Is cigarette smoking a sin? Is it harmful?

We have a question here about the sin and harm of cigarette smoking. Well I don’t know about the sin of it. The belief is, the medical belief is that it is harmful. I had one student who wrote and asked me to remove the harm from smoking cigarettes so she could continue smoking. Well, I didn’t know that I would be very successful in that. I suppose it is like any kind of a thing that becomes habit-forming and is a dependence. And we do want to free ourselves as much as possible from dependence on any thing in the realm of form and effect. I do feel about the sin part of it, however, that when we are completely free of all hate and fear and love of external things, then we can begin to get worried about the sin part of this. It is one of those things that drops away from many persons, but don’t let it burden you, don’t try to force it if it hasn’t dropped away. Just keep on abiding in what is the truth.