cause-effect paradigm

As long as we are in the mode of cause and effect, we will not be able to understand God. This whole world is based on the concept of cause and effect. People are constantly trying to find the cause and evaluate its' effects.

For example, when the Gopis of Vrindavan left all causes such as husband, children, home, duties etc for seeing Krishna in the dead of night simply at the call of Krishna's flute, modern scholars study this pastime within the cause-effect paradigm and conclude that Krishna is a cheap man dancing with other men's wives'. When Krishna lifted the Govadhan Hill as a seven year old boy, the incident is treated with skepticism. How can a seven year old boy lift a large mountain with His pinkie finger of His left hand and keep it aloft for seven days without eating or sleeping? In order to reconcile this fantastic event, modern day scholars conclude these are mythological stories with some moral message. They say this because they determine Krishna's effects' as coming from another outside cause. In other words, they try to find a cause to the existence and pastimes of Krishna as separate from each other. His existence which is the cause is different from His pastimes which is the effect of His existential cause. This sort of thinking is due to material vision about Krishna.

Pure devotee scholars, however, nullify this material conception of cause and effect. In the spiritual paradigm, the cause is the same as the effect. Although there is variety and individuality, still the cause and effect are the same - non dual. Hence Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, that there was never a time that any of us did not exist. In other words, we existed in the past, exist in the present and will exist in the future. We did not come into being and will not come into being. We are eternal and primeval. Although Krishna is the cause of all causes, still from these verses, we infer that we are also causeless. Therefore if there is no tangible cause, how can there be a tangible effect arising from that cause?

Therefore in the spiritual paradigm, the cause and effect is always sat-chit-and-ananda - eternality-cognizance-blissfulness. To intellectually comprehend this phenomenon is impossible just as it is impossible to trace our fall down into the material world. We cannot trace our fall down because there is no tangible cause. One can also argue this in a different way - because there is no cause and effect, we actually did not fall down - we simply have forgotten Krishna hence it appears as if we are in the material world. I think (not fully sure) Srila Prabhupada gives this explanation in the book - Quest for Enlightenment.

So, when the Gopis abandoned all material causes to approach Krishna in the dead of night, their cause was love and their effect was also love. Similarly when we also abandon our desire to find good and bad causes within this material world, we will not lament and hanker for its effects. Only in this condition, can we single-mindedly focus our attention at the Lotus Feet of the Lord, thus focussing, achieve the goal of ananya bhakti or undeviating love for Krishna as the Cause of all Causes, just as the exalted Gopis did.

Hare Krishna