The author's true, exciting and serendipitous journey through the wilds of Papua New Guinea, the Himalayas, around the planet and into the heart of life guaranteed to change the way you see the world.
The following words arose in response to a recent question from a friend, the first indicated question below:.
How is it that although I know nothing dies, I still have days of grief for my dad?
I’m not going to say anything you don’t already know. It is time for you to really embody and put into practice that which your father came here to teach you. Remember he left when you were ready, not a moment too soon or too late. He is here in spirit now to support you on your divine mission.
Any relationship as deeply loving as the one between you and your father pays a price during physical separation. Yogananda, an enlightened sage and the founder of the Self Realization Fellowship, experienced similar feelings when sent from his Indian homeland to America by his master, Sri Yukteswar. So you are in good company.
Be aware also that these feelings are cyclical. Your question comes at the time of the Guru Pournima full moon, an auspicious time. Just as the moon regulates tides on our planet, so too it influences human emotions. Emotions are nearly always more intense around the time of a full moon. Feelings of grief are also more likely to arise on the anniversary of birthdays and other days associated with times of special sharing.
How do I move through my feelings of grief?
By not trying to move through them. By accepting them completely. By seeing them as a natural outpouring of emotion in response to a perception of loss. Now is the time to intensify any practices you do that assist in realizing the awareness of who you really are, that awaken you on a feeling level to your God Nature, your unlimited self. It is here that you meet your father. It is here where no missing or longing feelings arise because oneness is self evident. Identification with the form of your father falls away and you meet in reality. As Rumi, the great Persian mystic once wrote, “The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere, they’re in each other all along. (From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks)
Consider allowing nature to caress and support you in times of grief. See the beauty, bathe in it. Nature acts as a buffer for human emotions. Finally, find someone who needs help and assist them.
Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi was a 13th century poet and philosopher who heavily influenced both eastern and western poetry. His poetry is divided into categories: The Quatrains and Odes of the Divan, The Six Books the Masnavi, The Discourses, The Letters, and The Six Sermons. Rumi’s major poetic work is Matnawiye Ma’nawi, a six-volume poem, considered by many literary critics to be one of the greatest works of mystical poetry ever written. Rumi’s prose works included Fihi Ma Fihi, Majalese Sab’a and Maktubat. His prose work largely contains sermons and lectures given by Rumi to his disciples and family members.
Rumi was born in 1207 in what is today the country of Afghanistan. During his lifetime Rumi completed more than 60,000 works of poetry. A lot of Rumi’s work, and the subject of many of the Rumi quotes used in modern day, are based around the concepts of man and nature uniting with the divine. The question of where souls have been and where they are going is frequently addressed by Rumi. This poet is often described as a “mystic” and though he was a Muslim Qu’ran scholar, Rumi’s words have appealed throughout history to people of many different religions. He departed this world in 1273. His words endure, touching the hearts of many today.
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
Tess was a precocious eight year old when she heard her Mom and Dad talking about her little brother, Andrew. All she knew was that he was very sick and they were completely out of money. They were moving to an apartment complex next month because Daddy didn’t have the money for the doctor’s bills and our house. Only a very costly surgery could save him now and it was looking like there was no-one to loan them the money. She heard Daddy say to her tearful Mother with whispered desperation, “Only a miracle can save him now.”
Tess went to her bedroom and pulled a glass jelly jar from its hiding place in the closet. She poured all the change out on the floor and counted it carefully. Three times, even. The total had to be exactly perfect. No chance here for mistakes. Carefully placing the coins back in the jar and twisting on the cap, she slipped out the back door and made her way 6 blocks to Rexall’s Drug Store with the big red Indian Chief sign above the door. She waited patiently for the pharmacist to give her some attention but he was too busy at this moment. Tess twisted her feet to make a scuffing noise. Nothing. She cleared her throat with the most disgusting sound she could muster. No good. Finally she took a quarter from her jar and banged it on the glass counter. That did it!
“And what do you want?” the pharmacist asked in an annoyed tone of voice. “I’m talking to my brother from Chicago whom I haven’t seen in ages”, he said without waiting for a reply to his question.
“Well, I want to talk to you about my brother,” Tess answered back in the same annoyed tone. “He’s really, really sick … and I want to buy a miracle.”
“I beg your pardon?” said the pharmacist.
“His name is Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my Daddy says only a miracle can save him now. So how much does a miracle cost?”
