Thus have I heard...
Coincidence & Causality
"There is nothing more superstitious than to be entirely free of superstition."
-Lord Francis Bacon
One character says, “Coincidence is an explanation used by fools and liars.” Another man says, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” Another says, “I don’t believe in coincidence” and still another says, “Coincidence is a wonderful thing.” There has always been some argument as to whether Man possesses free will or not, and if so, to what extent. It is generally believed at any rate that the good events in life are the things that we do, while the bad events are instead things which happen to us. Curiously, coincidence usually retains positive overtones, it normally implies good luck. But this is contrary to the fact that we love basking in the glory of our skills, abilities, and achievements, even when we have none. The moment we step back and say, what a coincidence, we must forfeit some of that hard earned hubris. Perhaps this only occurs when the level of arrogance is insufficient to support the criteria on such occasions.
What was, what is, and what will be, stand divided by time and guarded by ideas, neither of which are real. The one who feels he is a victim of what happens to him has no free will and becomes the hopeless subject of fate. The one who sees he can only become the victim of that which he does, understanding that self implies other, knowing that cause and effect is one process, he has complete free will. He also has the will to remain free, for he does not pity himself in accepting responsibility for all the things which he knew not how he did them. Cause is merely another word for choice; effect being another word for fate. And when dilemma arises, in solving the problem of dilemma, here lies the difference between a remedy and a cure: A remedy makes an effect more tolerable; a cure prevents the cause itself from manifesting.
The word cure is now largely associated with medicine. Cure comes from the Latin cura, meaning care. The original noun senses were care, concern, responsibility, and in particular, spiritual care. In late Middle English, the senses medical care and successful medical treatment arose, and hence, remedy. We do not question the way we live, whether it is right, good, and proper according to nature’s will. Assuredly, our combined delinquencies so conspire that as individuals we only judge them worthy of consideration when our own contribution has finally afflicted us. Having not a spiritual bone in his body, the well secularized individual turns immediately to science. His new religion allows him to keep the errors while avoiding all spiritual concerns, offering successful medical treatment of any symptom which may arise, except his neurosis. So, the current fashion in maintaining spiritual care now involves worshiping headaches by venerating the almighty Aspro.
Our mistaken cures are a kind of remedial therapy that helps to cure us from the discomfiture which is principally due to a bad case of the doldrums. These remedies thereby also produce at least one startling side-effect; they cure us from the need to think about how we made ourselves miserable or sick in the first place. Because of our extraordinary desire to remain as comfortable as possible in our ignorance, we must believe that illness is due to providence and responsibility must therefore belong only within heaven’s province. We have become quite insane really. Rushing around at a million miles an hour, trying to get everything done and accomplishing nothing, or nothing of value. Trying to solve problems which are not real, only to create more and more problems that are. The definition of foolishness is thinking that solution lies in mitigating error by adjusting to it, rather than preventing error by eliminating the foolishness that caused it in the first place.
Concerning definitions, the dictionary tells us that coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection. We find without apparent causal connection to be a necessary part of that definition. Really, this immediately gives the show away. We can, however, also look at the etymology to see what it may provide. Coincidence: In the sense, occupation of the same space; from the Latin coincidere, meaning coincide or agree. It is hard to say if this helps, because if the coincidence happens to be of the awful variety, we did not want that to coincide with our affairs nor would we agree with it. But we frequently find ourselves disagreeing with apparently preordained disagreeable instances in life. At this point it may be useful to remember that the only reason anything occurs is because Universal Law does agree.
Therefore, the only thing we need to get into agreeance with is the reality of lawfulness, for the laws which govern existence itself are utterly immutable. And generally become apparent, or a nuisance, only when we insist on making a habit of doing the wrong things or just doing things wrong. But unless extremes prevail and the necessity for explanation becomes very real, and circumstances require from us careful analysis for whatever the reasons, the intervals of causality mostly go unnoticed. We only pay attention to things we consider to be important; we only notice that which we deem to be noteworthy. Prejudice and preference impose a kind of prejudgment filter upon life as we process its fruits and roots, binning everything not by its flavor but according to our taste.
The survival game is the predominant game. Consciousness thus essentially becomes a narrowband threat-detection modulator. So we build a system of values based largely on strife. Attitudes then form, not according to how good something should be, but according to how bad something could be. And an indifference to insight impels us toward streamlined analogies. It is just easier to say an unexpected good is a coincidence and an unexpected evil is a terrible misfortune. Coincidence is therefore regularly associated with good luck and chance. The negation of coincidence must then include bad luck and be termed misfortune. Any time misfortune arises the universe must be corrupt, and we keep our excuses consistent to remain credible. Misfortune itself then becomes even more unfortunate, because why are the gods colluding against us? There are only two possibilities. We have become the unlucky recipients of collateral damage from the evils of other persons, or it was the work of the Devil.
