FROM THE BHAGAVAD-GITA

In the view of Vedanta, a person’s karma determines into what life he will be born.  The Bhagavad-Gita provides a description of two types of individuals, one born to divine tendencies, the other to demonic tendencies.

"A man who is born with tendencies toward the divine is fearless and pure of heart.  He perseveres in that path to union with Brahman which the scriptures and his teacher have taught him.  He is charitable.  He can control his passions. He studies the scriptures regularly, and obeys their directions.  He practices spiritual disciplines.

“He is straightforward, truthful, and of an even temper.  He harms no one.  He renounces the things of this world.  He has a tranquil and an unmalicious tongue. He is compassionate toward all.  He is not greedy.  He is gentle and modest.  He abstains from useless activity.  He has faith in the strength of his higher nature.  He can forgive and endure.  He is clean in thought and act.  He is free from hatred and from pride.  Such qualities are his birthright.

“When a man is born with demonic tendencies, his birthright is hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit, anger, cruelty and ignorance.  Men of demonic nature know neither what they ought to do, nor what they should refrain from doing.  There is no truth in them, or purity, or right conduct.  They maintain that the scriptures are a lie, and that the universe is not based on moral law, but is godless, conceived in lust and created in copulation, without any other cause.  Because they believe this in the darkness of their little minds, these degraded creatures do horrible deeds, attempting to destroy the world.

“They are enemies of mankind.  Their lust can never be appeased.  They are arrogant and vain, and drunk with pride.   They run blindly after what is evil.  The ends they work for are unclean.  They are sure that life has only one purpose: gratification of the senses.  And so they are plagued by innumerable cares, from which death alone can release them. Anxiety binds them with a thousand chains, delivering them over to lust and wrath.  They are ceaselessly busy piling up dishonest gains to satisfy their cravings."

We are not one or the other of these, Buddhists say by contrast, but are both.  Karma can create both in one person.  There is not a saint who was not at first a sinner.  Good cannot be known without evil, or at least the possibility of evil.  Good and evil arise mutually.  The saint and the sinner in a person arise mutually and exist for each other in a defining balance, until in the end the saint sheds what has become the dead skin of the sinner and steps free once and for all.