Cause and Effect

What Matters Most…                                   Commentary by Jim High

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect are two words that always go together.  It is something we learn at a very early age.  Who has not put their finger on a hot stove, your tongue on a cold ice tray or climbed too high in a favorite tree.   Young children know when they are being bad (cause) and soon learn some form of punishment (effect) will result.

As young children we are learning everything about life, and we learn well the cause and effect relationship of our individual actions.  We even learn how to do the right things that get us the good effects we want and crave.   Good or bad, every cause (the thing we do) has an effect (the thing we get).  It is one of the natural laws of the Universe, just as sure as gravity.

But as we grow older and have more obligations, relationships, people in our lives, jobs, and yes problems, we seem to forget the Law of Cause and Effect is always operating in our lives.  Cause is still all those things we do, but we have lost the understanding we had as children; everything we do has a resulting effect.  And for sure we adults forget we can always get the effects we want by controlling the things we do in our daily lives.

People respond better to care and concern than they do to indifference and disinterest.  A smile goes a lot farther than a frown.  Something as simple as holding the door open for the person entering behind you always creates a special felling between the two of you.  These are little things, but the Law of Cause and Effect works just the same for big things too.  The really important thing to remember is that this law works equally well in both direction.  Do good, get good results, or do bad, get bad results.  It’s up to you.

Here’s a test any of you can try yourself.  A few Saturday’s ago as I was going up to the Mall, the traffic was very heavy and for some reason the idea came to me that I was going to relax and drive as if everyone else had the right of way, and I would assist everyone I could on this trip.  Almost immediately a lady was trying to pull out into traffic.  I stopped and let her in front of me.  She smiled and waived a finger as a measure of thanks for this very small kindness.  A little further along and it happened again, and I began to feel that I was on a mission.  With each successive person that I let into traffic in front of me, not only did I get a thank you nod from them, but also I got this great feeling inside of me.

I figure my trip to Home Depot took me at most three extra minutes.  I helped five other people during that short time, but the way I felt as I got out of my car and entered the store is a feeling I will never forget, which is why I can tell you about it now.  Cause and effect works every time.

What matters most………………. is for all of us to regain the wisdom of our childhood.  We can actually create the lives we want to live.  Every action, decision, thought we have is a cause.  We are the cause, not the effect.   It takes just an instant to do the right thing, the correct thing, the nice thing for someone else, but the effect of that action can change your life forever.

© 2008 #7 Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467

Your Soul

What Matters Most………………………….Commentary by Jim High

Your Soul

What is your soul as opposed to your body, your brain or your heart?  Notice that I did not include your mind in that list.  Your mind is very close to what your soul is, but those other things they are just the physical or mechanical parts of who you are.  Your body is just the physical shell you live in, much like the body of an automobile.   Your brain is the physical thing in your head that tells your body what to do, much like a computer works.  Your heart is just a mechanical pump that circulates your blood, which beings oxygen and other things to all parts of your body.  These are all physical things.  All humans have them, but they are not you.

You are the Life Force that animates your body.  You are the thoughts of your mind.  You are your personality.  Your soul is the very essence of who you are.  Your soul is not physical; it is mental and intangible.  So where does this Life Force, these thoughts and personality, your soul come from, and where do they go at death?

I think this Life Force, the essence of who you are, or your soul, is what is eternal and is what goes on beyond death.   And I don’t think it began the day you were born, but that it has always existed.  The big hill to climb is to understand that we won’t live on after we die as we live today.   But, will we know or feel the presence of others after we die?  Probably, but in the same way we feel that presence now in this life.

I knew both of my Grandmothers well, and I can sit on my couch early in the morning thinking about them and feel their presence in the room with me.  Oh, I don’t think their ghost is drifting around, but I feel a connection that feels just like it felt to be with them in real life years ago.  Truth is the only people we really would like to see in any heaven after we die are people we know.  If we didn’t know a person in this life and have feelings for them while we were alive, I don’t think we will have feelings for them after we’re dead.  For example, I didn’t know either of my Great Grandfathers, or any of my others previous ancestors, so if I were to go to some heaven, I wouldn’t miss them if they were not there.

Every night that you have a good sound sleep you don’t know anything while you are asleep.  So if you never woke up you wouldn’t mind sleeping forever because you wouldn’t know that was what you were doing.  It is knowing stuff that make us worry, and makes us think.  Dying may be like a good sound sleep where you never wake up. 

If your soul, who you really are, has always existed, maybe the Life Force of the Universe is like a huge ocean.  You are like a tea cup of water dipped out of it.  That tea cup contains all the qualities of the water that is the ocean, but you are not now the whole ocean.  That tea cup of water can do and become a lot of things while it is out of the ocean.  It can be frozen, vaporized, used to dissolve things, or have things dissolved in it.  The salt can be taken out, or  other things can be put in.  But it is still part of what the ocean is because it came from the ocean.

When you are finished with that tea cup of water you can pour it back into the ocean (death) and it just becomes a part of the whole of the ocean again, and is again no different from the rest of the water in the ocean.  Humans (cups of water) are coming (birth) and going back into the ocean (death) all the time.  This, of course, is just an analogy for our lives on planet earth.

What Matters Most………..is the life you are living right now.  You have a soul, it is the Life Force of the Universe that animates us, that connects us to all other life, and that allows us to feel love, sorrow, regret, joy and all the other emotions of life.  Look for the soul in others and you will find your own soul.  Look for a reward for your soul in a heaven after death and you will miss most of this life, which just might be the only one you will ever know about.

© 2010 #21  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467