Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer – Carl Jung
We’ve all experienced it – these ‘acausal’ conjunctions of events that we’ve either considered portentous or brusquely dismissed as ‘mere coincidence’. You think of someone whom you’ve not thought about or seen in a very long time. Within minutes, hours or a day or so, you hear from them or you bump into them. Whoa! What are the chances of that?
Several years ago, I would have been delighted (or dismayed, depending on how I felt about the person) at this unexpected ‘coincidence’ but I would not have taken it seriously. In other words, I would not have thought that *I* personally had anything to do with it. Today, I see it differently.
You see, it’s not the fact that you bumped into the person that makes the event significant. That alone could be satisfactorily attributed to probability. What is intriguing and less easy to explain is that this probability should occur not long after another related and small probability – your thinking of this person whom you have not thought about in a long time!
For Jung, however,
“Synchronicity is no more baffling or mysterious than the discontinuities of physics. It is only the ingrained belief in the sovereign power of causality that creates intellectual difficulties and makes it appear unthinkable that causeless events exist or could ever exist. But if they do, then we must regard them as creative acts, as the continuous creation of a pattern that exists from all eternity, repeats itself sporadically, and is not derivable from any known antecedents
The need to explain everything in terms of Cause and Effect is very much embedded in our western psyche, it would seem. Yet, it is also true that in some cultures, cause and effect doesn’t seem to be so critical. Instead, the senses and the mind are more concerned with correlations rather than causation. In other words, not so much ‘This caused that’ but ‘This appears to happen when that happens or is present’.
Sometimes, I think that’s not a bad approach. It relieves us of the burden of trying to find a cause when there doesn’t appear to be one, at least not to our physical senses or to our rational way of thinking which is governed by the dimensions of space and time.
It also gives us the freedom to move and act more intuitively which means bypassing our dominant rational and linear way of thinking. It allows us to be in the ‘flow’, which is the natural and effortless movement of Universal Energy and in which we are more likely to *see* what lies under the fabric of space and time.
Now, I did hint earlier that these days, I don’t view synchronicities as events that occur independently of the observer. In the last 10 or so years, I have noticed more and more ‘synchronous’ events in my life and at a far greater frequency than ever before. It also happens that I have been on a much more intentional and conscious inner journey of self-awareness. Rather than claim causation between these two events, I’m happy to say for now that there is a correlation.
Deepak Chopra has said that according to Vedanta, as one becomes more enlightened, one is likely to experience more and more synchronicities:
According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you any more. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.
Okay, so let’s say that we consider synchronicities as something more than meaningless, random events. Let’s say that we consider them to be both meaningful and that there is some method to their occurrence albeit unknown to us and operating at a level of consciousness beyond our human awareness. What use are they to us?
What use, for instance, is that unexpected and delightful coincidence that I described earlier of hearing from someone whom you’ve not thought about in years and which happened not long after you did think about that person?
I know at least one thing it does for me – it reminds me of a deeper reality that is otherwise hidden under the fabric of space-time, a reality that operates outside the principles governing space-time to which we are bound by habit or conditioning.
However, the amazing thing is that when we can shift out of the boundaries of space-time (which happens when we are present in the eternal, infinite, ‘non-local now’), we have access to and can participate in an infinite and timeless reality where all things are possible.
Here, what would have seemed impossible or intractable in the physical/material world, can be seen and felt as a possibility made certain by the power of attention and e-motion – energy-in-motion.
Aside from this reminder of a hidden, infinite world of possibility, synchronicities evoke great joy, and a sense of awe in me. I marvel at how seemingly unrelated things come together in such unexpected and delightful ways, ways that my conscious, rational mind would not likely have designed! They suggest to me that there is an ineffable intelligence or design at work and that I am very much a part of it although my role appears to be a really easy and effortless one – to simply observe and enjoy 🙂
Wolfgang Pauli, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1945, had this to say
We must postulate a cosmic order of nature beyond our control to which both the outward material objects and the inward images are subject.
Pauli believed that there was a quantum explanation for synchronicity. In fact, he and Jung had attempted to put forward a Unifying Theory that would allow us to interpret reality as a psycho-physical whole.
It has taken me several days to write this post mainly because the subject of ‘synchronicity’ sprawls across a number of fields – physics, metaphysics, spirituality, cosmology and philosophy.
In researching this subject, I was drawn into each of these fields (and not for the first time). Some of the stuff was so fascinating, slipping into discussions of TOEs (Theory Of Everything), GUTs (Grand Unifying Theory) and quantum entanglement! They were also incredibly complex, sometimes well beyond my understanding.
As I pored over them, I kept wondering how I would provide a gentle introduction to this wonderfully intriguing subject without getting too ‘theoretical’. After all, my original intent was for this post to serve as a backdrop for my (and hopefully other peoples) experiences of synchronicities in future posts. In the end, I decided to write something that wouldn’t overwhelm me or my readers while suggesting to them that there is a lot more to explore in this area.
It is for this reason that I am sharing with you some of the material that I encountered on this little journey. And I do this with great appreciation for their authors and the owners of the websites or blogs where they are published.
Below are the links. Enjoy! And stay tuned for future posts of mine (and yours!) on the enchanting topic of synchronicities 🙂
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/catching-the-bug-of-synchronicity/
http://www.strangemag.com/mysteryofchance.html
http://www.flowpower.com/understanding_synchronicity.htm
http://www.mindandlife.org/thinking-like-einstein/
http://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/torsion-the-key-to-theory-of-everything/
In service!
Lucy
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