Man alone creates his own luck, fortune, opportunity, and coincidence in life, but chooses to dwell in a purgatory of self-made misfortune and tragedy. Whether any of it is a coincidence or not depends on whether he acknowledges or rejects the facts, accepts responsibilities, or denies them too. Two men hypothetically experiencing precisely the same thing will each classify the event according primarily to his integrities, and secondly by his powers of observation, reason, and logic. In predicament, the fool proceeds to blame, whereas the wise one gets straight back to work. The former assumes the gods hate him. The latter assumes nothing, for he knows the difference between ignorance proving itself and defending itself. Need I say the latter is a rare stereotype indeed. “Alas, poor Yorick! … Not one now, to mock your own grinning?”
So we get things ironed out before we wear them out. We can reject, deny, and disobey, but cannot break Natural Law. By so doing, however, Law will inevitably break us, and nothing is surer than that. This is how nature provides endless opportunity to us for cognition, or recognition of our mistakes, by means of which resolution of said mistakes may then be achieved. Reformation of the personality can thus be accomplished, that is, if one so desires. Mistakes and misfortunes in grand magnitude and multiplicity become the great transmuter. For want of a nail the shoe was lost. Well, for want of wiser discernment and purposeful living, perhaps a few profligate appetites be lost. Though at present normalcy does not include the inclination to pursue greater depths of common-sense. This is why personal catastrophe, whether apparently coincidental or not, eventually becomes so unnerving that our very survival depends on knowing and doing a little better.
We can name it coincidence, chance, luck, fortune, fate, destiny, or miracle, but the meaning remains the same. These are effects for which we are not aware of the cause, cannot find one, or do not want to find one. An individual may conspire to deceive himself but there is no conspiracy in nature. He keeps right on attempting to spit on the sky, knowing that the densest object always ends up at the lowest point. It is about the same as how one prefers the game of Russian roulette over chess. Learning and obeying rigid game rules in the name of fun is far less appealing to him. He favors the mystery, thrill, and drama, for without effort he obtains these as free byproducts of whimsical impulse. Believing that fate rules with an iron fist is more desirable. This allows him to save face more easily, and when that is implausible, or impossible, fate then permits cutting the nose off to spite the face. I suspect that to lose face for the sake of abstract ideals is either too old-hat, or too hard on the poor old ego.
On one of my trips to India, I met a young man. Demonstrating clearly by his conduct that he cared not for karma, he decided to enlighten me on the subject. He said, “Good karma, slow to return, bad karma, come quickly,” as he merrily wiggled his head. I assume his impatience had bested him, waiting for all that good he had caused to reveal itself. Time is the interval between causes and when their effects manifest. Truth is the interval between the moment one realizes he is the cause, and whether that intelligence manifests. The more one does something stupid the more stupid it becomes, and the more stupid a thing becomes, the more stupid he must become in order to continue repeating it. It is the mercy of nature that the sufferings of idiocy and the intolerability thereof, these happen to be perfectly correlative. Dare I say, is this something more than coincidence?
If one wishes to work diligently towards that golden age, not of humanity but of personal integration and illumination, helpful it is to reverse the tendency to view events or effects as causes. Creation is the empirical manifestation of things as they are, not of things as we think they are. Working from the effects first, i.e., what is, and then back to the cause, and from this position working forwards again, not from a conclusion but towards one. Doing this produces real cures by eradicating the root cause of difficulty, as opposed to inventing countless therapies which merely attenuate the effects. Regrettably, this often necessitates the need to work toward some accountability and not away from that too.
It is believed that the present is ruled by the past. An Initiate once said, “The living are ruled by the dead.” And, as Omar Khayyam poeticizes, “The first man wrote what the last man shall read—yesterday, this day's madness did prepare; tomorrow's silence, triumph, or despair.” On the surface this suggests that the tyrants and villains of yesteryear leave an everlasting blot on an otherwise spotless civilization. That entire societies must suffer decades after the malevolent person has perpetrated his wickedness and died. It is not that this is untrue. A deeper meaning, however, reveals the source of evil and malevolent action. And, as always, deeper insight provides for the relinquishment, or perhaps, early retirement of such an evil. The past, the dead, the first man, these are simply terms for ego, a dead ghost substituting the rational mind, and true human-heartedness.
