. As already said--to the pantheist the word sin has no
meaning. Where all is God, sin or alienation from God is a contradiction
in terms. The conception of sin implies the _two_ conceptions of God and
Man, or at least of Law and Man; and where one or other of these two
conceptions is lacking, the conception of sin cannot arise. In
pantheism, the idea of man as a distinct individual is relegated to the
region of Maya or Delusion; there cannot therefore be a real sinner.
Does such reasoning appear mere dialectics without practical
application, or is it unfair, think you, thus to bind a person down to
the logical deductions from his creed? On the contrary, persons denying
that we can sin are easy to find. Writes the latest British apostle of
Hinduism, for the leaders of reaction in India are a few English and
Americans: "There is no longer a vague horrible something called sin:
This has given place to a clearly defined state of ignorance or
blindness of the will."[119] I quote again also from Swami Vivekananda,
representative of Hinduism in the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in
1893. It is from his lecture published in 1896, entitled _The Real and
the Apparent Man_. His statement is unambiguous. "It is the greatest of
all lies," he says, "that we are mere men; we are the God of the
Universe.... The worst lie that you ever told yourself is that you were
born a sinner.... The wicked see this universe as a hell; and the
partially good see it as heaven; and the perfect beings realise it as
God Himself. By mistake we think that we are impure, that we are
limited, that we are separate. The real man is the One Unit Existence."
Such is the logical and the actual outcome of pantheism in regard to the
idea of sin, and such is the standpoint of Hindu philosophy.

[Sidenote: Sankarachargya, the pantheist's, confession of sins.]

Or if further illustration be needed of the incompatibility of the ideas
of pantheism and sin, listen to the striking prayer of Sankarachargya,
the pantheistic Vedantist of the eighth century A.D., with whom is
identified the pantheistic motto, "One only, without a second."[120] It
attracts our attention because Sankarachargya is professedly confessing
sins. Thus runs the prayer: "O Lord, pardon my three sins: I have in
contemplation clothed in form thee who art formless; I have in praise
described thee who art ineffable; and in visiting shrines I have ignored
thine omnipresence."[121] Beautiful expressio