Cause and effect (BG and SB)

Expressions researched:
"cause and effect" |"cause and the effect"

BG Chapters 13 - 18

BG 13.5, Translation:

That knowledge of the field of activities and of the knower of activities is described by various sages in various Vedic writings. It is especially presented in Vedānta-sūtra with all reasoning as to cause and effect.

BG 13.5, Purport:

It is mentioned here that the codes of the Brahma-sūtra are very nicely arranged according to cause and effect. Some of the sūtras, or aphorisms, are na viyad aśruteḥ (2.3.2), nātmā śruteḥ (2.3.18), and parāt tu tac-chruteḥ (2.3.40). The first aphorism indicates the field of activities, the second indicates the living entity, and the third indicates the Supreme Lord, the summum bonum among all the manifestations of various entities.

BG 13.13, Translation:

I shall now explain the knowable, knowing which you will taste the eternal. Brahman, the spirit, beginningless and subordinate to Me, lies beyond the cause and effect of this material world.

BG 16.8, Purport:

The demonic conclude that the world is phantasmagoria. There is no cause and effect, no controller, no purpose: everything is unreal. They say that this cosmic manifestation arises due to chance material actions and reactions. They do not think that the world was created by God for a certain purpose. They have their own theory: that the world has come about in its own way and that there is no reason to believe that there is a God behind it.

SB Canto 1

SB 1.2.30, Translation:

In the beginning of the material creation, that Absolute Personality of Godhead (Vāsudeva), in His transcendental position, created the energies of cause and effect by His own internal energy.

SB 1.17.18, Purport:

There are many theoretical philosophers in the world who put forward their own theories of cause and effect especially about the cause of suffering and its effect on different living beings. Generally there are six great philosophers: Kaṇāda, the author of Vaiśeṣika philosophy; Gautama, the author of logic; Patañjali, the author of mystic yoga; Kapila, the author of Sāṅkhya philosophy; Jaimini, the author of Karma-mīmāṁsā; and Vyāsadeva, the author of Vedānta-darśana.

SB Canto 2

SB 2.4.6, Purport:

An inexperienced boy may be struck with wonder by seeing the impersonal actions of electronics or many other wonderful things conducted by electrical energy, but an experienced man knows that behind the action is a living man who creates such energy. Similarly the so-called scholars and philosophers of the world may, by mental speculation, present so many utopian theories about the impersonal creation of the universe, but an intelligent devotee of the Lord, by studying the Bhagavad-gītā, can know that behind the creation is the hand of the Supreme Lord, just as in the generating electrical powerhouse there is the resident engineer. The research scholar finds out the cause and the effect of everything, but research scholars as great as Brahmā, Śiva, Indra and many other demigods are sometimes bewildered by seeing the wonderful creative energy of the Lord, so what to speak of the tiny mundane scholars dealing in petty things.

SB 2.5.2, Purport:

The inquiries by Nārada Muni on the basis of factual cause and effect appear very reasonable. The atheists, however, put forward many self-made theories without any touch of cause and effect. The manifested world, as well as the spirit soul, is still unexplained by the godless atheists through the medium of experimental knowledge, although they have put forward many theories manufactured by their fertile brains. Contrary to such mental speculative theories of creation, however, Nārada Muni wanted to know all the facts of creation in truth, and not by theories.

SB 2.5.19, Translation:

These three modes of material nature, being further manifested as matter, knowledge and activities, put the eternally transcendental living entity under conditions of cause and effect and make him responsible for such activities.

SB 2.5.19, Purport:

By the covering power of the material energy, the material scientist cannot look beyond the material causes, but factually, behind the material manifestations, there are adhibhūta, adhyātma and adhidaiva actions, which the conditioned soul in the mode of ignorance cannot see. The adhibhūta manifestation entails repetitions of births and deaths with old age and diseases, the adhyātma manifestation conditions the spirit soul, and the adhidaiva manifestation is the controlling system. These are the material manifestations of cause and effect and the sense of responsibility of the conditioned actors. They are, after all, manifestations of the conditioned state, and the human being's freedom from such a conditioned state is the highest perfectional attainment.

SB 2.5.26-29, Purport:

The whole process of creation is an act of gradual evolution and development from one element to another, reaching up to the variegatedness of the earth as so many trees, plants, mountains, rivers, reptiles, birds, animals and varieties of human beings. The quality of sense perception is also evolutionary, namely generated from sound, then touch, and from touch to form. Taste and odor are also generated along with the gradual development of sky, air, fire, water and earth. They are all mutually the cause and effect of one another, but the original cause is the Lord Himself in plenary portion, as Mahā-Viṣṇu lying in the causal water of the mahat-tattva.

SB 2.6.33, Translation:

My dear son, whatever you inquired from me I have thus explained unto you, and you must know for certain that whatever there is (either as cause or as effect, both in the material and spiritual worlds) is dependent on the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

SB 2.6.33, Purport:

The complete cosmic situation, both in the material and in the spiritual manifestations of the energies of the Lord, is working and moving first as the cause and then as the effect. But the original cause is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Effects of the original cause become the causes of other effects, and thus everything, either permanent or temporary, is working as cause and effect. And because the Lord is the primeval cause of all persons and all energies, He is called the cause of all causes, as confirmed in the Brahma-saṁhitā as well as in the Bhagavad-gītā.