In our last exploration, “From Anguish to Instrument,” we arrived at a profound resolution to the problem of action: the state of being a Nimitta Mātram, a divine instrument. In this state, the anxious, decision-making “I” gives way, and action flows through us as a divine command. Arjuna doesn’t decide to fight; the fight is the form his surrender takes. This is a powerful and liberating understanding.
But it immediately begs a deeper question. What is the nature of the world in which this instrument acts? What of the intricate web of cause and effect that governs our lives? A subsequent dialogue pushed into this territory, proposing a thesis so radical it seeks to dismantle the very foundation of our perceived reality. The new proposition: Causality itself is an illusion.
From Causal Chains to Co-Emergence
The conventional world operates on a simple, unquestioned belief: A causes B. Effort causes results. Planning leads to execution. This linear model is the bedrock of our societies, our sciences, and our personal sense of agency.
The philosophy that unfolded in our dialogue challenges this head-on. It suggests that what we perceive as a causal chain is, in fact, a series of co-emergent phenomena. The plan, the effort, the execution, and the result are not sequential links. They are like multiple, distinct waves that arise simultaneously from a single, unified movement of the ocean. They “emerge” together from an indivisible source.
From this vantage point, “cause” and “effect” are revealed as conceptual labels the mind imposes on a seamless, holistic reality. We break the unbroken flow of existence into a story of “this, then that” to make sense of it, but in doing so, we mistake our story for reality itself.
This understanding finds its perfect expression in the Advaita Vedantin concept of Mithya. The world is Mithya—not because it is non-existent (a wave is real enough to surf on), but because it has no independent existence apart from its source (Brahman). Every object, every event, every person is a functional, temporary appearance emerging from and sustained by an unchanging substratum.
A Dialogue with Western Philosophy
This idea, while sounding mystical, has a fascinating and unexpected ally in the heart of the Western Enlightenment: the skeptical philosopher David Hume. Hume argued that we never actually perceive a “necessary connection” between a cause and an effect. We only witness a “constant conjunction” of events. After seeing a thousand billiard balls collide, we form a strong psychological habit of expecting the second ball to move, but we never see the “force” or “causation” itself. For Hume, causality was a projection of the mind.
But if Hume provides a surprising resonance, Immanuel Kant provides a formidable challenge. In response to Hume, Kant proposed that causality is not an illusion to be seen through, but a fundamental, built-in structure of the mind itself. It is one of the a priori “lenses” through which all our experiences are filtered. To try and perceive a world without causality, for Kant, would be like an eye trying to see itself. It’s a structural impossibility.
This creates a stark choice: Is causality a deeply ingrained but ultimately false belief we can transcend? Or is it a non-negotiable condition of consciousness, a prison from which we can never escape because it forms the very walls of the cell?
The Unsettling Question: The Problem of the Drowning Child
This philosophical tension—between the Vedantin seer, the Humean skeptic, and the Kantian analyst—is not merely an academic debate. It spills over into the most critical domain of our lives: ethics.
If every event is simply “emergence,” what becomes of compassionate action? Our dialogue confronted this directly. If I witness a child drowning, is my impulse to save them—or my paralysis and failure to act—both just two different emergent phenomena, morally equivalent waves in the ocean of Brahman?
The philosophy of emergence seems to risk leading to a profound moral quietism. It threatens to dissolve the urgency of compassion. If my action to help is just Mithya, and the child’s suffering is also Mithya, why act? Why not simply witness the unfolding emergence of a tragedy with serene detachment?
This disturbing question—the problem of the drowning child—became the crucible for the final and most radical stage of our dialogue. The response would not be an ethical guideline or a philosophical argument, but a declaration that sought to invert the nature of reality itself. We will explore that stunning conclusion in our final post.
Reinvent The Self! 