The illusion of cause and effect

We (as consciousness) are taught to believe that what we are is a separate individual body moving through time. We are told this from a very early age by all those around us. As we grow up we don’t question this. Why would we? It is what everyone around us says, feels and thinks, it is what all of the structures of society back up. Our education, work and government say it is so. So why investigate otherwise?

The answer to this is suffering. This perceived individual person is believed to navigate life while experiencing fear, worry, regret, anxiety, loneliness and loss. We cling to things for safety and grieve the things we believe we have lost. We constantly strive for an imaginary success that can never be gained as the goal posts continually move further and further away into imagined time. We may feel “we” have got there for a moment, but then it passes and the chase is back on for the “what next?”. We are never satisfied for longer than a fleeting moment. Thought is structured in such a way that makes the holding of this satisfaction impossible. It must chase. It must strive. It must keep moving forward no matter what. It can’t stop still to appreciate this moment. 

Inherent within the functioning of thought is the concept of time. Thought arises in this moment. We are never in the past or the future. Only now. As these images and words arise a thought says “this made that happen”. It’s as simple as that. A thought says it and as awareness we believe it as a truth. Thought says “this happened and then that happened ''. But is this really the case? How else do we actually KNOW that happenings are sequential other than a thought saying so? Without thought saying anything, where is this time? When insight is had, it is seen that all images and thoughts can arise in this present moment and it is only the IDEA that one follows another that creating the illusion of time. Our story is like that of a book. One page follows another and so we believe that this is how our story goes. It is the way it is and has been, but if we were to rip all the images out of the book and reorder them we could order them in any way we liked. They are simply images. The difference being that the images that arise within thought are seen to be OURS. If we see that they are in fact not ours, but images arising within us the bind is lost. 

With this creation of time comes the idea of cause and effect. This is where thought creates two “happenings” and links them together by saying that the first image impacted the second. This is due to the sequential nature of thought. It puts things into sequence which creates the illusion of time and cause and effect. All “happenings” are in fact only images. Static images. As it brings up the last “happening” in this present moment it follows this image with the thought “it made this or that happen”. It links the two images together with this thought and decides that one happening has a direct impact on the other. When there is a belief in direct correlation between images arising in thought and a belief in the thoughts that link them we get the belief in time, and cause and effect. 

What we (as awareness) don’t see is how thought selects what it wants to link and disregards what it can’t link together. Thought connects happenings in a cause and effect sequence, but when there is not an obvious link it disregards it so that it doesn’t rock the assumption of this being the way things work. This is because in reality this is not how things are at all. 

When there’s applying for a job, thought says that the sending of a CV caused the job to appear. When it doesn’t thought ignores this. 

When there’s driving to the petrol station thought says that the driving there caused the ability to get the petrol. When there's no petrol and it doesn’t happen thought ignores it. 

When thought says that “I” posted the letter so it got there. It doesn’t see that it may have got there or not. The posting of the letter is not what got it there. The outcome is not reliant on the first happening. The second is totally independent of the first. They are two totally separate happenings that thought links together in imagined time and says “one caused the other”. 

Planting the seed does not CAUSE the plant to grow. It may grow or it may not. Whether it does or not will be a separate happening to the first happening of the seed being planted. Thought does not have the ability to see that one thing does not cause another as its main job is to link things together in sequence. When sequential thought no longer operates there is no longer the ability to link a "this" causing a “that”, as there is only this moment and as it is seen. There is only this happening. There is a realisation that there is no next and therefore no need to project images about the future and what will cause what. In reality it doesn’t work like that. It is only a thought that say so.