Synchronicity

Today a book synchronicity happened again... & now I'm reading The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self by Jean Shinoda Bolen.

Those of you who have been reading my writings know that I'm alway talking about the synchronicities that guide my life. In this book, Jean explains what exactly is synchronicity.

This is a great find for me because now I can just ask people to go read her book if they don't know what synchronicity is ;-)

Here's what Jean have to say:

“Synchronistic events offer us perceptions that may be useful in our psychological and spiritual growth and may reveal to us, through intuitive knowledge, that our lives have meaning.” ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen

The word synchronicity was coined by C. G. Jung to describe meaningful coincidences. He first wrote about it in 1951 and 1952, when he was in his seventies, to describe what he had been observing for some thirty or forty years: inexplicable coincidences between inner world and outer reality that cannot be explained rationally.

 A synchronicity can be a significant mystical experience accompanied by a sense of awe, of mystery and grace. In the synchronistic moment, we feel or perceive that there is an invisible connection between us and others, between us and nature, or between us and the universe.

I think that the best way to understand what Jung meant by synchronicity is by examples from his own life. In a letter to J. B. Rhine, the father of parapsychology, Jung described an incident that was a synchronicity. He said (I am paraphrasing him), "I was walking in the woods with a woman who was telling me her most significant dream. In the dream, she was in her old family home that had a large spiral staircase. In the dream, she was at the foot of the stairs watching a ghostly fox move slowly down the stairs towards her." Jung said, "At that moment a real fox stepped out of the woods and, for a time, walked ahead of us." When a real fox entered the scene, the dream image materialized. Coincidences like this are eerie. Dream and waking life overlap; it is an uncanny moment of synchronicity.

Another time, he described working with a woman patient who was closed to the mysterious realm of meaning and metaphor. She saw him regularly, dutifully describing dreams that she did not feel deeply connected to. She related to her dreams in the way many people do; they have them and can recite them, but they are not affected, moved, or made wiser because of them. Jung said that it was a little darker inside the consulting room than it was outside, and the woman was telling him of an image from a dream. In the dream, she had been given a valuable piece of golden jewelry in the shape of a scarab. At that moment, he was disturbed by the sound of a large beetle, a flying insect, hitting itself against the window pane. He opened the window, and the flying insect came in. He caught it on the fly, looked at it in his hand and then passed it over to his patient. In his hand was a large scarab-like beetle, green and golden in color, the closest relative to the scarab in Northern Europe; when she saw what was in his hand, something shifted in the room, something entered the process that would change it. That this would happen at that very moment was a synchronicity; the scarab that entered the room as in the dream is a symbol of transformation; when it uncharacteristicay hit against the window and was let in, the reality of the symbolic world also entered, as it needed to, for this woman to be affected and changed.

Another example of synchronicity that Jung described happened to him. He had traveled to a far-off city to give a lecture, and uncharacteristically was having a difficult time falling asleep. Sometime during the night, he awoke with a sense that there was someone in the room. That feeling was so strong that he jumped out of bed, turned on the lights, and tried the door (the door was locked); there was no one in the room and no way for anyone to have gotten in. Puzzled, he tried to put together the sequence of events that had disturbed his sleep. He recalled that he had awakened with a sharp pain in the middle of his forehead that now was gone; all that remained was a dull pain in the back of his head. Again this was uncharacteristic, as he rarely had headaches. The events of this strange night were a puz-
zle to him - a puzzle that was cleared up on his return to Zurich, when he found that a patient of his had shot himself in the forehead that very night, and the bullet had come to rest at the back of his head.

Many synchronistic events can also be described by parapsychological terms such as telepathy, the communication from one mind to another, or precognition, in which a person has a dream or premonition of something that will happen in the future. These are experiences that fall into the realm  of extrasensory perception (ESP). The difference between synchronicity and ESP is the emphasis. Proof that it was ESP is immaterial; the emotional impact and meaning of the event is what matters.

Here's some wonderful quotations on Synchronicity. May these quotations inspire you just as they inspired me :-)

“Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world.” ~ Carl G. Jung

“Synchronistic events provide an immediate religious experience as a direct encounter with the compensatory patterning of events in nature as a whole, both inwardly and outwardly.” ~ Carl G. Jung

”The First Insight: Mysterious coincidences cause the reconsideration of the inherent mystery that surrounds our individual lives on this planet.” ~ James Redfield

“The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it Intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why.” ~ Albert Einstein

“These events serve to nurture, support, protect and enhance human life and spiritual growth.” ~ Scott Peck

“It is unfathomable power [the fingers of the Morai (fate), or the providence of God] ordering the web of our inner and outer existence.” ~ Liz Greene

“They (Synchronicities) demonstrate the unity of psyche and matter, forcing us to transcend our rational, scientific, materialistic attitudes.” ~ Mansfield

“There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.” ~ Friedrich Schiller

“Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work.” ~ Anatole France

“Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These and other suchlike considerations, always have, and always will prevail with mankind, to believe that there is a Being who made all things, who has all things in his power, and who is therefore to be feared.” ~ Isaac Newton

With Synchronicity, all the resources we need are made available to us at the precise moment that is appropriate. The people who come into our lives are the ones we need at that moment in time. Everything is perfect. We only need to recognise this tune in to the flow.

You Are

In the Right Place,

At the Right Time,

Doing the Right Thing,

With the Right People,

For the Right Reason,

Everything is Perfect.

You Can Have the Right Results!

All you need is a Right Heart & Mind...

an Open Heart & Mind.