Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
- Robert A. Heinlein
...so then they started a deep and exhaustive study of cause-effect relationships. As a result of this investigation and study, they reduced their entire data into three laws of causation.
When I am now repeating these three laws of causation, you will have to remember. If you are pre-occupied with something else, you better stop it and go there and finish it and come back. Without remembering the three causes, or the three laws, you will not be able to follow what I am talking. I warn you.
The three laws they deduced from their entire study: number one - the law: An effect can never be without a cause.
The waves cannot be without the ocean. Ornaments cannot be made without gold. Pots can never be made without clay. An effect is not possible without a cause. Law number one.
Number two: Effects are, in plural, nothing but the cause itself in different forms.
The big wave, the medium wave, and the small wave, and the ripples, the foam and the lather and the bubble, are all different forms of the ocean - the cause. The jug, the cup, the saucer, the plates, the flower vase are all different shapes and different names - for what? Clay in different forms. The bangles and the rings and the chain and the ear-ring are all different names, different shapes, different uses, but all of them are gold in different forms.
So their first law: effect cannot be without a cause and number two: effects are cause itself in different forms. And number three: From the effect, if the cause is removed, nothing remains.
If the wave is transferred to the hills, there will be no waves. From a clay pot, if all clay is removed, there is no pot. From a gold chain, the gold is removed, there is nothing remaining. Since the effect is nothing but the cause itself in different forms when, from the effect, the cause is removed, nothing remains.
Three laws, I again repeat: Effect cannot be without a cause. Effects are cause itself in different forms. From the effect, when the cause is removed, nothing remains.
When they got these three laws, they had the scientists' audacity to apply it to the world. Here is a Universe that you and I are seeing and experiencing. It cannot be without a cause. Why? The first law. Effect cannot be without a cause - must have a cause. That cause of the Universe, religion calls as God and philosophy calls it as Reality or Truth.
"Yes, Swamiji, we have heard that there is a God and God created the world. But what our doubt in the modern time is: Who is God? Where is God? What is God? Is he a man or a woman?" - oh! all sorts of worries and anxieties - "Why did he create?" and "How did he create?" and "When did he create?" A thousand questions.
These students of the Vedic period asked all these questions to the teacher. The teacher only cried out: "Shanti, Shanti, Shanti!" (Peace be! Peace be! Peace be!) Why? Unless the mind is peaceful, you cannot rationally think. Excited mind has no capacity to logically think. He said, "Let us apply the second law."
Effects are nothing but the cause itself in different forms. Therefore our assumption that God is above the clouds, that he - like a manufacturer - is manufacturing things and pushing it into the world is absurd, illogical, is a falsehood, is a superstition.
The effect cannot be separate from the cause and therefore the lord, the God, one without a second, when he created the world, he must have created from himself the entire universe of names and forms, the mineral world, the plant, animal and human, everything that you are seeing here are all nothing but he in different forms.
Just as in a pottery shop, whatever size and shape and color the pots be, all of them are permeated by clay. And in a jeweller's shop, everything there whatever be the shape and the use, they are all nothing but gold in different forms. Similarly whatever that you are seeing here, smelling, tasting, touching, in this world of plurality, the entire objective world is nothing but that supreme cause in different forms.
Carefully... let it sink into you. This cannot be demonstrated. It is a subjective science. Think for yourself.
If thus, the Lord is permeating everything, just as clay pervades all pots, just as ocean pervades all waves, gold pervades all ornaments. If he, the known, the cause of the universe is right here in the very world of plurality. Very democratic lord. Not a tyrant who is sitting there above the clouds, manufacturing and sending us here but he is with us. He pervades everything - including you!
Maybe you are an atheist. But even an atheist who may say that "I don't believe in God", he is able to express that because of the grace of God. This Lord, the God, is in everything. In a unicellular organism to the highest saint and prophet and genius in science and art and literature. Everyone of us is enlivened by his presence.
"Swamiji, if God is thus all-pervading, everywhere, pervading everything, where is he? What is he?" The rishis smile in their wisdom and congratulate you for asking this stupid question. Because stupid people in their ignorance can only ask stupid questions. And he says, "Don't get excited. Let us apply the third law." I hope you remember the third law.
The first law was: An effect cannot be without a cause. The second was: The effects are nothing but the cause itself in different forms. The third was: From the effect, when the cause is removed, nothing remains.
Apply.
What is it that is pervading all of us? Plant, animal and human? It can't be your physical body. What is it that is common? The plant is alive, the animal is alive, man is alive. This spark of life is common in all. Is it not? Now that which from you, when removed, you will be rubbed out of this universe, what is it? It can't be the nose, it can't be the hand, it can't be the leg. Any part of the body may be cut, still you survive. What is it there?
"Swamiji, my heart is crushed by my girlfriend!" - still you survive, isn't it? "My ideas have been all broken!", still you survive. What is it that when it is minus-ed from you, you as an individual entity in the world is rubbed out, is no more. It is life.
Whoever you be. May you be Jesus or Mohammed, Buddha. You may be a Kennedy. Think. Maybe a Rajiv Gandhi, so what? Once the life is gone, dead Einstein has no more existence. This life that gives you existence, because of it you are what you are, which enlivens every activity of yours, is it not that life?
This mysterious miraculous mighty power in you makes you do what you are able to do, makes me function. The plant, the animal, the trees, the birds, the animals are all functioning because they are alive. The dead bird will no more chirrup. The dead dog cannot bark. The dead Swami will no more speak. Think!
Then who and what is this mighty power? It is life. And this life in me is the life everywhere. The electricity is this bulb, which is now blinking into me, is the electricity around the world. There are not Chinese electricity different from Russian electricity and American electricity, no, electricity is one everywhere. It expresses through all electrical equipments. Life is one, it expresses through the plant kingdom, animal kingdom, human kingdom - everywhere it expresses itself.
With this knowledge now look at the world through your window. Is it not the entire parade of happenings that are happening in the world - political, economic, social, scientific - are they not all play of this mighty lord? Why shouldn't we call him the lord of the universe? Minus him, there is no universe. Minus life, this world itself has neither progress nor science nor knowledge. Why, the planet itself will be called a dead planet.
All that you are seeing, this scintillating life that is seen all around, are all his play, through the various equipments no doubt. This one mighty presence, which is expressing through all living beings, at all times, this they called as the Reality, the Truth.
- Swami Chinmayananda, Logic of Spirituality
