For most of my life, whenever I considered the phrase “everything happens for a reason”, I would conjure some sort of fantasy like divine intervention, guardian angels, the universe conspiring, karma, etc etc.
But today, whenever I consider the phrase “everything happens for a reason”, I think: cause & effect.
No, the consequences we experience are not the result of divine intervention or karma or some sense of cosmic justice—they’re the direct result of our own thoughts, decisions, behavior, and actions.
In his collected works Mind is the Master, philosopher James Allen often conveys this idea:
“As the shadow follows the form, and as smoke comes after fire, so effect follows cause, and suffering and bliss follow the thoughts and deeds of men. There is no effect in the world around us but has its hidden or revealed cause, and that cause is in accordance with absolute justice. Men reap a harvest of suffering because in the near or distant past they have sown the seeds of evil; they reap a harvest of bliss also as a result of their own sowing of the seeds of good. Let a man meditate upon this, let him strive to understand it, and he will then begin to sow only seeds of good, and will burn up the tares and weeds which he has formerly grown in the garden of his heart.”
“Bring reason to bear on all things. Test all things. Be eager to know and understand. Be logical in thought. Be consistent in word and action. Bring the searchlight of knowledge to bear on your condition of mind, in order to simplify it and remove its errors. Question yourself with searching scrutiny. Let go of belief, hearsay, and speculation, and lay hold on knowledge. He who stands upon knowledge acquired by practice is filled with a sublime yet lowly confidence, and is able to speak the word of Truth with power. Master the task of discrimination. Learn to distinguish between good and evil ; to perceive the facts of life, and understand them in their relation one to another. Awake the mind to see the orderly sequence of cause and effect in all things, both mental and material. Thus will be revealed the worthlessness of pleasure-seeking and sin, and the glory and gladness of a life of sublime virtue and spotless purity. Truth is. There is no chaos.”
“Train your mind to grasp the Great Law of Causation which is unfailing justice.”
“Fixed attitudes of mind determine courses of conduct, and from courses of conduct come those reactions called happinesses and unhappinesses. This being so, it follows that, to alter the reactive condition, one must alter the active thought. To exchange misery for happiness it is necessary to reverse the fixed attitude of mind and habitual course of conduct which is the cause of misery, and the reverse effect will appear in the mind and life. A man has no power to be happy while thinking and acting selfishly ; he cannot be unhappy while thinking and acting unselfishly. Wheresoever the cause is, there the effect will appear. Man cannot abrogate effects, but he can alter causes. He can purify his nature; he can remould his character. There is great power in self-conquest ; there is great joy in transforming oneself. Each man is circumscribed by his own thoughts.”
“The cause of your bondage and of your deliverance is within. The injury that comes to you through others is the rebound of your own deed, the reflex of your own mental attitude. They are the instruments, you are the cause.”
“Where the ordinary mind sees disaster and confusion, the mind of the philosopher sees the most perfect sequence of cause and effect, and where the materialist sees nothing but endless death, the mystic sees pulsating and eternal life.”
“As the effect is related to the cause, so is prosperity and power related to the inward good, and poverty and weakness to the inward evil.”
“All things are proportionate; All circumstances are just; All events are of causation. He who has received the Light of Truth sees all things in their right relations. All things are ruled by causation; All things are of the nature of causation; There is nothing which is not contained in cause and effect. Cause and effect are one.”
Check Out James Allen’s Book Mind is the Master at Lifeology Bookshop:
In his book Abundance: The Inner Path To Wealth, author Deepak Chopra writes:
“The doctrine of karma doesn’t justify calling life fair or unfair. Karma is simply the leftover results of past actions—in Sanskrit the word Karma simply means “action.” An air of mystery surrounds the whole notion of good and bad karma, but in everyday life we totally depend on karma, because it is the same as cause and effect. If the connection between cause and effect didn’t exist, nothing would be predictable.”
“Whenever people refer to good karma and bad karma, what they generally have in mind is good or bad luck. Out of the blue, somebody wins a fortune from the lottery or, at the other extreme, loses everything they have when the economy crashes. At a higher level of complexity, karma implies something more: Where luck feels accidental, karma is woven into the complex scheme of cause and effect. Once you cause something to happen, the effect is inevitable. It seems as if karma, keeping track of all your actions—good and bad—follows you around, keepign you trapped in situations you want to escape, sometimes desperately.
Does such a thing exist, and invisible force that overrules our best intentions and brings sudden rewards almost with no effort? This was never the purpose behind the theory of karma, which doesn’t imply a fateful force beyond our control. Action is certainly under our control, and the only thing that the doctrine of karma adds is unforeseen consequences, which is not an alien or exotic concept.
If you look at every action you have ever taken, along with the consequence of each action, the sum total is your personal karma. Can this calculation actually be made? No, not in the course of everyday life, because there are simply too many actions entangled with too many consequences to remotely calculate. . .Karma only becomes practical in daily life if you reduce it to factors you can change.”
