CAUSE AND EFFECT

KEYS – T28f/33=TEXT pages 28&29 in 1^st edition – page 33 in 2^nd edition. W=Workbook. M=Teachers Manual. SOP=A Song of Prayer. PPP=Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice.

Cause: “That which produces or contributes to an effect.”  Effect: “The result of a product or operation; the consequence.”  Is it not true that nothing can occur without a cause? How – other than by accident or plan could our universe and all life forms exist? While experiencing mortal life on earth, how can we not believe it happened? If the universe and everything in it is an effect, what then, caused its existence?

Do not our senses interpret form and relay details of the experiences we want - both pleasing and painful? What else can the body do but perceive - and does not perception often deceive? What but all-knowledge knows? How can human experiences bring knowledge of all if only all-knowledge knows the cause of them?

Is it not true that effects cannot exist without a cause? For example, if someone is struck on the arm, wouldn’t the pain and bruise prove the blow took place? Is it not also true that what is causeless can have no effects? For example, without the blow, how could there be a bruise?

What if we applied this understanding to help unravel some teachings from Jesus, such as, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew Ch.5v.48)? Is not death caused by Adam’s sin and is not birth the number one cause of death? How, then, can we sinful mortals be as “perfect” as God?

Who or what caused humanity? If we are not perfect, what caused our imperfection? If we exist by an accident of nature, why not get whatever we can, whenever we can, while we can? If by design, however, could there be another path, one that instead of desiring to get, strives to give?

Does not most of the world believe that everything we see is from either nature or God? However, can nature be the source of trillions of different life forms, all needing both male and females for reproduction? If not, are we not left with an omnipotent and perfect Creator being the cause of all that is? Yet how can a perfect creator create imperfection - and how can a perfect creation change and become imperfect?

What causes fear, imperfection, desire, lack, intelligence, blindness, anger, envy, blue eyes, talent, good and bad luck? Must there not be countless causes for countless effects – yet what if there is only one?

Is it not true that some believe that pain and suffering are necessary to gain eternal perfect peace and harmony? If that were so, wouldn’t God also need to embark on a similar journey? Can anyone really believe that our loving Father would deliberately put us where we could be harmed? Do we know any loving parents who would do that to their children?

Do not most of us believe that a powerful creator created this universe? Is it not reasonable to accept that God’s children - inheriting the same power of the Father – could be equally powerful enough to “create” this universe? If not, why not? If so, what effect does acknowledging this have on our belief system?

In our world, do we not “create” mortals by physical means? How does God create, by making His children out of mud and blowing life through their noses? Who but the eternal gives eternal gifts? What but the all-power of love creates an invisible and indivisible family? Can anything change or affect what God created? Was not eternal life denied us because of Adam’s “sin”? Isn’t God angry if things don’t work out the way He wanted? How couldn’t they have worked out - unless His will is not all-powerful?

Can a new born baby wish for some disability - or an adult request a deadly disease? Might the difference between cause and effect be that the child and adult are the ones experiencing, while it is an eternal Son of God who wants the experience through the human form?

How can we know of sinlessness and purity while experiencing corruption, sin and guilt? How can we reconcile pain, suffering and death as part of a perfect plan from a perfect Creator? What can trials and tribulations be other than effects of an angry and vengeful god?

Would we open a locked door while believing safety lies inside a prison of fear? Wouldn’t locking ourselves in result in locking everyone else out? Have we locked ourselves inside a container we call “body”? Does not truth free and therefore false imprison? Are not both beliefs and faith effects that  substitute for knowledge and serve only to make real what we want to be real?

Does not needing to gain result in losing awareness of the reality of eternal peace? Do not all activities stem from the wish to acquire what is believed missing? Who does anything intending to lose, or for no reason? Would not giving bring a benefit to the giver?

If love shared is what God’s creation is, would not its sharing be what we understand as “increasing?” Yet can infinity increase? Can eternal creation have ever begun or eventually end? What is the effect of changeless reality other than unchangeable perfection?

What is the cause of pain, sickness, injustices, accidents, tragedies, suffering and death? Are we not all an effect? If so, could the cause of us be our powerful higher self, dreaming we have become a lower self? If so, wouldn’t it be by understanding that human life is the effect of either an unloving creator or an unforgiving, deadly world? Does the solution not become clear and readily available when understanding we are only the effect of vivid imagination? Can there be any way out if we are real and not imagined?

What mortal has all-power? What omnipotent being is vulnerable? Could our collective mind be the source of power? Might our universe be the result of our shared thought? Could we have jointly made up this world in our powerful mind to serve our human identities?

What would it mean to discover there are no mistakes? Can we learn and readily accept that in reality nothing can happen without agreement because we are all one? If this were true, wouldn’t that mean there are no accidents and no victims? Should we be able to break the agreement anytime we choose, wouldn’t that regain awareness of our shared inheritance as children of God – not man?

