QA121 QUESTION: [1964] When a child is born as what is referred to as a mongolian idiot, I can understand how the experience of the parents has a role, but to what degree does the child have a role?
ANSWER: Well, you see, my dear, the world is a world of cause and effect. Whether the effect a person has put into existence becomes beneficial or not, depends on the attitude of the person.
Where the person is such an idiot and therefore cannot within this immediate framework make a benefit out of it, this does not mean the benefit cannot or will not eventually be gained at a time when the personality is in full possession of his faculties. This may be comparable to a situation in which someone has an accident during which he loses consciousness. During the time he loses consciousness, he cannot understand the significance of this accident – why he perhaps got into this accident or what made him so careless, for example.
But once he regains consciousness, he can then think and say, “Now, why did I get into this? Did I perhaps make a mistake? Could this accident have been avoided so that I would not have been injured and lost my consciousness?” And this is the same way this has to be looked at.
It is not meted out in order to give benefit. It is a chain reaction, a result, an effect. This effect, as every effect you have put into motion, can become beneficial by your attitude, if and when you decide to do so. It cannot always be done instantly.
