Causality/Non-causality

[Guest guest]

The following is the message of the day from the Paul Brunton email list.

Paul Brunton was a student of Ramana Maharishi and later a sage in his own

right. This email list is on www.spiritweb.org

 

Roger

------------

Notes on Causality/Non-causality:19-4.75

 

"All our thinking is shaped into the mold of causality and this not by our

own choice but by Nature's."

 

"Nothing can enter experience which is not thrown by the mind into a causal

form. The mind being capable only of experiencing in this way is incapable

of grasping the essentially real in experience."

 

"All that we know of Nature is our own mental experience of it; and all

that we know of causality in Nature is likewise only the way in which that

mental experience arranges itself."

 

"The causal habit, like that of time and space, is one of the cardinal

habits of thinking and one of the fixed forms of awareness. It is our lack

of comprehension of the way in which the mind works, the relation between

consciousness, ego, and mind, which makes it inevitable for us to fall

victim to these three great illusions of the race."

 

"The bias towards belief in causality is so universally ingrained in

mankind that religious teachers had to explain the world in causal terms

first. But the Vedantists used such causal explanations as steps to mount

up towards non-causality. They taught that the world is a creation and its

creator the pure spirit Brahman, and then led the pupil to enquire into the

nature of Brahman, gradually showing him that Brahman is one, indivisible

and partless. Such a partless being cannot change or produce change,

therefore there can be no creation, that is, the truth of non-causality. In

this way the pupil was led from religion to philosophy."

 

"Creation as an act is different from creation as a fact. Advaita

challenges the reality of the first but admits the second in the sense that

it does not deny the existence of the world. But the question "How did God

create the world?" does not admit of a simple accurate answer. In the first

place it is oversimple and therefore inadequate; secondly it is mis-stated

and omits at least two other questions the answers to which are

prerequisite to an answer to the question in its present form. The infinite

principle of Mind does not will or create the Universe, but within its

seeming darkness there arises a point of light which becomes the centre of

a potential universe. A first beginning of the Universe has never happened,

because the Universe is a manifestation of Mind, the reality which,

existing in timeless duration as it does, has never had a beginning itself."

 

"Causality functions in the ordinary world. To doubt that would be to doubt

all human experience. But when we enquire into its ultimate abstraction we

find causality contradicts itself, it is relative and an appearance. At the

same time we see that the causal thought-form must be added to the percepts

of space and time to bring experience into ordered relationship during the

manifestation of the universe, and lapse when the mind sinks again into

consciousness."

 

'Even so supreme a teacher as the Buddha had to confess, "Unknowable is the

beginning of beings."'

 

"What it is in Mind that impels it to make these myriad appearances as

ideas we do not and cannot know. The question itself is based on belief in

causation, which is another idea, and is therefore invalid because it is

without meaning to Mind."

 

"One valid application of the tenet of non-causality is this - when water

is converted into steam we cannot say steam is a new creation, for it is

still nothing but water albeit its expression has changed."

 

"The world being but an expression of the Overself is not a new creation,

for fundamentally no new thing has come into being. The world is but a

changed

expression of Overself, and as cause implies effect, that is, duality, and

as there is no duality, so there is no causal relation behind the universe.

>From the empiric standpoint - that is, disregarding fundamentals and

looking at secondary elements only - within the universe causality clearly

reigns. V.S.I.'s application of non-causality to the interrelations within

the world is illegitimate."

 

"If causality were not a practical working truth we should plant grass seed

in the hope of getting grapefruit."

 

"We must get our minds quite clear about this position. It is all a matter

of standpoint. From a practical standpoint the world is composed of many

entities affecting and inter-reacting with each other in a causal manner.

>From the ultimate standpoint the world is Mind-essence, and this being the

only existence cannot change its nature and come into a second birth; it

cannot fall into the duality of cause and effect. But the Mind's finite

productions, ideas, can do so."

 

"Therefore it is admitted that causality fully reigns in the realm of

ordinary experience. But when we seek to understand Mind in itself we seek

to transcend

ordinary experience. Mind in itself is not subject to causality."

 

Larson Publications http://www.lightlink.com/larson