Does not seeing error deny a perfect loving creator? What but an imperfect creator can be feared? If witnessing imperfection makes it fact, wouldn’t the truth of perfection be unrecognized and therefore unknown?

What if we really only create history in our dream, consisting of victimization, brief moments of happiness, differences, error, envy, grief, suffering, hate, sickness, death, evil and so on? Do these not testify to an ungiving world rather than only being effects of a mind imagining guilt from belief in wrongdoing?

“I tell you the truth. Whatever you do to the least of your brothers, you do to me.” (Matt 24:40) Is it possible that others can affect what happens to us? What is the result of believing some are unworthy of love? Wouldn’t it not only attack their truth of innocence, but also attack God and His perfect Creation? Is this why attacking someone is really an attack on our selves?

Isn’t to attack to oppose? Can denying others their truth be an attack on their reality? Do we not only attack in self-defence? Are we not all either innocent or guilty? Doesn’t guilt expect retribution which in turn manifests counter-attack? Wouldn’t that increase our own guilt from causing harm to others?

Who would be attacked by a friend? Is not an attacker an enemy? Do we not believe that one who causes harm is unworthy of love and so deserves to be punished? Is this not what creates fear in our minds? If we understood that we hurt ourselves every time we attack someone, wouldn’t we cease doing it? What would be the effect, other than believing we are unworthy and so deserve to be hurt? Who but the hurt, hurt?

Do we love or attack that which does not please us? By attacking anything, are we not reinforcing “wrong” and denying making it up? Do we not believe some forms of attack are more justified than others? Is this where our safety lies or is it in relinquishing all forms of attack?

Can cause and effect have been reversed by idolizing mortality? Might this have resulted in the “death” of eternal life? Could this have been how time and space began? If time is the opposite of eternity, is it possible that our powerful and imaginative mind could have taken a moment to dream of many different experiences all at once? When but in linear time will we each conclude mortality is unworthy of God’s children and choose to return to our Father’s house?

What but desire to continue imagining keeps us bound in time? Isn’t the choice always between freeing our brothers to free ourselves - or binding them for us to remain bound? Are we not choosing each moment of every day which one we want - awakening or remaining asleep? Can we really choose to reject the “free choice” belief in the Old Testament and accept Jesus’ teaching that we are all sinless and perfect?

Who does not need to fix what hurts? Yet how does the world address hurts other than by calling the police about the noisy neighbour or arranging an appointment with the dentist? Who would consider fixing one cause of all effects while believing there are many causes for many effects?

If we aim to fix the cause of our humanness, what do we believe will happen? How would we feel if all experiences ceased to exist - including our “good” ones? Are these relinquished joyfully or in sadness? Who happily discards what is treasured?

Can the cause of weariness be from our total devotion to sustaining human life? If so, are we choosing to remain weary as long as we put all our effort towards protecting our humanness? What effort would there be in maintaining our eternal reality? What do we believe will happen if we remove our protection from what is born to die? If afraid, is not death inevitable? On the other hand, might we be able to reclaim our inherited eternal life? Wouldn’t the means for our departure appear when we decide it is time for us to leave?

Can faith and desire in God’s son be one and the same? If so, wouldn’t everyone believe in what is wanted? Yet, can what is desired by God’s children not be manifested? Could this mean that we will see what we want to see? Would that not reflect the law of cause and effect? Does not belief in a dream being real cause reactions, reinforcing its “reality”? Can dreams of God’s children be wanted more or less - or totally? Does not the same apply to heaven?

If sin is the sole cause of guilt and guilt demands punishment that causes fear, then wouldn’t sin stand out as the prime source of all suffering and loss of peace? Yet, considering that if no sin ever occurred, wouldn’t that eliminate the cause for guilt and restore eternal perfection?

Could the weak link in this chain of sin, guilt and fear - and the one that can collapse all of them - be guilt? Isn’t this where release lies and also where the greatest resistance against change exists?

How did sin originate? What is its cause and its results? If sin has no origin, than how could all its effects exist? Again, put another way, if no one hurt us, how could we have been harmed? No cause – no effect! Wouldn’t that eliminate all grounds for seeking retribution? How can anyone be guilty if there are no vengeful thoughts in our minds?

Who does not believe they are a body and that without it they will die? Isn’t it strange that death is inevitable while valuing a life in a restricting device? Isn’t it time to realize that taking care of what is marching progressively to death will never bring us peace?

Is not the body a means to an end – a device to individualize and separate? Yet if what begins terminates, isn’t being born mean we are all destined to die? Can understanding this motivate us enough to change our minds about our beliefs and values?