CAUSE

Related States & Conditions | Syntonic | Dystonic

It is the heart which causes every completed concept to come forth, and it is the tongue which announces what the heart thinks. Thus all the gods were formed … Indeed, all the divine order came into being through what the heart thought and the tongue commanded.
Shabaka Text
c. 2700 BCE, Khemetic Sacred Text (Memphite Theology)
in Kemet and the African Worldview , Maulana Karenga and Jacob Carruthers, eds., 1986

Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause; everything happens according to law; chance is but a name for law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the law.
Hermes Trismegistus
Khemetic Magus, Egyptian God Thoth, Greek God of Law & Letters
in The Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy , 1912, 1940

Everything we do is sowing, and all of our experiences are harvests.
Khemetic Saying
in Temt Tchaas: Egyptian Proverbs , Muata Ashaya Ashby, ed.

You are what your driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
c. 1400-c. 800 BCE, Hindu Sacred Text, IV.4.5

The cause of happiness or misery is no other than one's self; it is an idea of the mind.
- Srimad Bhagavata
Hindu Sacred Text

In this fathom-long body with its perceptions and thoughts there is the world, the origin of the world, the ending of the world and the path to the ending of the world.
Buddha
c. 563-483 BCE, Indian Prince, Mystic, Founder of Buddhism
Anguttura Nikaya , 4:45, Buddhist Sacred Text

Everywhere man blames nature and fate, yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passions, his mistakes and weaknesses.
Democritus
c. 460-c. 400 BCE, Greek Philosopher

If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying is true, "Thinking makes it so".
Ashtavakra Gita
Hindu Sacred Text, 1.11, John Richards, tr.

Happy is he who has been able to learn the causes of things.
Virgil
70-19 BCE, Roman Poet
Georgics

A man's life is what his thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
121-180, Roman Emperor, Stoic Philosopher

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Paul of Tarsus
10-67 CE, Jewish-Roman Writer, 1st Theologian, Saint
in The Bible , Galatians 6:7, Christian Sacred Text

If you plant turnips you will not harvest grapes.
Akan (West Africa) Saying

Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many. There is no other cause. And yet Brahman is independent of the law of causation. Such is Brahman, and "thou art That." Meditate upon this truth within your consciousness.
Shankara
788-822, Indian Philosopher, Guru, Poet
Viveka-Chudamani

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
William Shakespeare
1564-1616, English Poet, Dramatist, Actor
Julius Caesar , I.ii

Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness.
Arthur Schopenhauer
1788-1860, German Philosopher

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
John Lubbock
1803-1865, English Astronomer, Mathematician, Writer

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist, Philosopher

Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.
Benjamin Disraeli
1804-1881, English Statesman, Prime Minister, Writer

Life is what we make it, and the world is what we make it. The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them.
Albert Pike
1809-1891, American Lawyer, Militarist, Writer

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
1809-1892, English Lyric Poet
"The Passing of Arthur"

Sow a thought, reap an act;
Sow an act, reap a habit;
Sow a habit, reap a character;
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Charles Reade
1814-1884, English Writer

Destiny lies not in the stars, but in our hearts.
William Wells Brown
1815-1884, Ex-slave, 1st African-American Novelist

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines or rather indicates his fate.
Thoreau
1817-1862, American Essayist, Writer, Naturalist

Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds.
George Eliot
1819-1880, English Writer, Poet

The causes I am inclined to think are there all along, and the events which we see, are only the last steps in long lines of causation.
Alfred North Whitehead
1861-1947, English Mathematician, Philosopher
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead

No event can be wholly and solely the cause of another event. The whole antecedent world conspires to produce a new occasion.
Whitehead
Modes of Thought , 1938

Any work, any action, any thought that produces an effect is called a karma. Thus the law of karma means the law of causation, of inevitable cause and sequence. Wheresoever there is a cause, there an effect must be produced; this necessity cannot be resisted, and this law of karma, according to our philosophy, is true throughout the universe. Whatever we see, or feel, or do, whatever action there is anywhere in the universe, while being the effect of past work on the one hand, becomes, on the other, a cause in its turn, and produces its own effect.
Vivekananda
1863-1902, Indian Guru, Writer
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 1984-1987 , 1:94

We reap what we sow. We are makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.
Ibid. , 2:224

If it be true that we are working out our own destiny here within this short space of time, if it be true that everything must have a cause as we see it now, it must also be true that that which we are now is the effect of the whole of our past; therefore, no other person is necessary to shape the destiny of mankind but man himself.
Ibid. , 2:242

Every thought we think, every deed we do, after a certain time becomes fine, goes into seed form, so to speak, and lives in the fine body in a potential form, and after a time it emerges again and bears its results. These results condition the life of man. Thus he molds his own life. Man is not bound by any other laws excepting those which he makes for himself. Our thoughts, our words and deeds are the threads of the net which we throw round ourselves for good or evil. Once we set in motion a certain power, we have to take the full consequences of it. This is the law of karma.
Ibid. , 2:348

Whatever we are now is the result of our acts and thoughts in the past; and whatever we shall be in the future will be the result of what we think and do now.
Ibid. , 3:45

