Circumstances: Results, Not Causes

It is an error or superstition to believe that an external thing or circumstance can be the cause of anything. All things and circumstances are the accompanying results of a Force that acts from behind the veil.
The Force acts and each thing reacts according to its own nature.
         *
One must not take consequences for causes.
*
Never take physical happenings at their face value. They are always a clumsy attempt to express something else, the true thing which escapes your superficial understanding.
*
Do not mind the apparent contradictions. There is a truth to be found behind.
[CWM2, 14:213]

Circumstances: Results of Past Actions

(Someone asked for sympathy regarding his circumstances at the time)
I am full of sympathy but unshakably convinced that each one meets in this life the circumstances which he has, inwardly and outwardly, built for himself.
[CWM2, 14:213]
People keep lamenting about their lot and feel that their troubles and their unhappy reactions would go if other people and things were changed. Do you share my doubt about this feeling?
Each one is the artisan of his own miseries.
*
It is always a mistake to complain about the circumstances of our life, for they are the outward expression of what we are ourselves.
[CWM2, 14: 214]

Circumstances and One’s Inner Condition

Satisfaction does not depend on outer circumstances but on an inner condition.
*
People think that their condition depends on circumstances. But that is all false. If somebody is a “nervous wreck”, he thinks that if circumstances are favourable he will improve. But, actually, even if they are favourable he will remain what he is. All think they are feeling weak and tired because people are not nice to them. This is rubbish. It is not the circumstances that have to be changed: what is required is an inner change.
[CWM2, 14:215]
                                                                                                 *
If you feel that a change is needed, it can be in the attitude, giving importance to what is to be said and realised and using the past as a preparation for the future. This is not a very difficult thing to do—and I am quite sure that you will easily do it.
[CWM2, 14:216]