Question on Causality

[Abhishek Ramakrishnan]

Hello Sir, in one of your posts you said that causality is not what we usually observe in matter and the example you gave is that a match stick lighting a candle is just correlation but the causation is agni dev and that for the fire to be lit, agni dev has to approve the request. If that is the case then if somebody tries to burn someone they hate by putting petrol on them and the person gets burnt, does that mean agni dev has sanctioned this crime and therefore the person is getting burnt?

[Ashish Dalela]

There are two different models of causality, one Western and the other Vedic. In the Western model of causality, the cause is external. In the Vedic model of causality, the cause is internal. The external cause can explain the immediate trigger of an event, but it cannot justify why something happens. For example, if a person is born into a poor family, we can say that the parents were poor so the child is poor. But why was the child born to poor parents, when it could also have been born to rich parents? There is no answer to this question in either Western science or Monotheistic religions. That answer is given in the Vedic system by saying that the cause of your birth is your karma. If your karma is good, then you get birth into a rich family. Otherwise, you will be born into a poor family.

However, even poor parents have some karma due to which a good or bad child is born to those parents and not other parents. Therefore, the parents are the cause of a child being born to them, just as the child is the cause of birth to the parents. Causality is not one-way. It is multi-way. Both child and parent are involved.

Which parent deserves which child and which child deserves which parent depends on their karma. The matching of parent and child is done by demigods based on their karma. If the parents did not have sex, then the child would not be born. Similarly, if the child had not done certain bad deeds, it would not be born to poor parents. In this way, each person is doing some activity resulting in karma, and demigods are matching the karma to produce an effect.

Therefore, in Sāñkhya, we talk about three causes of an effect, namely, ādidaivika, ādibhautika, and ādiatmika. The term ādi means the origin or the cause. There are three originators. The ādidaivika cause is the demigods. They match two actors. The person who receives the action is called ādiatmika or the self-originator. Then the person who delivers the action is called ādibhautika or the external originator. In the case of a birth of a child in a poor family, the child is ādiatmika, the parent is ādibhautika, and the demigods are ādidaivika.

Each demigod is looking after a different department. Kubera is responsible for wealth. So, Kubera will ensure that the child is born into a poor family. Surya is deciding the health. So he will decide if the child is born to healthy or sick parents. Chandra is deciding the creativity. He will determine if the parents are creative or uncreative. In this way, there are three causes. We cannot talk about an effect with just one cause. In Western thinking, there is only one cause. But in Vedic thinking, there are three causes.

For each person, the external actor is incidental because the demigods will find another actor if required. The demigods are also incidental because they will not do anything to a person unless they have done good or bad deeds. Therefore, the ultimate responsibility for some action is on each person. Everything that is happening to each person is solely the result of their past actions.

If someone burns someone else, the person being burned is bearing the responsibility of having previously burned someone. The person who is burning will bear the responsibility for his action in the future, namely, that he will be burned if he is doing it maliciously. If it happens accidentally, the responsibility is little. If it happens during the course of duty performance, then there is no responsibility. For example, the demigods have been assigned a duty to execute. By that duty, they allow bad things to happen. But they are not responsible for that because it is during the course of duty. That duty is delivering justice. If they don’t do that justice, they are culpable in injustice.

Causality is not a simple subject. Modern science has taken out choice, responsibility, and demigods from causality. They are teaching everyone either determinism or random action. This is the greatest type of evil in society. Everyone is being misled. But that is also because most people want to be misled. Those who are not so eager to be misled, will automatically ask: How does this explain my suffering, or why I am poor, sick, or ugly? When they ask the question, then they reject modern scientific education and they seek answers. Then they will also get the answer. So, even if bad education is misleading people, it is because of their own deeds. Everyone has not done such deeds. They ask the question, find the answer, and reject the false education. Ultimately, everyone is responsible for their life, and no one else.

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