Check Out Deepak Chopra’s Book Abundance: The Inner Path To Wealth at Lifeology Bookshop:
And I think the following biblical passages also imply the reality of cause and effect:
“For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.” [Matthew 13:12]
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.” [Luke 12:48]
So again, not only brilliant philosophers, but even the bible conveys—purportedly by Jesus himself—that what happens in our lives is dependent upon our own actions. Our thoughts, our behavior, our actions and deeds.
Consider the words of Napoleon Hill:
“The world is not your enemy; it is your mirror.”
Likewise, I believe that it’s not merely a matter of “we don’t attract into our life what we want, we attract what we are” as the popular saying goes, but just as important: we attract into our life what we do (i.e., the results, or consequences, of our actions).
And again from James Allen, in his foreword to Mind is the Master:
“I looked around upon the world, and saw that it was shadowed by sorrow and scorched by the fierce fires of suffering. And I looked for the cause. I looked around, but could not find it; I looked in books, but could not find it; I looked within, and found there both the cause and the self-made nature of that cause. I looked again, and deeper, and found the remedy. I found one Law, the Law of Love; one Life, the Life of adjustment to that Law; one Truth, the truth of a conquered mind and a quiet and obedient heart. And I dreamed of writing a book which should help men and women, whether rich or poor, learned or unlearned, worldly or unworldly, to find within themselves the source of all success, all happiness, all accomplishment, all truth. And the dream remained with me, and at last became substantial; and now I send it forth into the world on its mission of healing and blessedness, knowing that it cannot fail to reach the homes and hearts of those who are waiting and ready to receive it.”
So again: I’ve come to believe that what happens in our lives is not the result of some kind of divine intervention, mysterious magic, or luck; rather, it’s a matter of cause and effect. That the incidents, circumstances, good or bad fortune, etc. that manifests in our lives are resultant of—whether immediate or eventual—our own thoughts, decisions, actions and behavior.
After all, everything that happens in the universe is perfect. I don’t mean philosophically or idealistically perfect, the closest I can come to conveying my meaning is more like mathematically perfect. Think about it: if we could identify and measure every single factor that goes into manifesting an event, then we would see that what happened is exactly what should happen—or would happen—as a result…i.e., the perfect outcome.
Consider the words of Robert Louis Stevenson (author of such greats as Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde):
“Sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.”
But unfortunately, as Deepak Chopra explained above, we can’t identify the myriad factors that go into every single event that transpires in our lives, so the best we can do is live intentionally, use our minds to understand and control as much as we can, and utilize our evolved intelligence rather than our base animal instincts and emotions to influence the desired outcome to whatever extent we can.
So if we’re unhappy or dissatisfied with certain aspects of our life, sure: we can pray, or perform ritualistic ceremonies, or hope to attract what we want via positive thinking or sheer willpower…but aside from the psychological benefit of stimulating our minds to recognize opportunities, stay focused on our objectives, meet others in the same vocations or pursuits who may help us, etc., which actually can aid us in achieving our goals, these actions will have no more influence on what actually transpires in our lives than consulting an Ouija board, or a mystical deck of cards, or a Magic 8-Ball (or any other of a host of superstitious paraphernalia for that matter).
Instead, we need to change what’s actually in our control—our own thoughts, knowledge, decisions, behavior, and actions—in order to better influence the manifestation of our desires.
So, yes to: Reality, hard data, facts, and truth.
And no to: “Woo-woo” fantasy rituals, mystical beliefs, divine intervention, or luck.
Consider this quote by the great stoic philosopher Epictetus:
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.”
And this one by Robert Greene, from his book The Daily Laws:
“Our culture tends to fill our heads with all kinds of false notions, making us believe things about what the world and human nature should be like, rather than what they are actually like. We take all of this for the truth and act on these misconceptions and, just as in the past, the environment and reality eventually punish us for our delusionary behavior. We may not lose our lives, but our careers and relationships take wrong turns. We blame other people [or fate, or the gods, or some other mystical interventionist] for our woes when all along the problem is inside us, stemming from our naiveté and the fantasies we’ve absorbed, which unconsciously guide our actions.”
Check Out Robert Greene’s Book The Daily Laws at Lifeology Bookshop:
And finally, once again from James Allen‘s Mind is the Master:
“The discovery of the law of Evolution in the material world has prepared men for a knowledge of the law of cause and effect in the mental world. Thought is not less orderly and progressive than the material forms which embody thought; and not alone cells and atoms, but thoughts and deeds are charged with a cumulative and selective energy. In the realm of thought and deed, the good survives, for it is “fittest”; the evil ultimately perishes. To know that the “perfect law” of Causation is as all-embracing in mind as in matter, is to be relieved from all anxiety concerning the ultimate destiny of individuals and of humanity—for man is man and master of his fate—and the will in man which is conquering the knowledge of natural law will conquer the knowledge of spiritual law.”
So again, if we’re unhappy or dissatisfied with certain aspects of our life (effects), we need to examine ourselves—our thoughts, decisions, behavior and actions—and try to determine where we’re going wrong, what’s causing the problem (or, by omission, what we’re NOT doing that may be preventing the desired outcome)…and then work diligently to correct our own errors (causes).
Because everything happens for a reason…
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