The world is an effect. What I experience are all end products that cannot be altered or changed. Hence what I hear, touch, feel, see, smell, taste or even any mind experiences are all outcomes, that is. So? What implication or impact does it have in my life? Lots.
Where there is effect, there are bound to be causes. In other words, the outcome of our experiences are resultant of unknown causes that we are not conscious or aware of that “forces” us to experience what we have to experience. If happiness is our experience, we have to experience happiness and if sadness is our experience, we have to experience sadness – exactly what we experience is what we have. Yet when we experience happiness we do not realize many a times the causes which lead to such effect is what make us happy. We may think it is the food we are eating or the money we are making, or the relationship we are in that is making us happy; if that is true, obviously we can recreate that experience and feel happy again – by eating the same food again and again, or making money repeatedly or even mimicking the relationship situation to feel happy – yet and yet, we already know repeated experiences do not give us the happiness – but strange enough, that is what we do anyway albeit in the know!
We try mimicking those events thinking that it is the event that helps to unravel the key to our happiness, but they don’t. Obviously the world does not give us happiness. If it does, anything can be objects of happiness, whether it is big or small. Again the world is an effect and hence, what causes us happiness, or even unhappiness is occurring in the mind and that is what we are not aware of. We are not aware of what is going on at the mind level of that time and make conclusions that the experience we are having at that point is the cause of our experience.
In the same way when we are seemingly mad or upset with someone, we are not exactly upset with that someone as the feeling of being upset itself is already an experience within us, churned out from what is going on beforehand in the mind. That person is a scapegoat, a victim of our error, so to speak.
Similarly when we experience ‘aha!’ moments in our spiritual journey, we do not realize how those ‘aha!’ moments came to be and we try to create those ‘aha!’ moments again or even try putting those ‘aha!’ moments into practice, missing the point that those ‘aha!’ moments are ripen results of the prior conditions set for it to happen at that point. In other words, where there is no condition for it to arise, no matter how we mimic or make those experiences happen, we can’t possibly get back what we have experienced before – we are merely barking at the wrong tree, not realizing that the world we experience are merely effects of a greater mystery that we have yet to understand – causes at the mind level.
And again when we see someone happy – we do not realize that person’s happiness is a result of causes occurring in his mind that that we are not seeing. Somehow when we do not see those causes have in mind meanings like “I should be happy like him”, “why am I not as happy as him”, or “he should not be happy” – we try mimicking it or worst, make judgments at the effect not realizing that what we see is a deal done.
Obviously when we don’t understand how our mind works, we also can’t understand the world. We will try to fix, imitate, judge or be jealous of what is occurring in the world but each time we do that we are merely moving in a circular entanglement, trapped within a merry-go-round of repeated error – now you would understand why you are back to square one again in this dimension of existence; never left, never begun.
***
nothing comes out of nothing
for all things has its causes
arising as effects
manifested as experience
we call the NOW
the Now
merely a brief moment
yet constantly another now takes over
so seamlessly as if permanency is real
and experiences unbroken
yet behind it all
at all times
a mystery unknown
churning, accumulating
causes
that brings to us
a world of experience
of what we feel
be it from touch, see, smell, hear, or taste
not to mention
thoughts that keeps popping up in our minds
we see not what we are unknowingly creating
of intentions brief arising continuously
of which causes are created
leading out as experiences
that we hold onto so dearly
unbeknownst
what is more true
is our intent
and here barking at the wrong tree
all the time
we chase after the world
thinking it is “there”
that happiness is found
or running away from the world
thinking too it is “there”
unhappiness is found
yet
the real world is so near
yet so far
found within the mind
the creator of the world
“out there”
who to blame
what to blame
where to start
where to end
except the mind
the end of existence is seen.
