Principle of Cause and Effect:
“Every cause has an effect; any effect has a cause; everything is produced according to this Law. Chance is only a name for this unrecognized Law; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.” – The Kybalion.
“Everything happens according to the Law.” Nothing is accidental. Nothing is chance or fate. Everything is a consequence of specific actions or phenomena, even if at first sight this causality is hidden. Luck and misfortune are terms that indicate an existing cause, but unrecognized or not perceived.
There is no effect without a cause that leads one way or another to this effect, as there is no cause that does not lead one way or another to a corresponding effect. There are different planes of Cause and Effect. A higher plane dominates the lower ones. For the novice, some of these planes are more obvious, others are less.
Hermeticists understand the art and methods of rising the Self above the ordinary plane of Cause and Effect by mentally elevating themselves to a higher plane, thus becoming Causes instead of Effects.
Generally, people submit themselves to environmental factors (genes, instincts, traditions, the will of others) behaving like pawns on the chessboard of life. But the Masters, through exercise and effort, rise on higher levels, dominating their heredity, willingness so that they can become the chess game itself. The Masters also subject to this Law, but in a higher plane, not the one perceived by the layman.
Why there is no happening, no chance or no bad luck? That would mean these phenomena should arise independently from the Law of Universe, of “The All” and as a result, should be superior to it. But ii is something superior to God? God is “The All”, and there is no law outside “The All” because “The All” is the Law.
Any thought, any action we initiate in our life triggers an avalanche of events, each with its specific effects that are the result of a logical operation of Law. No event “creates” another event. It is only a precedent for the others, creating a continuous process. There is also a relationship between everything that was and everything that follows. And any slight variation of the cause causes a very different effect.
The effect of the Butterfly
In chaos theory, the Butterfly Effect describes the sensitive dependence of a phenomenon on its initial conditions. A small change in the initial state of a non-linear deterministic system can lead to significant differences in a later state.
The term, known from the works of Edward Lorenz, is a metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (the exact formation time, the precise path, etc.). They may be influenced by minor disturbances, such as the wings flapping of a distant butterfly, a few weeks earlier.
Lorenz discovered this effect when, by running his meteorological model with a minimum approximation of initial conditions data, he observed that the results are significantly different from those od non-approximate data runs. So a minimal change in the initial conditions created a significantly different outcome.
From a superficial perspective, this Principle can lead us to the thought that we live in a deterministic world and can question the Free Will itself. The Principle of Polarity shows us we that Determinism and Free Will are but the extreme poles of Truth, and they cannot be the Truth but only the half-truth. The swinging between the two poles makes us never reach the absolute limit of determinism or Free Will. A man can be Free. However, he is also bound by Necessity.
The ancient writers said: “The farther is the creation from the Creator, the more determined it is, the closer it is, the more can exercise its Free Will.”
Many people are slaves to their heredity, the environment, etc. and show very little freedom. They are influenced by the opinions, customs and thoughts of their outer world, they submit themselves to emotions, feelings, moods, etc. and do not manifest any self-control. Faced with this statement, they will reject it, with indignation, saying: “How? I am certainly free to act and do as I please – I only do what I want to do”. But they fail to explain where “desire” comes from and what means “as I please.” What makes them to “want” one thing to the detriment of another; what causes them to “like” one thing and not another? What is their justification for “because”, “I like” or “I want”?
People are like the paper boats drifting, without any rudder, on the waves of troubled water. They conform to the environment, external influences, internal dispositions, personal desires, unable to exercise their own Will.
A Master can change the arguments for “as I please” and “I desire” by leading them to the opposite end of the mental pole. He can “reason” and “want”, instead of desiring, he can control his feelings, mood, emotions or the influence of the environment from which could arise “pleasure” and “desire”. The Master, knowing the rules of the game, rises above the plane of material life and in contact with the powers superior to his nature, dominates his own dispositions, qualities, polarity, and the environment, thus becoming a Cause instead of an Effect.
As more and more people will become the Masters of their lives, the sufferance, distress, frustrations, discontents, doubts, darkness will disappear, leaving room for fulfilment, love and light.
Are you able to understand the inner meaning of this?
29. December 2019 – by Diana