The Law of Cause and Effect

Taken from a book collaborated by myself, Sharon Coody and Michael Smith - The Twelve Profitable Laws of the Universe

While doing research for this book, there was a basic consensus of what the twelve universal laws are and then there are many optional lists. One writer we researched even wrote about the 12 Universal Laws and the 21 Sub Laws. No wonder people can be confused!!

What about when you are trying to share and grow with another individual or group of people and you are working from the assumption that you are on the same wave length. I bet if you asked them, you would find out their list of Universal Laws are not the same as yours. Our objective was to simplify the concepts and to provide simple, practical ways to apply these concepts to make our lives what we want them to be. For each of the twelve laws, we have included specific questions, suggestions, and exercises to help you achieve YOUR goals, both spiritual and physical, with regard to the activities and situations in your life which are governed by that law.

The Fifth Law: Law of Cause and Effect
All of the Universal Spiritual Laws are inter-connected and inter-dependent. None of the laws can or does stand alone. This may be an explanation for why there are so many different lists – from 7 to 50 “laws.” It is also an explanation for some of the confusion regarding the names of the laws and their definitions. I had already written the chapter on the Law of Attraction and was researching the Law of Cause and Effect for consensus of thought, when I discovered that the Law of Cause and Effect is often equated with 1) the Law of Attraction and 2) the Law of Karma.

So let’s start there, with what the Law of Cause and Effect is NOT. While it definitely is inter-connected with both of these concepts, it is NOT the same as either of them. It is important to differentiate these concepts so we can use the energy effectively.

The Law of Attraction is about what we focus on. It states that where we put our attention draws the same energy back to us. Contrarily, the Law of Cause and Effect relates to causation of everything we experience. It is about choices made, through free will, and understanding every choice of thought and action results in a consequence. These consequences affect the world around us as much as they affect us.

The Law of Karma (designated on lists of more than 12 laws) usually, but not necessarily, presupposes a belief in reincarnation (the concept of re-birth through more than one lifetime). Karma is about the purpose for being in human form. It dictates that the soul’s general purpose is to experience, and through these experiences, to learn life lessons. Further, the concept is similar to Cause and Effect, with reward for positive actions and reparation for mistakes made. The Law of Cause and Effect, in contrast, just IS, without purpose or intent.

We create our world through what we do and what we think. The simple definition of the Law of Cause and Effect is: Every effect has a specific and predictable cause; every cause (or action) has a specific predictable effect.

Causes are the thoughts we hold, the decisions we make, and the actions we take. Effects are the consequences, the predictable outcomes, of the events we set in motion with those thoughts and actions. The Law of Cause and Effect is integral to our lives and forms the basis of concepts such as responsibility and accountability. By focusing on the result, the consequence (the effect), we can begin to act with purpose and intent….changing what we create (again, the effect), by changing the cause (the original thought or action).

You’ve heard it said, “What you sow, so shall you reap.” So let’s use that metaphor. In this example, you determine you want to grow tomatoes. You till a patch of land for your garden. Nothing yet happens, nothing grows. Eventually, if nothing else is done, plants begin to emerge. The plants that grow seem to be random and unpredictable. In actuality, if you tracked the movements of birds in the area and logged the types of plants nearby, you would realize there is no random or unpredictable result.

But you want a predictable crop of only tomatoes. So in the second experience, you gather seeds left from other gardens after the crops have been harvested. You plant them, and some of them DO produce tomatoes. When you planted the seeds, without attending to the type of seeds you were planting, you could not be sure what plants (consequences) would emerge. While some turned into tomato plants, others were squash, beans, cucumbers, flowers, and even weeds. Some were edible and some were not!

In your third experience, you attend first to the consequence you want: growing and harvesting tomatoes. You realize that to get tomatoes you must plant seeds that will specifically produce tomatoes. You gather tomato seeds and then plant them in your tilled garden. You sow only tomato seeds, and thus, only tomato plants emerge.

For every action, there is a reaction. This is based on an equal energy in the original action (or thought) and the resulting consequence. But while it is an equal energy, it is not the same energy because each of us has free will and choice, not only as to how we will act, but also how we will react.

The most important things to remember about the Law of Cause and Effect are:

1) We are in charge of what we create!

2) Our thoughts create our beliefs and our system of filtering the information we receive from our interactions in the physical world.

3) What we filter out does not get created; what we filter in is what IS

created. This is how we create our world. If we don’t like the world we have created for ourselves, we CAN change it….beginning by changing our thoughts.

Example:

Years ago I was a math teacher in a middle school. Ricky, a seventh grader, was in a special class for students who were performing below grade level. Testing indicated Ricking was at about second grade level in math. Ricky was five years below grade level! He was often heard saying, “I just don’t get this,” “I can’t understand this stuff,” “this is too hard.” He filtered OUT the possibility of learning math, the possibility of understanding mathematics concepts. He filtered IN failure, difficulty, understanding, and the inability to do any activities requiring math.

We began at the first grade level with simple adding and subtracting problems. Each time he got the answer, I rewarded him with a drawn caricature with a dialogue bubble saying something like, “Ricky sure knows his math,” or “Ricky really knows how to add!” Slowly but surely Ricky began to change his way of thinking about himself in relation to math. By the end of the year, he was at the sixth grade level (moving up four levels and being within two levels of his actual grade). Most importantly, I knew he would continue to progress because he would say such things as, “this one was easy,” and “I didn’t know math could be fun” when he turned his papers in.

The Law of Cause and Effect is empowering! It means that by aligning our thoughts and actions to the consequences we want to produce, we can create health, wealth, joy, fulfilling relationships, whatever we choose. It is important that this alignment is in keeping with our own spirit and is ecological for others in our lives as well.