is the reason for which among men and the beings who have been born as men there is to be found lowness and excellence?”

“Men have, O young man, deeds as their very own, they are inheritors of deeds, deeds are their matrix, deeds are their kith and kin, and deeds are their support. It is deeds that classify men into high or low status.

“Here, O young man, some woman or man is a taker of life, fierce, with hands stained by blood, engaged in killing and beating, without mercy for living creatures. As a result of deeds thus accomplished, thus undertaken, he is reborn on the breakup of the body, after death, into a state of woe, of ill plight, of purgatory or hell, or if he comes to be born as a man, wherever he may be reborn he is of a short life span. This course—that he is a taker of life, fierce, with hands stained by blood, engaged in killing and beating, without mercy for living creatures, leads to shortness of life.

“Here, on the other hand, O young man, some woman or man gives up killing, totally refraining from taking life… This course… leads to longevity.

“Here some woman or man is by nature a tormentor of living creatures… As a result of the deeds thus accomplished… wherever he is reborn he suffers much from sickness… But here some woman or man is not by nature a tormentor of living beings… wherever he may be reborn he is free from sickness.

“Here some woman or man is wrathful… wherever he is reborn he is ugly… But here some woman or man is not wrathful… wherever he may be reborn he is handsome.

“Here some woman or man is jealousminded… wherever he is born he is of little account… But here some woman or man is not jealous-minded… wherever he may be reborn he has great power.

“Here some woman or man is not a giver to ascetic or brahmin… wherever he is born he is poor… Here some woman or man is a giver… wherever he may be reborn he is wealthy.

“Thus men have, O young man, deeds as their very own, they are inheritors of their deeds, their deeds are their kith and kin, and their deeds their support. It is their deeds that classify men into this low or high status.” Majjhima Nikaya 3.202-206 (Buddhism)

The Reactive Mind is a portion of a person’s mind which works on a totally stimulus-response basis, which is not under his volitional control, and which exerts force and the power of command over his awareness, purposes, thoughts, body, and actions. Stored in the Reactive Mind are engrams, and here we find the single source of aberrations and psychosomatic ills. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology 0-8 (Scientology)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

Our ancestors, through the ages of history, all died after living a hundred years or less. If they thought and worked for the sake of the whole, for the benefit of the whole, what they did remains even after a thousand years. Yet most of them did not. They lived centered on themselves, and everything they did perished with them. Having fallen and committed sins continually, they created problems destructive to the whole. (200:91, February 24, 1990)

Human beings throughout history have committed innumerable sins. First there was the Original Sin committed by Adam and Eve… it is like the root. Even that root is of various kinds: a central taproot and peripheral roots. From that root has grown a trunk; it started small with but a few branches but now it has grown and sprouted tens of thousands of branches, all tangled with each other. The overall amount of accumulated human sin is so huge. How can it be forgiven? Yet this huge mass of sin is connected to each one of you. (258:84-85, March 17, 1994)

Who do we resemble, that we should look and act the way we do? Each person takes after his or her parents. Then, who do our parents resemble, that they should look and act as they do? They take after the grandparents. If we keep going back through the generations, we will eventually come to humanity’s first ancestors. We are the way we are, because of what humanity’s first ancestors were like. Who, then, did the first ancestors resemble that they became the way they were? This is the question.

You naturally resemble your mother and father. If a person doesn’t resemble his parents, then there must be a trait somewhere a few generations back that was hidden until it made its appearance, according to the laws of genetics. Traits do not just appear without any connection or source. You may think that you are in control of the way you develop, but the fact is that thousands of generations of ancestors already came before you… So you can be compared to exhibits in a museum, where all the physical traits, qualities and values of your ancestors over thousands of generations are gathered in one place. They are the source of your appearance, personality and values. You are like exhibits put out by your ancestors, who are saying, “Look! This is our descendant.” Have you ever thought of it this way? Each of you is unique in the world. No matter how many men and women there may be under heaven, each of you was born a unique overall representation and fruit of your ancestors. (41:139, February 14, 1971)

You all have different ancestries. They took various paths and lived in various circumstances. Some were evil; others were good; they are all intermingled in your family tree. You are their fruits. Because of your varied backgrounds, you stand in different positions, with different merits. God is just and fair. But since each individual has a different background, can God really say, “All people are absolutely equal”? Is that a correct concept?

It would have been different had there been no Fall. It would have been different if our lineages had all proceeded within the realm of God’s love. Certainly, we are all destined to find God’s love. However, since every fallen human being has to travel along a uniquely different life course in his or her quest to reach the ideal, we cannot expect to find equality among us.

For the same reason, we can understand that people are bound for various destinations in the spirit world: heaven, hell, or the thousands of different levels in between. They are situated according to the accumulated good or evil of their own lives added to that of their particular ancestral line. (91:269-70, February 27, 1977)