Someone messaged me yesterday, a person I have only met briefly on zoom while we were working on a project together. And have briefly exchanged two or three general messages. She wrote saying, she dreamt of me and so was just checking how am I.
Something about the warm concern in her tone made me feel warm inside. She was barely a friend. Normally I could just also send a message, but I decided to call her in the evening. She, Nasreen is an effervescent and joyful person, childlike and wise at the same time. There was no agenda for the call. But a kind of sharing of Gratitude moment.
And then something happened
Just as she was telling me how, the previous evening she was talking to someone about tribes, and she remembered me. And that night she dreamt of me., She suddenly stopped. ‘There is a rainbow forming just as we speak’, she said. It for you she added. I just loved how she was so trusting of her sensing, and spontaneous in her sharing. She was connected, there was no doubt.
Having just come having my hair coloured in hues of red. I thought it was awesome synchronicity.
We were both stunned. She went on to tell me, perhaps she was the harbinger of the message from the universe that I need to keep writing. After the brief conversation, somehow I felt a surge of positive energy. Like the rainbow coursing through me.
I had a surge of Gratitude and blessings flowing out of me at that time. For her, for the Universe.
I have had many such instances, in fact I feel My life decision are often guided by such things. Years ago when “The Celestine Prophecy” – by James Redfield happened to me, I was in my early 20’s. it felt like a course correction. It was as if, I could speak universe. I have since met many people who have had similar experiences with the Book.
This also made me think of how often we use the word Coincidence and Synchronicity, interchangeably.
Synchronicity
The concept of synchronicity was first proposed by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s. It is a term he used to describe coincidences that are related by meaningfulness rather than by cause and effect.”
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.
A coincidence, is similar but it is an often a dismissed synchronicity. When the meaning’ is not paid heed to. We lose so much information and wisdom because of the dismissal. Sometimes I feel sad .
The linear Newtonian idea of the world we have come to accept and live from, a world of cause and effect has stripped us of everyday magic. We live and get lost and trapped by the “If-then-else loop”.
Years ago in my early 20’s I had my first out of body experience. I was baffled because I didn’t have an explanation for this, and my rational mind needed one. Nobody around me had one either. The experience was long enough for my logical mind to ascertain that I was not asleep, was not hallucinating and was still thinking even though I was above hovering at the ceiling and seeing myself sitting down with the rest of my family, even as I heard the conversations, but saw only the tops of everyone heads. Just the Top view. I was in two places as the same time.
Years later I found out its Quantum Phenomena called “Non-locality“
After I came down, I asked others, if I had fallen asleep. They looked at me strangely and said a firm NO. You were right here listening .
That freaked me out. I was eighth months pregnant at that time. Wasn’t that light. I got on to a quest of trying to understand what had just happened. Most people wrote it off as “your mind is tired, playing tricks” you are imagining it. Etc. I went through studying dream therapy, and practice lucid dreaming and astral travels, Also to understand this incident. And found some solace, but then, I had more questions about how were these dreams happening. I would now be in two places at will through Astral Travel, But how.
Finally somehow I landed on Quantum Physics. And I felt like my years of running around had found a resting place. I found answers to everything that I was experiencing, but could not explain, was here in Quantum Physics. Physics anyway was always one of my favourite subjects.If I had my way, I would have studied theoretical physics. But that was not how the universe planned to introduce us.
Quantum Physics, put simply, it’s the physics that explains how everything works: the best description we have of the nature of the particles that make up matter and the forces with which they interact.
Phew!!!
Our everyday work is more Quantum than Newtonian. If we just pay attention a few more seconds than we normally do.
It’s a world that is beyond ‘Cause and Effect’. Take an everyday example, ‘why are you late’, I asked Anita my maid yesterday. ‘Because I overslept’, she said and in a way that is often the end of the discussion. But was that the Cause? We can keep going back, But why did you sleep late, because her cat was disturbing her in the night, why was the cat disturbing, she is pregnant and had to go pee a lot..you get the drift.
So at what point does the ‘cause’ really become the cause. Theoretically we can go all the way back to creation, at least. But of course then Anita and I would not be able to our daily work, and if someone did the same line of inquiry at some point our stories would meet with that of the cat and we go to the same place. Isn’t that fascinating.
I am of the view that while cause and effect is practical, it is still a lazy way of perceiving.
We need to move from Cause and effect to what is causing the effect in the first place
Everything is connected and is therefore “Acausal”. In his book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, 1960. Jung felt synchronicity to be a principle that had explanatory power towards his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious. It described a governing dynamic which underlies the whole of human experience and history—social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.
Synchronicities are incidents of spiritual significance also, that ask us to momentarily dampen our self-obsession and consider the possibility of the Divine. God, Spirit, Universe we can use any terminology. Synchronistic experiences leave us with a curious sense that we should pay attention, to what is going on.
As we blossom or awaken, we begin to notice there is a force in the world that seems to be operating and leading us into a certain destiny. And it’s very much a kind of detective effort on our own part to figure out what these things mean. The synchronicity is essentially a meaningful coincidence that brings us information at just the right time. While leading us forward, it also feels very inspiring and destined in a way. It feels like we’re on a path of unfolding in our own personal evolution.
James Redfield
Jung’s quest for demystifying Synchronicity was as much inspired by Wolfgang Pauli and his vast contribution to Quantum Physics and the Entanglement theory, as the I Ching, which states that there is an interrelation between the individual and the cosmos, that one’s inner state participates in the external world. When these two states connect an event of synchronicity is experienced.
