Sin means: Missing the Mark

 Maurice Nicoll

For as we are, in our present state, in which this one is lost, we are all living in a wrong way, however we desire to do good in however we act. This one has lost its true connection and as long as this is the case with a man he has not reached his right state, from which his own evolution can begin. He has not 'repented' --  that is, undergone metanoia. So he perishes. And so long as this one thing in him is lost, all he does is wrong. 

For when a man is overpowered by outerlife and influenced only by all that acts upon him from outside, and argues only from what he can see, he is machine-driven by his senses and internally, the wrong way round. He is dominated by external life and has no life in himself. That part of him which is truly himself, one from which his own individual existence and growth can begin, is lost. It is in the wrong place. And this is sin. That is, in this state, everyone has missed the mark, missed the very idea of his own existence.

The Mark