The uncaused one causes the chain of cause and effect || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Question: Sir, is everything Maya except for the Absolute?
Acharya Prashant: No, don’t make any exceptions.
Just say–Everything is Maya.
In a sentence that talks of Maya, there is no need to touch the Absolute. The moment you talk of the Absolute in the same breath as Maya, the Absolute is then Maya.
So it suffices to simply say that- ‘Ah! It is Maya’.
Then what is the absolute?
It need not be said, but if one is too curious, it suffices to say that Absolute is that which enables you to make this statement. The statement is- All is Maya. So, the Absolute will not be contained in this statement; the Absolute will be behind this statement. The Absolute would be the space in which this little statement is being made.
You look upwards and you see a lot of clouds and all you see are clouds. You need not say- ‘Oh these are all clouds except the sky’. Just saying that you see clouds is sufficient because the clouds exist in the sky. The sky is the space in which the clouds come and go. So, seeing the clouds as clouds is sufficient. One need not talk of the sky. So that was your (pointing to questioner) first statement and the statement was- ‘Everything is Maya except for the absolute’.
Then at another place you’ve written: ‘We create all of the relative world as we see it, perceive it, think it’. In this, you are taking yourself to be the cause of the world, the creator of the world through the thought. It is not so.
The two ends of duality are not linked to each other in a causal way. One end does not create the other. Both ends are dependent on each other for their so-called existence but neither end creates the other.
Black does not create white. Neither does the night create the day. To think that you create the world as you think it or perceive, is to not to be able to see that the ego is taking credit for creation- ‘I create it’. Ostensibly, the intention is to say that the world has no objective reality. That seems to be the intention but behind the intention, the ego has played its little mischief.
L1: So, now, what would be the correct sentence?
AP: The world and you are reflections of each other, neither creates the other.
If you want to say that you create your world, it would be equally appropriate to say that your world creates you, which means that both these sentences, then negate each other. Hence, there has to be a better way of expression. You and your so called world are just mirror images of each other with neither causing the other.
The question is then what causes both of them?
The Sky.
L1: Okay, the sky or the Absolute reality causes.
AP: The uncaused reality causes all that is in the chain of cause and effect. So cause and effect is thus just an illusion because behind all causes lie the uncaused. If causation were responsible for all this then I want to ask- Who causes causation? So, obviously, causation which is the underlined principle of our world where everything seems to have a reason, a cause behind it is an illusion because ultimately cause vanishes into the uncaused.