“We don’t sell miracles here, little girl. “I’m sorry but I can’t help you”, the pharmacist said, softening a little.
“Listen, I have the money to pay for it. If it isn’t enough, I will get the rest. Just tell me how much it costs.”
The pharmacist’s brother was a well dressed man. He stooped down and asked the little girl, “What kind of a miracle does you brother need?”
“I don’t know,” Tess replied with her eyes welling up. “I just know he’s really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation. But my Daddy can’t pay for it, so I want to use my money”.
“How much do you have?” asked the man from Chicago.
“One dollar and eleven cents”, Tess answered barely audibly. “And it’s all the money I have, but I can get some more if I need to.
“Well, what a coincidence,” smiled the man. “A dollar and eleven cents—the exact price of a miracle for little brothers.”
He took her money in one hand and with the other hand he grasped her mitten and said, “Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let’s see if I have the kind of miracle you need.”
That well dressed man was Dr. Carlton Armstrong, a surgeon, specializing in neurosurgery. The operation was completed without charge and it wasn’t long until Andrew was home again and doing well.
Tess’s mother and father were happily talking about the chain of events that had led them to this place. “That surgery”, her mom whispered, “was a real miracle. I wonder how much it would have cost?” Tess smiled. She knew exactly how much a miracle cost … one dollar and eleven cents … plus the faith of a little child.
A miracle is not ALWAYS the suspension of natural law, but the operation of a higher law. This is a true story I received by email 7 years ago.
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
Have you ever thought what forgiveness means? You, your own self, your own personality, needs your forgiveness. Your spirit is divine, but until you have overcome, your personality remains human and needs the forgiveness of your spirit. As you forgive, as your spirit forgives your personality, so also you will learn to forgive your brother man for all his seeming errors. If you will train yourself to think in terms of love and forgiveness every moment of your life, a most beautiful healing will take place in you.
The Quiet Mind: The Sayings of White Eagle
Two nights ago, while chanting with friends, and in an ecstatic state I was suddenly embraced by the Light. The Great Masters, gathered together at the portal to eternity, were laughing with me, and welcoming me home. Their message, spoken with tremendous merriment and not even a hint of judgement was, “We’ve been watching you getting mired in the pulls of your ego. A few times we thought you might not make it. But you have and we are pleased.” My mental response was, “You don’t seem to be judging me at all.” Amidst more laughter they said, “Of course not. We’ve been there. We know what life on Earth is like, how challenging it is.”
Many of us are burdened by guilt. It appears to be a major stumbling block to the freedom each of our souls is seeking. Is this a holdover from Adam and Eve and original sin? If the Great Ones can laugh with me and accept my foibles, surely I can do the same with my personality and the personalities of others. We’re all in this thing together; we’re manning the oars of a great craft speeding towards our collective awakening. Let’s release the guilt and embrace the underlying perfection of the soul. Let’s laugh and play together. It is we that make mountains out of molehills. It is we too that can transcend them.
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
A friend sent me an email today from Australia showing diverse and beautiful wooden staircases from all over the world. Two of the photos were views of a stunning giant ancient kauri staircase which is the centrepiece for the Ancient Kauri Kingdom showroom and retail outlet at their shop and factory at Awanui in New Zealand’s Far North (30 minutes from our home here in Coopers Beach.) It is carved from a 50-tonne section of one giant swamp kauri log estimated to weigh 140 tonnes. This is the largest swamp kauri log ever known to have been extracted, and because of this it was never milled.
Looking Down the Same Staircase
Ancient Kauri logs that have been buried in peat swamps in the north of New Zealand for more than 45,000 years. The logs are buried just beneath the surface of the ground, deposited by an unexplained act of nature. My guess, and that of others I’ve discussed this with, is that the trees were victims of a massive tidal wave. Why such speculation? Because most of the trees seem to have fallen in the same direction. In the end, it doesn’t really matter why. The fact is that the trees are there, lying in swampy fields around the Far North. Only the lower trunk section and ball root structure are ordinarily found. Any part of the tree above ground has long since rotted away. Excavation of the logs is time-consuming, expensive and technically difficult, requiring skilled operators of heavy machinery.
A Kauri Giant Alive Today
The surface may be dry but the water-table of the swamp is high, meaning that logs just below the surface are permanently lying in water.
The trees grew to ages of up to 2000 years before they were buried. Some have a girth of around 40 feet, and a total height of nearly 200 feet. The excavated timber is the oldest workable wood found on earth.
