Synchronicities

[John Zeger]

A popular notion in New Age circles is that of synchronicities. Synchronicities are meaningful coincidences and are often thought of as revealing to us a purposeful unfolding of our lives while implying an external source of meaning. But isn't there another and more plausible explanation for so-called synchronicities?

Sometimes we are in a heightened state of awareness when everything that happens seems full of meaning. This heightened state combined with the occurrence of a low probability event causes us to conclude that this event was "meant to happen" while revealing to us the meaningful unfolding of our lives. But do these events that happen to us come with intrinsic meaning or is it we who attribute meaning to them?

[Tommy Me]

Resting in original mind synchronicities are non existent. It is when we aren't resting in original mind that there appears to be such phenomenon, as there should be- serving to guide us back to rest in original mind. Unaware, they serve a purpose; to re-member us. Aware, we realize there is always divine order.

[John Zeger]

Quite by accident while in the library today, I stumbled upon a book on Einstein in which the author describes Einstein's belief in a divine order. Now I'm reading your post where you talk about divine order. Is my experience a sychronicity or just a chance happening to which I'm attributing my own meaning?

[Tommy Me]

Nice... makes one go, "hhhmmm."

Theres a nice quote I like to keep in mind in such instances:

"Make no comparisons,
Make no judgements,
Delete the need to understand."

I rest in the peace that there are no coincidences... but open my mind to all possibilities.

Did you check out the Einstein book?

[John Zeger]

Yes, I did despite the fact that was almost 700 pages long and weighed about five pounds. I wanted to read the chapter on Einstein's spiritual views. The author said that Einstein was quite a fan of the philosopher Spinoza who was a pantheist and who was also fascinated by the order found in nature. I'm quite sympathetic to Spinoza's philosophy myself and I think that there is a lot of merit in the view that God has a dual aspect -- Spirit and Nature. But then that's what the Yogic rishis believed as well, that Brahman had two aspects -- Purusha (Spirit) and Prakiti (Nature). If this view is correct then it would be incomplete to consider God as Spirit alone, which is what most people do.

[Tommy Me]

Is the book Einstein: His Life and Universe? I bought this when it first came out... haven't finished it yet.
I am a fan of Spinoza as well... and find the order in nature beautiful, mysterious, and w-holy.

Who is your personal mystic- saint? Who whispers most freely to you of God?

[John Zeger]

Yes, Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Regarding a personal mystic-saint, I confess that I really don't have one in particular. I draw upon many traditions and sages both historical and contemporary in shaping my own spiritual perspective but I think that Timothy Freke, who isn't that well known outside of England, has incredible breadth and depth and answers many age old questions in a way that I find satisfying. I highly recommend his book Spiritual Traditions although copies are hard to come by. It is easier to get a copy of The Illustrated Book of Sacred Scriptures which contains most of his teachings. Who is your favourite (pardon the Canadian spelling) ?

[coyoteknight]

If I might interject I would like to point out that what we as westerners might call more plausible is only so due to our own unique (and very practical) view of the universe. Anyone brought up in a paradigm with a less mechanistic view of the world would say that these synchronicities are indeed a part of a higher order of causality.

Also, while high complexity examples of entanglement (which synchronicity could be said to be an example of if the evidence pans out) have not been studied by physicists (at least not enough), the physical properties of the smallest, most fundamental levels of physical existence have been studied intensively for decades.

The fact that the concepts of entanglement for instance or Bells theorem are not taught to people in our culture until college level (if ever), that the most plausible views that science has demonstrated in laboratory conditions to describe the workings of the universe for decades aren't shown to an individual until all the Newtonian stuff is hard-wired into our brains at an early age (for good practical reasons of course, don't want Tommy to think he can fly because he's connected to the sky) shows that our cultural paradigm isn't even the most plausible according to its own benchmark of what is true, rigorous scientific study.

Imagine what would be considered plausible if it were taught that the smallest building blocks of matter exhibit an acausual connecting principle regardless of distance and without recourse to the Newtonian model of tiny billiard ball "A" runs into tiny billiard ball "B", etc. That is what entanglement is all about. 2 particles that make contact continue some inexplicable relationship where one reacts to the states and movements of the other irregardless of the distance between them.

I'm not saying that some pie in the sky New Age angelic intervention explanation is right but don't you think that if we taught what is known in physics to be true, that the fundamental building blocks of matter are sometimes intimately connected beyond the understanding of all our wildest dreams and without any mechanistic explanation possible for this behavior, that what is considered more plausible would change? What would our view of synchronicity be then?

For the record I agree with you John that the important factor in synchronicity is increased awareness. But what we are noticing isn't necessarily just a coincidence, a random event that has a similarity in form whether the form of a thought or the form of someone's face but with no real connection beyond an arbitrary lining up of events in one's mind. It just may be the recognition of an essential unity inherent even in matter and the world around us, not only spirit. I would like to add though that perhaps the feeling of "meant to happen" might just be the emotional equivalent of the logical understanding of an underlying unity of the world, emotional knowledge corresponding to the philosophical thought.

I read somewhere about a Pythagorean doctrine regarding the fact that there are basically four modes of perception in order from grossest to divine, sense perception (the physical experience of a synchronicity in this case - the legs of a metaphorical elephant), emotion (the feeling of meaningfulness and a sense of rightness or serendipity - the trunk of said metaphor), reason (the understanding of what is going on in the self referential sense of "I am here and this is happening" - the pachyderm's tail perhaps), the actual unity that the experience points to (the actual event beyond the experience of the individual as separate from other individuals - the elephant itself beyond all the understanding of the blind men feeling just a leg or a tail or a trunk).

In the end I believe that what people call synchronicities are a mixed bag of delusions, seeing connections where there may be only arbitrary similarities ("sometimes a cigar is only a cigar?") and the real deal, a wired in connection to the essential unity of things right down to the hard cold world of facts.

Sorry if I'm rambling, I'm working on a paper related to this and I guess I'm thinking things out as I type... jeeze and this is my first post... sorry lol. On the other hand, Ancient Indian metaphor for existence in the form of an elephant, quantum science, Pythagorean model of awareness, Freud reference and child development... not bad for a first post ( I kid };>P> )

Take it easy and many blessings,
Rob