So there Science and Spirituality meet. Again.
There is a beautiful story of these two giants, and a happenstance meeting, as told by Paul Harpen in his book, Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect
He relates how Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli, distraught and drinking heavily after his divorce in 1930, sought out Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung for therapy. Jung, in turn, received a schooling in quantum physics. He learnt how measuring the state of one particle can seem to influence the state of another instantly, a property called entanglement.
Before meeting Pauli, Jung had coined the term synchronicity to describe the principle of acausal connections. He sought an explanation for his idea of a collective unconscious of human experience that influenced dreams, thoughts and behaviours. Pauli, helpfully, could recall his dreams easily and vividly. Dream are Important.
Synchronicity at work.
So when everything is thus connected why do we not heed, listen or pay attention. Well partly because we are so busy in our minds, trying to argue, lay out “rational’ arguments and play with words , that our bodies scream themselves hoarse and then become sick. And then It can no longer ‘pickup’ signals.
I have found our body to be one of the best sensing instruments. If only we can learn to speak and understand it’s language.
Years ago, In one of my body listening practices I found out I was having a cyst. Its a different matter that I went to the Doctor much later
“It is a sad truth, but it is a truth, indeed, that the knowledge of the human species far surpasses their wisdom.”
― Michael Talbot,
The other reason I believe is we have stopped believing and trusting ourselves and our gut. We have such high inner critic voices, and other noises that these subtle voices are often is drowned. And therefore the interconnection between things is lost. Does not mean its not there.
And then again, we need proof. But we forget we have a conformation bias. That is we see to confirm, when we already believe. How can the universe bring us anything else. We are full.
There is no room for wandering for wondering. No room for the Universe to whisper.
And the Kind, patent loving Universe is always whispering.
We have become arrogant with our knowledge, and our bodies pay the price of wisdom lost. It no coincidence we say “Body of Work”, Body of knowledge etc.
Thankfully, I found out, some organizations have now started to see merit in ‘seeing differently’
“We need to disrupt ourselves before we get disrupted”, as Haier’s chairman and chief executive Zhang Ruimin says
Haier has developed a digital ecosystem around users in which the traditional product company has become an Internet-of-Things company with the user at its core. A central database, called U+, is at its heart.
I do feel hopeful…somewhat.
“Live as if Everything is rigged in your Favour” – said Rumi.
As humans we suffer so much, because we “can’t make sense” of Why, why illness, why Covid, Why fires, why global warming, why isolation, why mental illness, why…
In my experience the Body had a lot of answers.
Perhaps, if we paid attention to our bodies not as something to use, but something to revere as a teacher and learn from, we may get some answers.
Perhaps if we paid attention to our dreams and what are they telling us we make have a wider container to hold the seen and unseen, the known and unknown. And integrate.
Perhaps some humility will go a long way, as we really stop to think all the know world is finally just 4%., rest is Dark matter. We are mostly unknown. We may start to listen with some more openness. More awe. More childlike curiosity. Even if, and especially when – It does not make sense.
In his Book The Holographic Universe, One of my all time favourite, Michael Talbot gives the analogy of a Yellow fish. He explains, Imagine there is a giant long yellow fish in a rectangular tank. And there are cameras focusing on different parts of the fish. And the feed from the camera is being shown on multiple screens in one room. People are sitting in front of each screen, and obviously seeing that part only. Some see just a yellow band of nothing, some see two large eyes, so see line, some see a moving fin like thing etc. None of them know the source. Each perceives their monitor as the ‘only reality’ and behave in accordance. And because they can see it they believe it is so. They have proof.
..and then, some will hopefully start to notice through the corners of their eyes some….”synchronicity’, although it looks nothing like it what is in front of them, they begin to notice that when something happens on their screens, something else also moves. And slowly ever so slowly they being to see the ‘relationship’ between the movements as they keep zooming out.
Imagine if they KNEW that they were all just watching One fish. Imagine we if could “SEE” how we are ALL intricately connected. We have empirical data One bat/person somewhere in world got something ‘invisible” in his body. The rest is history still unfolding. I don’t see ANYTHING that is not affected by this one cause, in the WHOLE World. And sadly we still need more Proof.
I have noticed and found One secret Gratitude. Most times when I have felt grateful a wave of Synchronicity happens. and I feel picked up gently by the Universe and taken to where I need to be next. It’s so Beautiful that at times I have tears. The opposite is also true. When there is ungratefulness, complaining and cursing we lose contact. Because in the mysterious ways of the Universe we can’t really judge something and why it happens. Good or Bad.
Perhaps its time we started to move within, we have been going in with our mind for a long time, but maybe now with our bodies and spirits for a change. The Magic is waiting for us to happen. It’s waiting for us to KNOW, the everything is in us and we are in Everything. It’s waiting to shower Abundance if only we are open and willing, to see. Being Connected is Not a choice.
“..synchronicities reveal the absence of division between the physical world and our inner psychological reality. Thus the relative scarcity of synchronous experiences in our lives shows not only the extent to which we have fragmented ourselves from the general field of consciousness, but also the degree to which we have sealed ourselves off from the infinite and dazzling potential of the deeper orders of mind and reality. According to Peat, when we experience a synchronicity, what we are really experiencing “is the human mind operating, for a moment, in its true order and extending throughout society and nature, moving through orders of increasing subtlety, reaching past the source of mind and matter into creativity itself.”
― Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe