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
I post the following letter written to the president by fifteen-year-old Nadeim Fareid and the president’s response. I can’t help but wonder if President Obama actually saw and responded to the initial letter. It seems like a generic ‘human rights’ riposte. We are at a point in history where our leaders need to respond with peaceful action, not platitudes. I have a number of peace-loving Baha’i friends who are deeply concerned about the human rights abuses in Iran. We should all be.
June 2010
Dear President Obama,
I would like to thank you for doing all you can to assure the American People; we are the greatest nation in the world.
My name is Nadeim Fareid, and I am fifteen years old. I strive to excel in my school work and also in my personal life. I write you, from the utmost pleasure, as it is an honor to be an American.
Dear President Obama, on May 14, 2008, seven leaders of the Baha’i Faith in Iran were arrested for crimes in which they had no part in committing. The Baha’i Faith is a world religion, promoting peace and unity for all of Mankind. The Baha’i Faith has about six million adherents in more than 238 countries and is the fastest growing religion in history. From the start of this beautiful religion, its prophet founder, brought the teachings of love and unity. From the start of the Baha’i Faith, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, co-workers and neighbors, have been martyred, simply because of the fact their faith captures the souls of all who are taught about its teachings. These intolerable acts have led Baha’i students in Iran to be expelled from school, Baha’i businessmen and woman to be deprived of their homes and offices, and has unfortunately reached the crucial point of pivotal belongings and basic human rights to be stripped. 300,000 Baha’is live throughout Iran to this day, making the Baha’i Faith the country’s largest minority religion. Hundreds of Baha’is were killed in Iran between 1978 and 1998, the majority by execution, and tens of thousands more were imprisoned. Today the Iranian government regards Baha’is as “apostates” and “unprotected infidels”. This crime has attracted the attention of Senators and Congressman, who have taken the initiative by creating House Resolution 175 and Senate Resolution 71. Prime Ministers and Presidents from all over the world are taking part in creating awareness and speaking about this misdeed.
Roxana Saberi, an Iranian journalist whom was held in jail in Iran quotes to leading news organizations, “I also got to know two Baha’i female leaders, who along with five male colleagues have been detained for more than a year without trial. While peacefully pursuing the religious rights of Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, they have been accused of spying for Israel and spreading corruption on earth, charges punishable by death.” The seven members will be tried in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, in branch 28. The same court Roxana Saberi was tried in.
In conclusion President Obama, I sincerely urge you to please act immediately in creating awareness of this despicable crime, as the legal trial of these seven members is to take place on June 12, 2010. The Baha’i Community depends on your voice to pressure the Iranian government officials to release our Baha’i friends in Iran, and to immediately stop all prejudice against Baha’is in their nation.
Sincerely, Nadeim Fareid
RESPONSE:FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear Nadeim:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Many Americans have written to me about human rights around the world, and I appreciate your perspective.
The United States was founded on the principles of freedom and equality, and our history is marked with triumphs and struggles in fulfilling these timeless ideals. Our task is never finished, and protecting these core values is a shared obligation. No region is free from violations of human rights, and no nation should be silent in the fight against them. When innocents in places like Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. I am committed to reinvigorating America’s leadership on a range of international human rights issues.
As you may know, the United States has rejoined the United Nations Human Rights Council and is working to make this body as effective as possible. My Administration intends to advocate for human rights in other international settings as well. In our relations with other countries, the issue of human rights will be raised as clearly, persistently, and effectively as possible. Among other things, we will promote respect for the rights of minorities and women, the equal administration of justice, and the freedom for people to live as they choose.
Our commitment to human rights is an essential element of American foreign policy and one of our best national security assets. Through it, we will help to shut down torture chambers, replace tyranny with good governance, and enlist free nations in the common cause of liberty.
To learn more about my Administration’s human rights agenda, please visit: WhiteHouse.gov. Thank you again for writing.
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
On Sunday I gathered with thirty other people to honour the unity of humankind on a day of Mayan significance representing the Conscious Convergence. It was beautiful affair with simple shared song and ritual and food. Some expressed their feelings of being alone in their beliefs and being pleasantly surprised to find so many like-hearted people in one place. I think there are many such people and it is time for us to reach out to each other and share our true identity of unity with each other. I urge everyone to step out of your boxes of separation into the circle of unity. There is no loneliness there.
I sang two of my songs with the assembled group on Sunday and I reproduce the lyrics of these songs below:
We Are ONE
There is unity in our diversity, sharing our voices we sing in harmony.
