Causality in Theosophy
Causality is in Theosophy (as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and pre-Columbian Native American, ancient Greek and ancient European religions) expressed as karma (using different terms of course) – an omnipresent, omni-active consciousness-connected and universal tendency or working or natural law. Karma is complex, and connects everything with everything (to use a common expression, because no ‘thing’ in the universe ever has an existence on its own behalf, i.e. independent of all other things – this is the fundamental Buddhist teaching of śunyatā or ’emptiness of inherent existence) because it plays in all phases of consciousness up to and beyond the divine. Every action (including mental and emotional inner action) of every living being (soul) involves consciousness, life and substance and leads to its proper and just1 result. It is due to karma that eternal change and diversity exist in the universe, and it applies to the tiniest microbe, to forces in Nature as well to highest divinity in the visible and invisible cycles of existence.
This implies that from a religio-philosophical point of view a system in which fake concepts like ‘(absolute) chance’ and ‘absolute unpredictability’ are presupposed, has no real value. It is rather an absurdity; because when the link between cause and effect would be interrupted or collapsed, ‘good’ can turn into ‘bad’ – undermining all ethics – and nothing can be predicted. Unpredictability relates merely to our inability at present, due to ignorance concerning the causal and more subtle levels of the universal substance, to perceive and understand causality outside the realm of classical physics. Causality may involve consciousness on a level we can not perceive at the moment, and which does not necessarily answer to the causality we know on the physical level. A system without causality at least in some interpretations would lead (and has led already) to regarding the universe as a completely chaotic and lawless mixture of matter. Any system that tries to explain the existence of consciousness, life as an emergent product of physical matter will fail. It would, as I understand it, completely contradict the ancient wisdom teachings and their reflections in numerous both theistic and non-theistic religions. Karma, connecting all layers of the universe, seems to be the only explanation for order and logical causality in the universe, and for the existence of the intuitive fact of justice.
- The term ‘just’ is of course not a term of occidental physics, but it becomes a valid and most crucial concept if we regard the universe as One including consciousness [↩]