Beneath decaying headstones, in some churchyard rots alone, mortal remains of despots from the throne. As royal edicts still survive, afflicting youth not yet alive, their nonsense shapes the future of the hive. Vast empires and companies, they do go awry: Through treacherous ramifications, of evil acts and lie, destroying all relations, swiftly do they die. Reflection doth informing, men must learn to regulate, action and thought forewarning, keep all achievements straight. Though man dost lose control, once seeds are sown in space, he’s forever under toll, self-made consequence in place. Those careless in their thought and deed, shall curse the Providence in need; for it heaps upon them as they plead, the unwanted fruits of their follee. Now forced to live in tolerance, and with heartfelt charity, thus accepting liability—for thine own progeny.
Understanding and realization are essential parts of the human experience. But in order to grow we must also remain human through our experiences. Greater knowledge brings greater security. But like an unsalted stew, a life entirely without superstition, without coincidence and the sense of wonder it evokes, would be downright unpalatable. Most persons completely lacking esoteric knowledge still function honorably upon a level of absolute personal sincerity. In these instances, this sincerity itself becomes a kind of bridging virtue, by means of which a larger wisdom can descend, affecting the human person and reflecting the human purpose. Thus the simplest qualities in life cause tremendous good, even when the knowledge of its machinery is absent.
Inadequate knowledge therefore does not always generate conflict. Conflict arises because we do not see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. We are not responding to what happens to us, we are responding to what we are, according to our own convictions. We basically see things the way we think. And no individual can live in a house of thinking that is divided against itself. Either we believe in Law and live it, or we believe in accidents and suffer them. There is no possibility of believing both without becoming utterly confused and destroying all sense of philosophical values within. If one accepts the notions of coincidence and accident over veridical causalities, it is simply because the latter is less attractive and more disheartening. This kind of self-admonition would completely negate one’s current pattern of living. It would require of him the acceptance that the totality of his life’s experience, both subjective and objective, is never accident or coincidence but a perfect manifestation of Law invoked entirely by his own actions.
We may have all the evidence in the world, but we rely too heavily on the fact that evidence itself does not prove anything. Not possessing the instruments, either to analyze or perceive cause and effect properly, some things respond best with faith. Nonetheless: To say that cause and effect are identical is not tenable. To say that cause and effect are different is not tenable. If cause and effect were identical, produced and producer would be identical. If cause and effect were different, cause and non-cause would be alike (meaning causes could then possess random properties but still produce the same effects). For this relation to be inherently existent, the collection of conditions would have to be either identical or different in nature from the effect. If identical, we would have the absurd consequence that the effect was self-caused. But if the effect is different in essence, we have no explanation of how that collection of conditions produced that effect.
There are four conditions that lead to the origination of further conditions or known effects. These being efficient condition, percept-object condition, immediate condition, dominant condition. There is no fifth condition. Suppose we asked, how does the heating come on? We could reply as follows: Because I flicked the switch; this is an efficient condition. Or, because the wires are in good working order, the element hasn’t burned out and the electricity flows; these are supporting conditions. Or, heat cannot be created or destroyed, it is either conserved, transferred, or converted. As such, the amount of heat transferred depends on the speed and number of atoms in motion through bombardment by electrons, and our sensitivity in perceiving thermal radiation; this appeals to a chain of immediate conditions. Or, by deciding we are cold and want to warm up; this is the dominant condition. Any of these would be a perfectly good answer to the how question. These explanations may be concomitant, but do not refer to any causal powers or necessitation.
We can create unnecessary confusions by reducing existence to pieces and parts, by splitting events into causes and effects. All good and well, we first separate things into bits, but later forget that we chopped it. We do this in order to control things better, rather than to cooperate with things better. And, eventually, we become so rigorous and scientific about it that instead of advancing our integration, not only with nature but with each other, we only advance our disintegration. Our over-thoroughness then has us exhausted from trying to explain everything coherently without including ourselves in the equation. In the end, we miss what matters most. Namely, the realization that existence itself can only exist because of relationship. This fact establishes the insubstantiality of selfness and irrationality of selfishness, yet we insist on maintaining our objectifications.
The maintenance of logic requires that existence be expressed such that being and nonbeing must constitute existence. It is a shame we can produce adequate logic in order to discuss existence but cannot seem to find enough logic to exist adequately. Being then might be as intended, a unified field of cooperation, organization, relationship, and agreement rather than aggrievement. Existence, as relationship, creates for us a polarity, a coincidence of opposites, and this is precisely how Unity maintains balance, harmony, and concord, within and of itself. We manage contrast in the same way we would execute a nice warm shower. If it were not for the glorious togetherness of hot and cold water, positive and negative pressure, high and low flowrates, wetness and dryness, clean and dirty bodies, then none of these phenomena could exist.