There is unity in our diversity, sharing our voices we bring in harmony.
We are one, one in love and song.
We are one in love and song.
I Have a Dream
I have a dream where all brothers and all sisters unite.
I have a dream where the future of all nations is bright.
I have a dream where races: black, red, yellow, brown or white.
I have a dream where all humans never discourage from the sight of:
CHORUS
[Freedom, freedom. No place left to hide.
Freedom, freedom. Running with the tide of
Freedom, freedom. Touches every side of
Freedom, freedom. Crosses the divide.]
I have a dream where all ages live as one in community.
I have a dream where all people treat this earth with dignity.
I have a dream that through our efforts is a world made whole.
I have a dream that in this healing, each and every soul finds:
CHORUS
[Freedom, freedom. No place left to hide.
Freedom, freedom. Running with the tide of
Freedom, freedom. Touches every side of
Freedom, freedom. Crosses the divide.]
I have a dream where all brothers and all sisters unite.
I have a dream where the future of all nations is bright.
I have a dream where races: black, red, yellow, brown or white.
I have a dream where all humans never discourage from the sight of: freedom.
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
What makes men of genius, or rather, what they make, is not new ideas, it is that idea – possessing them – that what has been said has still not been said enough.
~Eugene Delacroix
Society expresses its sympathy for the geniuses of the past to distract attention from the fact that it has no intention of being sympathetic to the geniuses of the present.
~Celia Green
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
~Wolfgang A. Mozart
At our Ceili on Saturday night we were addressed by Dave Pellett, a man dealing with his own mortality and a significant brain tumour. Dave has been the sound man since the inception of our local Ceili over four years ago. He is also a skilled musician, playing and teaching flute and recorder. He can do none of this anymore. He has lost a lot of weight, appears fragile and walks slowly and deliberately with aid of a cane. When he spoke emotion and the shattered pathways in his brain led to sizeable gaps between each sentence. The words were uttered in a croaking, rasping manner, like a man on his last breath. But the phrases Dave managed to share were touching and meaningful. I trust I do them justice below:
“When Jax and I decided to leave Auckland [they’d led full lives, raised families and found each other relatively recently] we travelled all over the country in search of a community that would suit our needs. We wandered as far as the west coast of the South Island and Coromandel on the North Island. Our two principal criteria—no traffic lights and the reactions of the strangers we approached. For too long we’d experienced the sometimes unfriendly anonymity of the city. We sought the informal charm of old rural New Zealand. When we arrived in Mangonui in the Far North one experience told us we had found that which we sought. Two cars were passing and stopped; the drivers knew each other. As they caught up on news, traffic backed up in both directions. No one showed the least bit of impatience. No horns were honked. Clearly, these people realised time was to be used, not burned away in busy-ness.
“Community is never more important than when an experience such as I’ve had forces you to receive help. Jax and I are extremely grateful for the love and practical support we’ve received. I don’t wish this experience on any of you. Value this community while you have your health.
“Finally, if there’s anything you’ve been putting off that you’ve always wanted to do, don’t wait. Do it. You never know when your card will be drawn.”
Dave spoke with me during supper afterwards. He mentioned one of the unexpected gifts his experience had created. Their two families, children, their spouses and grandchildren, had been brought close together, closer than they’d ever have ventured under ordinary circumstances. Adversity has its rewards if one is prepared to acknowledge them.
Wendy, the drummer in the band and the MC on the night, mentioned one quote she had read that reminded her of Dave. It was attributed to Blake and I paraphrase it below:
The straight road leads to success. The crooked road to genius.
Mark Twain once said that thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others. I would agree with Wendy. Dave is one such genius. He thinks and lives outside the box. I am grateful he’s been part of my life.
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
Chris James, the master teacher of sound and voice, once encouraged his students to be attentive to every drop of rain falling on the roof.
The winter rains are falling here after a week of incredible, sunny, spring-like weather in this, July, ordinarily our coldest month. It’s coming down so forcefully I’d be hard-pressed to be attentive to every drop falling on our roof. But, after the exceptionally challenging drought of this past summer and my years spent in the deserts of the Middle East and the American Southwest, I refuse to complain about the life-giving waters currently falling from the sky. It sounds beautiful and powerful and I am grateful for it.
