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Questioner:
Repeatedly you have been saying that events are causeless, a thing just happens
and no cause can be assigned to it. Surely everything has a cause, or several
causes. How am I to understand the causelessness of things?
Maharaj:
From the highest point of view the world has no cause.
Q: But what is your own experience?
M: Everything is uncaused. The world has no
cause.
Q: I am not enquiring about the causes that led
to the creation of the world. Who has seen the creation of the world? It may
even be without a beginning, always existing. But I am not talking of the
world. I take the world to exist -- somehow. It contains so many things. Surely,
each must have a cause, or several causes.
M: Once you create for yourself a world in time
and space, governed by causality, you are bound to search for and find causes
for everything. You put the question and impose an answer.
Q: My question is very simple: I see all kinds
of things and I understand that each must have a cause, or a number of causes.
You say they are uncaused -- from your point of view. But, to you nothing has
being and, therefore, the question of causation does not arise. Yet you seem to
admit the existence of things, but deny them causation. This is what I cannot
grasp. Once you accept the existence of things, why reject their causes?
M: I see only consciousness, and know everything
to be but consciousness, as you know the picture on the cinema screen to be but
light.
Q: Still, the movements of light have a cause.
M: The light does not move at all. You know very
well that the movement is illusory, a sequence of interceptions and colourings
in the film. What moves is the film -- which is the mind.
Q: This does not make the picture causeless.
The film is there, and the actors with the technicians, the director, the
producer, the various manufacturers. The world is governed by causality.
Everything is inter-linked.
M: Of course, everything is inter-linked. And
therefore everything has numberless causes. The entire universe contributes to
the least thing. A thing is as it is, because the world is as it is. You see,
you deal in gold ornaments and I -- in gold. Between the different ornaments
there is no causal relation. When you re-melt an ornament to make another,
there is no causal relation between the two. The common factor is the gold. But
you cannot say gold is the cause. It cannot be called a cause, for it causes
nothing by itself. It is reflected in the mind as 'I am', as the ornament's
particular name and shape. Yet all is only gold. In the same way reality makes
everything possible and yet nothing that makes a thing what it is, its name and
form, comes from reality.
But why worry so much about causation?
What do causes matter, when things themselves are transient? Let come what
comes and let go what goes -- why catch hold of things and enquire about their
causes?
Q: From the relative point of view, everything
must have a cause.
M: Of what use is the relative view to you? You
are able to look from the absolute point of view -- why go back to the relative?
Are you afraid of the absolute?
Q: I am afraid. I am afraid of falling asleep
over my so-called absolute certainties. For living a life decently absolutes
don't help. When you need a shirt, you buy cloth, call a tailor and so on.
M: All this talk shows ignorance.
Q: And what is the knower's view?
M: There is only light and the light is all.
Everything else is but a picture made of light. The picture is in the light and
the light is in the picture. Life and death, self and not-self --- abandon all
these ideas. They are of no use to you.
Q: From what point of view you deny causation?
From the relative -- the universe is the cause of everything. From the absolute
-- there is no thing at all.
M: From which state are you asking?
Q: From the daily waking state, in which alone
all these discussions take place.
M: In the waking state all these problems arise,
for such is its nature. But, you are not always in that state. What good can
you do in a state into which you fall and from which you emerge, helplessly. In
what way does it help you to know that things are causally related -- as they
may appear to be in your waking state?
Q: The world and the waking state emerge and
subside together.
M: When the mind is still, absolutely silent,
the waking state is no more.
Q: Words like God, universe, the total,
absolute, supreme are just noises in the air, because no action can be taken on
them.
M: You are bringing up questions which you alone
can answer.
Q: Don't brush me off like this! You are so
quick to speak for the totality, the universe and such imaginary things! They
cannot come and forbid you to talk on their behalf. I hate those irresponsible
generalizations! And you are so prone to personalize them. Without causality
there will be no order; nor purposeful action will be possible.
M: Do you want to know all the causes of each
event? Is it possible?
Q: I know it is not possible! All I want to
know is if there are causes for everything and the causes can be influenced,
thereby affecting the events?
M: To influence events, you need not know the
causes. What a roundabout way of doing things! Are you not the source and the
end of every event? Control it at the source itself.
Q: Every morning I pick up the newspaper and
read with dismay that the world's sorrows -- poverty, hatred and wars -- continue
unabated. My questions are concerning the fact of sorrow, the cause, the
remedy. Don't brush me off saying that it is Buddhism! Don't label me. Your
insistence on causelessness removes all hope of the world ever changing.
M: You are confused, because you believe that
you are in the world, not the world in you. Who came first -- you or your
parents? You imagine that you were born at a certain time and place, that you
have a father and a mother, a body and a name. This is your sin and your
calamity! Surely you can change your world if you work at it. By all means,
work. Who stops you? I have never discouraged you. Causes or no causes, you
have made this world and you can change it.
Q: A causeless world is entirely beyond my
control.
M: On the contrary, a world of which you are the
only source and ground is fully within your power to change. What is created
can be always dissolved and re-created. All will happen as you want it,
provided you really want it.
Q: All I want to know is how to deal with the
world's sorrows.
M: You have created them out of your own desires
and fears, you deal with them. All is due to your having forgotten your own
being. Having given reality to the picture on the screen, you love its people
and suffer for them and seek to save them. It is just not so. You must begin
with yourself. There is no other way. Work, of course. There is no harm in
working.
Q: Your universe seems to contain every
possible experience. The individual traces a line through it and experiences
pleasant and unpleasant states. This gives rise to questioning and seeking,
which broaden the outlook and enable the individual to go beyond his narrow and
self-created world limited and self-centred. This personal world can be changed
-- in time. The universe is timeless and perfect.
M: To take appearance for reality is a grievous
sin and the cause of all calamities. You are the all-pervading, eternal and
infinitely creative awareness -- consciousness. All else is local and temporary.
Don't forget what you are. In the meantime work to your heart's content. Work
and knowledge should go hand in hand.
Q: My own feeling is that my spiritual
development is not in my hands. Making one's own plans and carrying them out
leads no where. I just run in circles round myself. When God considers the
fruit to be ripe, He will pluck it and eat it. Whichever fruit seems green to
Him will remain on the world's tree for another day.
M: You think God knows you? Even the world He
does not know.
Q: Yours is a different God. Mine is different.
Mine is merciful. He suffers along with us.
M: You pray to save one, while thousands die.
And if all stop dying, there will be no space on earth
Q: I am not afraid of death. My concern is with
sorrow and suffering. My God is a simple God and rather helpless. He has no
power to compel us to be wise. He can only stand and wait.
M: If you and your God are both helpless, does
it not imply that the world is accidental? And if it is. the only thing you can
do is to go beyond it.
