By Gonny Long ago in India, there was a man named Angulimala. His name means “garland of fingers”…not exactly what you’d expect from a future saint. He was a feared criminal, infamous for wearing a necklace made of the severed fingers of his victims. He believed he had to kill 100 people to fulfill a distorted spiritual vow. He was lost, angry, and consumed by something that must have felt irreversible.
And then he met the Buddha.
The story goes that Angulimala ran toward the Buddha with the intention of making him his next victim. But the Buddha didn’t run. He simply walked calmly. Angulimala shouted, “Stop!” And the Buddha replied, without flinching, “I have stopped. But you have not.”
That one sentence shattered something in Angulimala’s mind. He dropped his weapons, fell to his knees, and asked for another way. And the Buddha, with no judgment and no delay, welcomed him into the Sangha, the community of monks. From that moment on, Angulimala lived in service and devotion. In that very lifetime, he attained enlightenment.
He wasn’t punished.
He wasn’t exiled.
He was seen.
Seen not for what he had done, but for who he truly was beneath it all.
Now, let’s talk about the word SIN. Because that’s what most people would have called Angulimala: a sinner, beyond redemption, forever stained.
But interestingly, the word sin comes from an old archery term meaning “to miss the mark.” That’s all it ever meant. You aimed. You missed. Try again.
No drama.
No hell.
No wrath.
Just a gentle correction.
But the ego took that simple mistake and inflated it into something deadly, something shameful and final. And just like that, we became terrified of a punishment that was never real.
A mistake is something you correct. You realign. You take a breath, ask for help, and choose again. But a sin…at least the way religion and society have defined it…feels permanent. You did something so wrong, the story goes, that even God can’t love you now. And that lie is the root of all fear.
That’s where the fear of God comes from. Not from God, but from the ego’s version of Him. The Cursus reminds us gently:
God is Love, and Love holds no grievance.
He isn’t angry.
He isn’t watching with a clipboard.
He hasn’t noticed your sins, because they never actually happened.
So when we speak of “sin” in the language of the Course, what we really mean is: you missed the mark, you made a mistake.
We don’t need to be perfect to return to truth.
We just need to be willing to see things differently.
So the next time someone triggers you : a friend, a stranger, a spiritual teacher gone off track, ….pause. Take a breath. Ask yourself not, “How bad is their sin?” but : “Where have I forgotten who I really am? What part of me am I still trying to push away?”
And then, like Angulimala, drop the story. Drop the weapon. Let it fall into the hands of Love.
Because in truth, nothing happened that can’t be healed.
With love and light,
G.