Factors That Cause the Effect

Divine Life Society Publication: Consciousness Alone Is – A Text Book of Yoga by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Adhisthanam tatha karta karanam ca prthag-vidham vividhas ca prthak cesta daivam caivatra pancamam is a verse in the Bhagavadgita which tells how many factors are involved in the production of an effect—such as success, for instance. Your physical and mental strength is one factor. Suppose you are a sickly person; you are crawling and coughing, have aches of every kind, fever, and also the mind is oscillating. You may not be considered ready for this work. The psychophysical condition is one factor—adhisthana. Adhisthana is the basis itself, which is your mental and physical condition. You must be very clear that your condition is perfectly fit for this adventure.

Then comes tatha karta, the intention behind the adventure which you are trying to embark upon. This is a very important factor. Why do you do anything? What is the intention behind it? Vague, various and multi-faceted are the answers to this question. If you ask any yoga student, "Why are you practicing yoga?" each person will give a different answer. One will say, "I want freedom." Another will say, "I want to become a teacher of yoga." A third will say, "I want to regulate my breathing." A fourth will say, "I want to increase my height." These are the answers. Or rarely, without actually knowing what they are speaking, one may say, "I want to attain God, whatever God is." Even this good answer that you want God is not a clear answer. It is a child's answer about something which you cannot understand. The intention behind your practice should be very, very clear. Each one of you is your own master in this respect, and do not make mistakes by having wrong motives or intentions. That is the implication of the word 'karta' in this verse of the Bhagavadgita. Adhisthana is the psychophysical condition; karta is the intention of the person inside—the ego, as it is called.

Karanam ca prthag-vidham. The third factor is the facilities that you have to do this practice. Have you adequate facilities? Have you a room to stay in, or are you in the wind outside? Have you some means of eating a single meal in a day, or are you starving? Or, is there any other opposition from anywhere? Is there any kind of hindrance, whatever it be, from inside or outside? All the facilities necessary for this practice should also be there. These are the karanas, or the instruments of action. These instruments are not necessarily physical instruments; they are conditions that are to be considered as conducive. So, adhisthana, karta and karana are the three factors mentioned.

Vividhas ca prthak cesta. The fourth factor is the possibility of your being engaged in various types of activity, while your intention is to be engaged in only one. Vividha cesta is the practice of circumstances which also are possible in your case, though your intention is to wean yourself from all these possible extraneous actions and concern yourself with only one type of action. That is, if you have the facility to do something, you may do it, though that is not your intention. For instance, even if you have no intention to commit theft and are not thinking about it, but are placed under certain circumstances where to commit that action is most easy and nothing will happen if you do it, then the possibility of stealing may manifest into action.

Actually, there should not even be the possibility. Even if gold is heaped in front of you, the idea of owning it should not arise in your mind. Even the idea should not arise. You should not have doubts in the mind. "If I get it, it's all right, though I was told that it should not be done." You have a dubious attitude at that time. You want it, but some other pressure from inside says that you are not supposed to do that. This is a conflict in the mind, a psychological conflict. These are the possibilities of action, from which you have to sever yourself gradually, and engage yourself only in one kind of action.

Now comes the last thing, the last straw on the camel's back, as it is said. Daivam caivatra pancamam: The will of the cosmos will decide your fate. "Oh, this is something very terrible. You have already said something which is like a thunderbolt on the head, after all this which was so nice to hear, that finally it looks that it is not in our hands." You do not know what the judge will say in the court, all your arguments notwithstanding. Finally, it is the whim and fancy of the judge. One sentence is sufficient, and the case is lost. Is it so? Is the Gita frightening you by saying that finally the will of the Universal is the ultimate factor and if that will is not operating, nothing will work? Are you dependent on that will? Are you totally subservient to something outside you so that you are at the mercy of something? Then what is the good of any effort? Everything that has been told seems to be useless if, finally, you are helpless in the hands of a power that is beyond you and totally external to you. But this is not the case.

You were not told that you are helpless and you are at the mercy of somebody else. The difficulty arises because you have somehow slipped into the wrong notion that the Universal Will is outside you. This has been the point that we have been hammering again and again: the object of perception, even if it is God Himself, is not external to you. So the Universal Will, which is the final conditioning factor of all your victory and success in yoga, is not a frightening externality. It is not an outside judge sitting in a court, apart from you. It is a judiciary operating in your own heart. Because the will of the cosmos operates within you also, your will is not working in a fashion totally dissonant with the will of the cosmos.

These few words are only a description of the preparation that one has to make for this great adventurous march of the soul to what you consider as the unknown—the unknown being your own higher Self. You are going to pursue your own higher Self. These things about which you have heard up to this time—such as the adhidaiva which is the intermediary consciousness between adhibhuta and adhyatma, the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether, the tanmatras, and even space-time—are not outside you.

Excerpts from

Factors That Cause The Effect -  Consciousness Alone Is – A Text Book of Yoga by Sri Swami Krishnananda