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
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 jealous-minded… 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)
2. Breaking the Chain of Demerit
The wise priest knows he now must reap The fruits of deeds of former births. For be they many or but few, Deeds done in covetousness or hate, Or through infatuation’s power, Must bear their needful consequence. Hence not to covetousness, nor hate, Nor to infatuation’s power The wise priest yields, but knowledge seeks And leaves the way to punishment. Anguttara Nikaya 3.33 (Buddhism)
If it be that good men and good women are downtrodden, their evil destiny is the inevitable retributive result of sins committed in their past mortal lives. By virtue of their present misfortunes the reacting effects of their past will be thereby worked out, and they will be in a position to attain the Consummation of Incomparable Enlightenment. Diamond Sutra 16 (Buddhism)
My father was a merchant in Ujjeni, and I was his only daughter, dear, charming and beloved. Then a wealthy merchant from Saketa sent men to woo me; to him my father gave me as a daughter-in-law…
I myself adorned my lord like a servant-girl. I myself prepared the rice gruel; I myself washed the bowl; as a mother to her only son, so I looked after my husband. Yet my husband was offended by me, who in this way had shown him devotion, an affectionate servant, with humbled pride, an early riser, not lazy, virtuous. He said to his parents, “I shall not be able to live together with Isidasi in one house…
She does me no harm, but to me she is odious. I have had enough; I am leaving her.” Hearing this utterance my father-in-law and mother-in-law asked me, “What offense has been committed by you? Speak confidently how it really was.” “I have not offended at all; I have not harmed; I have not said any evil utterance; what can be done when my husband hates me?” I said. Downcast, overcome by pain, they led me back to my father’s house, saying, “While keeping our son safe, we have lost the goddess of beauty incarnate.” Then my father gave me to the household of a second rich man for half the bride price for which the merchant had taken me. In his house too I lived a month, then he too rejected me, although I served him like a slave girl, virtuously. Then my father spoke to one wandering for alms, a tamer of others and self-tamed, “Be my son-in-law; throw down your cloth and pot.” He too, having lived with me for a fortnight, returned me to my father… I begged my father, “Evil indeed was the action done by me [the karma leading to my misfortune]; I shall destroy it.” Then my father said, “Attain enlightenment and the foremost doctrine and obtain quenching, which the best of men have realized.” Saluting my parents and relatives, I went forth [as a nun]. In seven days I attained the Three Knowledges. I know now my own last seven births; I shall relate to you the actions of which this misfortune is the fruit and result; listen to it attentively. In the city of Erakaccha, I was a wealthy goldsmith. Intoxicated by pride in my youth, I had sexual intercourse with another’s wife. Having fallen from there, I was cooked in hell; I cooked for a long time; and rising up from there I entered the womb of a female monkey. A great monkey, leader of the herd, castrated me when I was seven days old; this was the fruit of the action of having seduced another’s wife. I died in the Sindhava forest and entered the womb of a one-eyed, lame she-goat. As a goat I was castrated, worm-eaten, tail-less, unfit, because of having seduced another’s wife. Next I was born of a cow belonging to a cattle-dealer; a lac-red calf. I was castrated after twelve months and drew the plough, pulled the cart, and became blind, tail-less, unfit, because of having seduced another’s wife. Then I was born of a household slave in the street, neither as a woman or a man, because of having seduced another’s wife. In my thirtieth year I died; I was born as a girl in a carter’s family which was poor and much in debt. To satisfy the creditors, I was sold to a caravan leader and dragged off, wailing, from my home. Then in my sixteenth year when I had arrived at marriageable age, his son, Giridasa by name, took me as a wife. But he had another wife, virtuous and possessed of good qualities, who was affectionate towards her husband; with her I stirred up enmity. These [my misfortunes] were fruit of that last action, that men rejected me though I served like a slave girl. Even of that I have now made an end. Therigatha 400-447, Isidasi Sutta (Buddhism)
If you have fulfilled a command, do not seek its reward from God straightaway, lest you not be acquitted of sin, but be regarded as wicked because you have not sought to cause your children to inherit anything. For if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had sought the reward of the good deeds which they performed, how could the seed of these righteous men [e.g., Israel] have been delivered? Exodus Rabbah 44.3 (Judaism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
For thousands of years our ancestors have been building up walls of sorrows, and as the days go by these walls are not getting lower; rather, through his many deceptions Satan has been raising the walls higher.
