I posted this thought on Facebook awhile back, but have since expanded on the idea, thought I’d share it here:
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.
In his collected works Mind is the Master, philosopher James Allen often conveys this idea:
“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.”
And I think the following biblical passages also dovetail with this idea:
“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 knowledge, our behavior, our actions and deeds.
Consider the words of Napoleon Hill:
“The world is not your enemy; it is your mirror.”
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 finally, 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.”
In summary, 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.
And if we’re unhappy or dissatisfied with certain aspects of our life, then we need to examine ourselves, and try to determine where we’re going wrong…and hopefully, fix it.
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