Monday, December 26, 2005

Cause & Effect

I am constantly advising my students that they have to look outside of cause and effect for how to think of circumstances that test them. What I am trying to do is to get them to see beyond the “storms in a tea cup” as Pir Vilayat would put it and grasp the vaster laws of the Universe. Never the less I got curious because of some of the comments to my last post and decided to put ‘cause and effect’ into the search engine in this program I have that has all of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s work. And I found the following:
“There are two principal chains of cause and effect. The first plan is the cause and effect of the series of personalities. This is the law of the Vedanta school and it is illustrated by Christ’s words: ‘It is another who sows, and another who reaps.’ Secondly there is the cause and effect for the soul, illustrated by Christ’s words: ‘Thou wilt reap as thou hast sown.’ This leads the soul through heaven and hell to God.
The first is horizontal kârmâ, the second vertical karmâ. But then there is a third form of karmâ, a third chain of cause and effect. It is the Consciousness which stands as a gulf between the first two; it shows them distinctly as two different forms of karmâ, and still it unites them. They are in union. One could call this inner karmâ. It is imperceivable, incomprehensible: it belongs to God.
As to this third aspect, everyone is linked up with everyone else, and everyone can say he is a reincarnation of everyone from the past, as the universal Mind, from where the personality came, is One.
The secret of the soul is that it does not exist. Only God exists. God is God, God is the soul, and God is the chain of personalities.”

So perhaps this explains a bit more clearly what I have meant. If it is possible for us to experience, even for the briefest moment, this reality that the soul does not really exist, that it is an aspect of the Only Being and exists as a Divine expression of a unique combination of attributes, interwoven with all other unique expressions, then we are able to discover a depth of reason that is far beyond the “storm in a tea cup.” I know that this idea is simply an idea for most, that it is an intellectual exercise and not an experiential reality. Never the less, it may help if a person tries to see others as well as themselves in this light. And, it gives us something to shoot for, it gives us an ideal to pursue, a potential to discover in our beings. We cannot know what it feels like to experience the state of unity that the mystics speak of until the moment comes when we ourselves have the experience. We can, however; allow the learned experience of these mystics to guide us and to possibly comfort us when we feel that we are all alone.
Death comes to us all. For some it comes sooner then we feel it should but, if we can step outside of individuation for even a moment, we can perhaps see that it all runs together eventually. This experience of living is an immense opportunity for the being of God to discover permutations to its existence that simply were not possible while it was in the eternal sleep of Unity. And, as Ibn al Arabi has pointed out, as soon as God decided to create mankind, God was obligated to allow mankind freedom of expression, otherwise no actual development would be possible.

I have this science fiction trilogy written by Michael Gear, one of my more favorite authors. In it are a cast of characters derived from the native peoples of the American South West who have given God a personality which they call Spider. Throughout the books they are constantly asking the question, when you die what story will you take back to Spider? So I ask you, what story are you creating to take back to God?

Love and Blessings, Musawwir

2 comments:

Suriya said...

What story to take back to God? I am now just starting to enjoy what I do . Especially work. Am also learning surrender and acceptance , though it is not easy to do when things happen through no part of mine but I have to solve the consequences ..still am learning this as well.I will tell God I did the best I could to live my life purpose and I tried my best to follow the guidance of the Prophets and also the inner guidance , as much as I could understand what that is. I will tell God I did not conform to what people around me were saying or doing but that I found my own path yet at the same time I never rebelled against what I believed was a message from God and was true to the Message as best as I could be

Anonymous said...

Take back at story? Why wait? The experience we're having right now is about me and Spidie (you know, nicknames come easy for those we love).

I love my work, I get to spend all day with 60 drug addicts spending six months learing about themselves and how to live in community. Tonight I had a man in my office who is just off of 28 years with heroin and dealing. Today he was having a crisis of self-loathing, because he's happy to give up heroin, but he can't imagine supporting his family without dealing drugs. We talked about what a loving husband and father he is and how much he will benefit from spending these six months learning to trust himself and his higher power.

Life is never purely good or evil, for me the story I share with my God is so much better since I became able to trust that I am not alone.