Today all the people of the world have the responsibility to take down the walls of grudges and resentments their ancestors built up; we take this on as our responsibility. (1:305, December 23, 1956)
Original sin, personal sin, collective sin, and hereditary sin inherited from our ancestral line—we should cleanse all sin before we pass on to the spirit world. It doesn’t matter that you have become a follower of the Lord; an indemnity course remains for each individual.
None of you has the same course. Some suffer a great deal; some even die on the way; while others have an easier time. Why? Everyone’s indemnity course differs. Although we may practice the same standard of faith, our paths are not the same because the amount of indemnity to be paid varies. (251:131, October 17, 1993)
We are burdened with sins inherited from our ancestors even though we personally did not commit them, and we are also responsible for collective sins that were committed by the nation or people we belong to.
In a word, being a fallen person means being the result of six thousand years of fallen human history—a mixture of good and evil. We inherit good and evil characteristics from our ancestors, but since they lived in a world where there was more evil than good, we mostly inherit evil. It is no surprise that we end up adding to that evil, trapped in a vicious cycle.
There is a story behind every sin, and someone was its cause. Maybe an ancestor of yours, while living on earth, gave much difficulty and pain to someone, and that person died carrying resentment. Now this resentful spirit comes down to you, a descendant of that ancestor, to get revenge.
He could have gone to any of a number of descendants, but he alights on you. He influences you, driving you to the edge, until you commit the sin. Resentful spirits can also afflict you with sickness and pain. All modern diseases have spiritual causes connected to the sins of ancestors.
By looking at the sicknesses and difficulties of descendants, we can infer about the life of their ancestors. If the ancestors stole from others or misused public things or money, their descendants may suffer from stomach problems.
If they committed sins of lust and fornication, their descendants may suffer from genital diseases, or be unable to bear children, or have difficulty being faithful, or get divorced.
Ancestors who did not see things about others correctly and hurt them, or who misjudged others based on bad rumors and violated their hearts, will have descendants born blind, mute or deaf. In other words, according to the way the pain was given—to a certain part of the body—the descendants suffer with the same kind of troubles.
The heavier the ancestors’ sins, the more difficult it is to heal the resulting sickness; it may even be incurable. If people on the earth do not clear up these sins through paying the required indemnity, the suffering is passed down to their children.
Later, when those people come to the spirit world and watch their children suffer they regret that they did not clear things up for them. They lament, “If only I had borne my suffering on earth, my children would not need to suffer now.” Therefore, unless you clear up all the sins passed down from your ancestors, as well as your personal sins, your children cannot escape from sickness and pain. (Heung Jin Moon, Message from the Spirit World, January 1, 2002)
Your ancestors committed a great many sins. On top of it, how much more sin did you commit? If you truly knew the weight of it all, you would despair. Surely, you should do your best to indemnify those sins [and leave a clean slate] for your descendants. If you cannot cleanse them completely, you should be willing to devote your life as a sacrificial offering.
For example, you might marry an ugly woman and determine to make your life together with her better than the most handsome couple in the world. (116:150, December 27, 1981)
The altars of sorrow continuing for six thousand years or more are due to the mistakes of our ancestors, but we fear we might leave that sorrow to our descendants by once again not fulfilling our responsibility today.
Today we learned that we are responsible to stop the history of misfortune in this generation and to dissolve the grief in Heaven’s heart unto joy. (8:262-63, February 7, 1960)
Sun Myung Moon