From lecture 196, COMMITMENT: CAUSE AND EFFECT:

The key for many is a complete understanding of commitment on the one hand, and cause and effect, on the other. These seem unrelated to each other and to negative intentionality, but they are all intrinsically connected.

Let us first discuss commitment. What does commitment mean? You use this word again and again, without really understanding and exploring what it means. It means, above all, a one-pointedness of attention; giving the self in a wholehearted way to whatever the commitment may be. If you are committed to give your best to whatever you do, you will focus on all aspects of the subject. You will not shy away from investing all your energies, all your attention. You will use your faculties of thinking, of intuition, of meditation. In other words, you will use your physical energies, your mental capacities, your feelings, and your will to activate the as yet dormant spiritual powers to make the venture constructive. This requires a holistic approach that can come only when the will is unbroken by negative counterforces. In order to be fully committed, no negative intentionality must exist.

Commitment exists in every imaginable undertaking. It does not apply only to great and significant ventures, such as your spiritual path of self-evolution, which is the most important undertaking in life. It also applies to every mundane little task. To the degree you are committed, what you do will be pleasurable, free from conflict, and rewarding. It will be one-pointed in direction; it will have depth and meaning; it will be successful; and it will bear the stamp and feeling of blessedness.

If you give an undertaking your all, and no less, it can only be rewarding and satisfying. But this is comparatively rare. Usually people give only half of themselves and are then confused, vexed, and disappointed when the result is accordingly incomplete.

Here is where cause and effect comes in. When the effect is not recognized as the result of the cause set in motion, which in this case is a half-commitment, a split exists in the consciousness producing all sorts of negative chain reactions. Your confusion will first breed a sense of helplessness and injustice. If you are not aware that you commit only a part of yourself to a venture, while another part says no, and if you disregard that the undesirable outcome is caused by this, then you cannot help feeling embittered. You cannot help feeling that the world is a haphazard place, without rhyme or reason. You will consequently become frightened, defensive, distrustful, grabbing, anxious, and ruthless. Instead of changing the counterforce that eliminates full commitment, you will use the energy to push others aside or withdraw into failure and passivity.

Disconnectedness between cause and effect, that is, between lack of commitment and frustration, creates the need to seek the wrong kind of adjustment. Whenever there is lack of commitment, negative intentionality must be operative.

Most of my friends have recently begun to explore their negative intentionality, the area within that very deliberately says, “I do not want to give the best of my feelings, my efforts, my attention, my honesty, or whatever it may be. I will do whatever I do because it is expected of me, or because I want the result without paying the full price, or for some other ulterior motive.” I hardly need to emphasize how important such an awareness and admission is. It is the key to understanding further indispensable connections. The awareness is not sufficient in itself, however, if you fail to establish the link between cause and effect. It is quite possible to be aware of the negative intentionality and still fail to establish the link in question.

Many of you who are committed to this path have begun to admit some negative intentions, some deliberate withholding and spiteful attitudes, at least to some extent. A few of you have acknowledged to the full extent their negative intentionality, but so far only very few of you have become aware that the aspects of your life you deplore and suffer most from are direct effects of causes set in motion by your negative intentionality. You still ascribe the undesirable suffering to other people’s wrongdoings, coincidence, bad luck, or even some unfathomable “problem” within yourself you simply have not yet grasped.

This is a most important point. I would suggest that you all explore what makes you most unhappy in your life. What do you suffer from? Do you suffer from an overt condition, such as unfulfillment with a mate, or lack of the proper mate? Ask yourself: what is your intentionality in this respect? When you can verify that indeed a voice in you says, “No, I do not want to give to love, to the relationship, to the opposite sex my best,” then you will find your suffering explained because you have drawn the link between cause and effect.

If you have no financial security, look inside to find the negative intent that says, “I do not want to be able to take care of myself, because if I do, I let my parents off the hook. Or I may be expected to give something that I don’t want to give.” It is necessary for you to understand how your negative intent brings the result, regardless of how subtle and covert it is, hidden, perhaps, beneath a tense, striving for fulfillment. Such overactivity may deceive you, and you may think that this should suffice to bring about a positive result, while you continue to disregard the power of the hidden negative cause. Even if you are already aware of the latter, you may still negate its importance. If you are not aware of it, this is as good a time as any to start exploring the inner regions of your mind where you may harbor the clue to the undesirable effect.

Are you frightened? Are you insecure? Do you feel inadequate? Do you feel an inexplicable anxiety and tension? Do you suffer from guilt feelings which you cannot explain and try to talk yourself out of because the manifest guilt seems — and on a certain level is — totally unjustified? Do you deplore your weakness, your lack of self-assertion? All these are effects of some negative intentionality, my friends, that is deliberate on a level that must be totally brought out into the open. For example, if you harbor spite, stubbornness, rebellion, malice, hate, pride — all of these traits must make you feel guilty. Such guilt may find its outlet in an artificial, unjustified guilt as I have explained many years ago. Guilt must also lead to self-destructive acts; it must cause weakness, anxiety, lack of assertiveness, and all the ills you would like to be free of. You can be genuinely free of them only if you make the connection between them and their cause, the negative intention, so that the latter can be given up.