A man is continually revolting against an effect without, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart.
James Allen
1864-1912, British/American Essayist

We have already had to re-think so many of our conceptions of motion, we will also gradually learn to realize that that which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them.
Rainier Maria Rilke
1875-1926, Czech-Austrian Poet
Letters to a Young Poet , 1992

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.
Carl Jung
1875-1961, Swiss Psychologist, Theorist

Thought is the builder.
Edgar Cayce
1877-1945, American Seer
in Hugh Lynn Cayce, The Edgar Cayce Reader , Vol. II, 1969

We talk about fate as if it were something visited upon us; we forget that we create our fate every day we live. And by fate I mean the woes that beset us, which are merely the effects of causes which are not nearly as mysterious as we pretend. Most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.
Henry Miller
1891-1980, American Writer
A Devil in Paradise

Everything's in the mind. That's where it all starts. Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it.
Mae West
1892-1980, American Actress, Scriptwriter

Much that seems incomprehensible today may prove to be the inevitable sequence of all that preceded it.
Paul Vezelay
1892-, British Artist
Contemporary Artists , 1977

It is not your history or your environment. It is the quality of your mind that determines the quality of your future.
Benjamin Mays
1895-1984, African-American Cleric, Educator

Men determine events, events do not determine men.
Lin Yutang
1895-1976, Chinese Writer, Dramatist, Translator
From Pagan to Christian

If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
Moms Mabley
1897-1975, African-American Comedian

This life of yours is just like an empty field. Your mind doesn't care what you plant in it … but whatever you plant, you fertilize it, and that is what grows.
Wallace Johnson
1901-1981, American Hotelier
in Esquire , 1964

When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves, we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.
Shunryu Suzuki
1905-1971, Japanese Zen Master
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind , 1970

The future is not there waiting for us. We create it by the power of imagination.
Vilayat Khan
1916-, Indian/British Sufi Master, Writer

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
John F. Kennedy
1917-1963, 35th US President

I am the thinker that creates the thoughts that create the things.
Johnnie Coleman
1921-, African-American Cleric

The question is one of fighting the causes and not just being satisfied with getting rid of the effects.
Che Guevara
1928-1967, Bolivian/Cuban Activist

If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting.
Stephen Covey
1932-, American Management Educator, Writer
First Things First

Where there's no gardener there's no garden.
Ibid.

Karma is a simple truth: you reap what you sow.
Willie Nelson
1933-, American Country Singer, Songwriter

The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day.
Gloria Steinem
1934-, American Feminist, Writer

As a man senses, so he is; as he feels, so is his life, and as he thinks, so is his world.
Michael W. Fox
1937-, British/American Veterinarian, Ethologist, Conservationist, Writer

How often – even before we began – have we declared a task "impossible"? And how often have we construed a picture of ourselves as being inadequate? … A great deal depends upon the thought patterns we choose and on the persistence with which we affirm them.
Piero Ferrucci
1946-, Italian Psychologist

Your Silent Master knows Itself as the Source of mental, emotional, and material Energy – your Energy, which you are free to utilize and control in creating what you desire. Therefore, you are a Co-Creator, co-operating with the Life Force of the Universe to shape yourself and the world around you.
Tae Yun Kim
1946-, Korean Martial Artist, Founder of Jung SuWon
Image IV: You Are Creative Energy, Seven Steps to Inner Power , 1991

If you look closely at your own life, you will realize that you are sending signals to your body that repeat the same old fears and wishes, the same old habits of yesterday and the day before. That is why you are stuck with the same old body.
Deepak Chopra
1947-, Indian/American Physician, Writer
Journey Into Healing: Awakening the Wisdom Within You , 1994

The biochemistry of the body is the product of awareness. Beliefs, thoughts, and emotions create the chemical reactions that uphold life in every cell.
Ibid.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Patrick Overton
1948-, Cleric, Writer, Educator

The best way to forecast the future is to create it.
Bill Gates
1955-, American Entrepreneur

Experience is determined by yourself – not the circumstances of your life.
Gita Bellin
Australian Teacher
A Sharing of Completion And Celebration , 1983

Man's chief delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness. All that befalls man – all that is done by him – all that comes to him – happens as a result of his state of consciousness. A man's consciousness is all that he thinks and desires and loves, all that he believes is true and consents to. That is why a change of consciousness is necessary before you can change your outer world.
Neville
Barbadian Writer
The Power of Awareness , 1952

Every human thought, and every human action, is based in either love or fear. There is no other human motivation, and all ideas are but derivatives of these two.
Neale Donald Walsch
American Writer
Conversations With God, Book 1 , 1995

The relationship between cause and effect within the domain of physical objects and phenomena reflects a dynamic that is not limited to physical reality. This is the dynamic of karma. Everything in the physical world, including each of us, is a small part of dynamics that are more extensive than a five-sensory human can perceive. The love, fear, compassion, and anger that you experience, for example, are only a small part of the love, fear, compassion, and anger of a larger energy system that you do not see.
Gary Zukav
American Writer
The Seat of the Soul , 1990

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Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, © 2004