Cause and effect – The Economic Times

It is so much easier to throw oneself into social and political activity than to understand life as a whole; to be associated with any organised thought, with political or religious activity, offers a respectable escape from the pettiness and drudgery of everyday life. With a small heart, you can talk of big things and of the popular leaders; you can hide your shallowness with the easy phrases of world affairs; your restless mind can happily and with popular encouragement settle down to propagate the ideology of a new or of an old religion.Politics is the reconciliation of effects; and as most of us are concerned with effects, the external has assumed dominant significance. By manipulating effects, we hope to bring about order and peace; but unfortunately, it is not as simple. Life is a total process, the inner as well as the outer; the outer affects the inner, but the inner invariably overcomes the outer. What you are, you bring about outwardly. The outer and the inner cannot be separated, for they are constantly interacting upon each other; but the inner craving is always more powerful….

Life is a total process whose beauty is to be discovered only in its integration. This integration does not take place on the superficial level of political and economic reconciliations; it is to be found beyond causes and effects.