The old saying, “what goes around comes around,” is actually a jargon interpretation of the spiritual principle of Cause and Effect, which in turn stems from the biblical warning that “what you sow is what you reap.” It basically means that every effect you see or experience in the world must have a cause. While at first glance this may seem like a very simple and obvious concept, it has profound implications for all human beings. What it means is that literally every thought and feeling you experience is a cause that sets an eventual effect in motion. This interesting passage from Lynn Grabhorn’s book “Excuse me, your life is waiting” builds on this point:
“Every time we think of something, we are flowing some kind of positive or negative energy (feeling) into whatever we are thinking about, and the litany never changes: how we think, we feel; how we feel, we vibrate; as we vibrate, we attract Then we get to experience the results. “
It is critical that you understand the importance of this principle, as once you do, you will be better positioned to realize your full potential for both personal and spiritual growth. At its most fundamental level, this principle states that the Universe is indeed a very sensitive energy field, and that every time we make the decision to think, feel, speak or act in a certain way, we are emitting energy into this field that must return it to us in a comparable form. In other words, the principle of cause and effect serves as our own personal ‘boomerang’, which means that it is very important that we do our best to launch that boomerang into the Universe with positive energy attached, for whatever we put there. . will certainly return to us in kind. According to Arnold Patent in his book, “You can have it all”:
“Energy leaves our body as a signal or a wavelength from a radio or television station. Each of us emits a very precise signal. Everyone and everything in our environment picks up some of these signals. However, only those that are on the same wavelength respond to them – The result then is that we attract these people and those circumstances into our lives, who are aligned with the energy signals that we emit. “
Given the previous premise, it is reasonable to conclude that everything that happens to us has its origin in a cause that we ourselves set in motion. However, the problem that most people have with this principle is that they simply cannot understand how some effects can happen to them when they cannot consciously remember having done something to cause them.
From everything I have read, I understand that not all of our choices are made at the level of the conscious mind, as over time we all develop conditioned (i.e., subconscious) responses to a variety of stimuli. It may also be true that a cause set in motion in one area of life can actually have its effect in a completely different area, making it difficult for people to connect them.
Therefore, one of the keys to spiritual growth is learning to discipline yourself in order to become more aware of all the decisions (that is, choices) that you make. In his book “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success”, Deepak Chopra has some excellent advice on this:
“When you make a decision, any choice at all, you can ask yourself two things: first,” What are the consequences of this choice that I am making? “In your heart you will immediately know what they are. Secondly,” Will this decision that I am making now bring happiness to me and to those around me?
As you begin to put this advice into practice, you will be amazed at how many thoughts, feelings, and actions have occurred on “autopilot,” so to speak. Over time, we all become so conditioned, both in our thinking and in our behavior, that we don’t really take the time to look at the everyday situations we encounter in a new light. This is because our subconscious mind effectively operates as a powerful supercomputer, one that instantly evaluates any stimulus we encounter against its vast ‘memory bank’, to determine if we have experienced anything comparable to it in the past.
To make your choice by making a more conscious experience, you must – in a sense – “short-circuit” the subconscious mind, and this certainly requires a bit of effort on your part. While it may be quite challenging initially to bring more of your decision making to the conscious level, with practice it will become easier and easier to do so. Your goal should be to become as aware as possible of all the choices you make. However, given the myriad choices you make on a daily basis (eg, thoughts, words, actions), it is natural that you continue to make several of them on a subconscious level.
My recommendation is that you do not go crazy over this, but do your best to develop personal awareness of the various choices you are making, learning to step back and observe them (that is, from the perspective of the “witness” to the ones Eckhart Tolle refers to in “A New Land” and “The Power of Now”) as you do them. Through this simple act of witnessing, you actually take the entire process from the unconscious realm to the conscious realm. Finally, throughout this process, always remember to be patient with yourself, because as the old adage goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
(The above article is an extract adapted from Simplified Spirituality, Copyright 2002.)