These ideas possess human minds as if they are Gospel. It is much more so in India. In one of Hardy's novels, a drunken man auctions his wife who is purchased by a sailor. She lives for 15 years with the sailor in Canada. One day, a friend explains to the woman that her marriage has no sanction of the Church and therefore it is a sin. The outraged wife returns to England in search of her old husband. Hell is a real threat to pious people.
When the MIND stands on its own, outside social usage, it says that ACTS are neutral. There is no sin in any act. Sin, if it is there, is in the mind of the doer. A father steals the drugs of his son. Is it stealing? Is there theft in the mind of the father? It is said that when the tiger eats its prey, the prey feels love for the predator.
Not to put vibhuthi or namam on the forehead was a cardinal sin in the pre-war days. Is it a sin now? Or is doing so a sin? It may be laughed at as folly. We may be able to condone several such habits. When it comes to moral issues of honesty, loyalty, chastity, and integrity the mind will refuse to be this rational there, as Mind is moral. Acts are amoral. It is at the beginning of the twentieth century that free thinkers of Europe raised these issues before the public. Man accepts the changes that society endorses. Beyond that, it will be lip sympathy.
Lord Krishna acted outside the social codes, asked Arjuna to act against his conscience. We accept what the Lord enjoined as Arjuna's duty. The saying is, "Do as Krishna has asked you to do, not what he did." As the twentieth century is over, it is right the intellect gives a fair trial to these ideas as a mental exercise before leaping to Spirit and declaring 'There is no Sin'. Spirit acts in the world mostly within the social rules man's conscience will permit. Still for those who aspire for a life of Spirit, an intellectual consideration of such ideas is worthwhile.