(HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, Lenasia South Africa, 15th April 2012) Lecture: BG 6.30
There is an ultimate cause for things and there is also an immediate cause for things. In the immediate cause for example, let us say that, I woke up and for some reason I have a disagreement with the temple so I take a brick and throw it through the window! We actually had such a situation in one temple during the Sunday feast when suddenly bricks started flying through the glass! The glass splashed all over the temple room and all of the devotees were ducking. We first thought that there was a bomb blast or something. Some hid under the tables.
Anyway it turned out that somebody had passed away next door, and they had the body on the table of that house. They felt that:
‘That Hare Krishna temple is making so much noise. We have tolerated it everyday, but today, No!’
So they smashed the windows. Anyway so then we ask:
’Who broke the window?’
‘The brick? The brick did it. It was the brick. I saw it myself that the brick just broke all the glass.’
Yes that is the immediate cause, but there is also a more remote cause behind. The guy who picked up the brick and threw it. So in the same way there is an immediate cause in this world with so many things!
‘The guy just cut me. He just cut me!’
Shake a fist and so on. But if one can see a more remote cause then one can see that:
‘I had it coming. By my karma it was due to me, for all the cutting that I had done, I got cut a little bit today.’
That is a more philosophical way of perceiving reality, more so in the remote cause!