The point is that coincidence necessarily involves causality and vice versa. It is up to us to see that Good is not a coincidence and causality is not a burden. We are not responsible for the universe, nor is it responsible for us. And it is true that we all live in our own private universe, but one’s entire personal experience could not be more universal. We may have some idea as to what causes the wind to blow, but no amount of effort can ever control it. We can, however, learn to control ourselves, and then learn how to sail rather than row. But even when these skills have been acquired, if he does not know to which port he is sailing, no wind is favorable. The one without direction tends to perfect the art of paddling upstream into a headstrong headwind into vast territories of unknowingness. Situations can then arise where a man may randomly receive a bullet and be unwittingly totally responsible for his own murder. His kind attract trouble like lights attract moths.
If we happen to fly headfirst into flame, well we can never change the past, but we can learn something from it. The reason we must inevitably fall victim to what we do is because we do what we are, and there is no escaping from that one. So the moment an individual begins thinking constructively about establishing things as they ought to be, he is building nobler ideals and truer standards of value. And the moment he acts on these new convictions he makes some new discoveries. Namely that those things hitherto considered to be coincidence, luck, chance, accident, and misfortune, these did not constitute his destiny they merely supported his lack of understanding. The larger the interval between what is and how we define ourselves, the greater the impact of dissimilars will be. The more one’s consciousness is thwarted by ignorance, stupidity, and idiocy, the more one victimizes himself. But he does not have to be the victim of anything when he chooses to live in a universe that is governed by immutable processes.
Taken on a whim this may bring to mind that idea about the law of attraction. That same idea which has been splendidly advocated and preached to us by some acquaintance who suddenly became an expert in positive thinking. And we know what an expert is. An ex is a has-been and a spurt is a drip under pressure. To believe that every time we moved our hand we affect the galaxies in some way, is plausible even if assumed as verity. To believe that the more positive and focused our thought upon an object of desire becomes, the more likely it is to manifest, is simply ridiculous. Thought can indeed bring anything to everyone concerned, it can lead anyone anywhere, that is, if he rolls up his sleeves far enough and often enough. Which is why with no effort at all he can also lead himself down a bottomless rabbit-hole with no way to get out.
The universe cares not for our thinking. We care, and with great exuberance, which is how our preferences, inclinations, tendencies, and prejudices, determine whether we play a comedy, tragedy, thriller, or mystery. Do we play at being lucky or skillful, at being chanced or able? Do we believe in God, or in ourselves, in both, or in neither? Thinking nothing and believing in nothing are hallmarks of great wisdom; thinking everything and knowing nothing are the hallmarks of foolishness. With his frequent mishaps and so-called misfortunes, the fool in all his magnificence has no trouble developing mighty self-pity. And the only options remaining for his beliefs are either that he was born under an unlucky star, has been punished by unjust gods, or is unfairly frequented by Satan with his persecutions. This allows him to simply keep adjusting his theology rather than himself. The one thing he does know is that nature is specifically berating him. Knowing this also prevents the enormous shock that knowing he is a fool would bestow.
Nature of course is not taking anything out on anyone. False ideas and opinions must be replaced by facts and a proper sense of values. Because all nature is doing is exposing us to truth. Whether we make a good or bad time out of it is all in our reaction to this exposure. Truth always comes back, and when it does, it may haunt or hurt, it may instill humility or honor, and this depends entirely on the individual. If he is injured or offended, then he is ignorant; if he is not then his integrities are sound. If his integrity is sufficient to meet the challenges of the day with dignity, then he is ensouling virtues that are endlessly constructive. Bad luck and bad times are therefore merely the happenstance of personal inadequacy. Good luck and good times are simply unfortuitous byproducts of the true workings of a satisfactory inner life.
Alan Watts said that "man has free will to the extent that he knows who he is, not otherwise." Coincidence and causality present the same problems whether we take a superficial view of them or not. We can either say that karma is what I do, or karma is what happens to me, while facts remain unchanged. And ignorances deliver the same difficulties whether we affirm them or deny them. My grandfather once planted tomatoes and grew pumpkins over his back fence into the grounds of the Pentecostal Church. Perhaps it was not his will but God’s. Even when one knows his seeds exactly and sows accordingly, he can plant flowers and grow flowers, plant nothing and grow nothing but weeds, plant everything together and grow a relentless jungle. “Find out the cause of this effect, or rather say, the cause of this defect, for this effect defective comes by cause.”
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