Don’t gratitude and beauty go hand in hand? We only truly see beauty while experiencing an earnest sense of gratitude. Perhaps we could say that gratitude opens the window to beauty’s radiance. This is the beauty that shines from within. It is that which transcends all outer blemishes and afflictions. It is that essence which serves as a bridge between the limited nature of the material world and the unlimited nature of the world of spirit.
Be grateful. See, feel and hear the beauty that is always present when you are. Be attentive to the rain falling on your roof. Be happy.
I am deeply grateful for the beauty in my life. I am bathing in beauty.
“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”
“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”
The following is from David Richo’s, Ph.D., book Unexpected Miracles: The Gift of Synchronicity and How to Open It (New York: Crossroads, 1998) www.davericho.com
Synchronicity is the phenomenon of meaningful coincidence. It is a resemblance, correspondence, or connection between something going on outside us and something happening inside us. In any ordinary coincidence, the events are connected by meaning rather than by cause and effect. This may not yet be synchronicity but simply synchronization. It becomes synchronicity when it makes a meaningful connection with our life’s purposes or helps unfold our destiny to show love, see wisely, and bring healing to ourselves and our world. All coincidences are connected by meaning, but synchronicity happens when the meaningfulness is relevant to our personal evolution. It is the spur of the moment in that it spurs us on and in that it may happen suddenly! It happens just in time. It is also just in time in the sense that it is part of the justice of the universe in bringing us exactly the pieces we need to fashion— or be fashioned by— our destiny.
Synchronicity is a word made from two Greek terms meaning “joined with” and “time.” Synchronicity is a bond or connection that happens in a timely way. A correspondence between two things is suddenly made clear. The unifying connection was always present but an immediate and meaningful coincidence makes it visible here and now.
Synchronicity thus combines an essential unity with an existential one. The eternal present makes an appearance in the momentary present. This is why it seems fitting to say that synchronicity guides us into spirituality.
Synchronicities cluster around significant events. Many meaningful coincidences occurred, for instance, when the Titanic sank and when Lincoln and Kennedy were assassinated. Personal disasters or crises in our personal life will also invite synchronicity. Norma orders a red dress for a party but a black dress is delivered to her. As she is about to phone the store to report the error, her sister calls: “Mother has died. Come for the funeral.” Norma thought she was in control of her life; she thought she knew what would happen next. The synchronous event told her otherwise and outfitted her for what was actually coming next: something much deeper was about to occur.
Synchronicity is the surprise that something suddenly fits! Synchronous events are meaningful coincidences or correspondences that guide us, warn us, or confirm us on our path. Coincidence happens at a specific moment. In this sense it is existential, tied to the here and now. Correspondences are ongoing. This is how synchronicity is essential, always present, to our human experience. Synchronicity is also found in a series of similar events or experiences. It can appear as one striking event that sets off a chain reaction. It is always unexpected and somehow uncanny in its accuracy of connection or revelation. This is what makes it impossible to dismiss synchronicity as mere coincidence.
Jung called synchronicity: “A non-caused but meaningful relationship between physical and psychic events….A special instance of acausal orderedness….Conscious succession becomes simultaneity….Synchronicity takes the events in space and time as meaning more than mere chance.” A coincidence is two unplanned events that happen simultaneously. It becomes synchronicity when it is connected by meaning. You and I love red roses. That is a coincidence. If unknown to each other, we meet as our heads bump while we are both smelling the same red rose that caught our eye at the same time and then later, we are married, that is synchronicity!
Synchronicity gives us a clue to the deep underlay of purpose and meaning in the universe and how that purpose is working itself out in our lives. Our own wholeness has a foundation and support in the larger order of things. All objective events have a corresponding subjective configuration in our psyche. Synchronicity is an instant instance of this correspondence. Its spontaneous timely events are articulations of the continuous nature of creation, intimations about the irrefrangible unity underlying it. Synchronicity is always striking and sometimes eerie. The “other worldly” feeling we have when it happens to us may be an indicator that an archetype is arising into consciousness from the depths of our psyche.
Things happen as they need to for the best purposes of the universe. Our belief that we can interfere with this is another trick of the arrogant ego. We may not know how what is happening right now really fits into our future. I can only trust that in addition to all I see, there is some other vision that will appear and make all this appear as just right.
Yet synchronicity cannot happen by any conscious intervention of ego since it is a phenomenon of grace: an entry of the transpersonal world onto our personal turf. It is a moment that manifests the unity that always and already existed between psychological and spiritual, mind and universe, you and me, me and everything. It occurs when our unconscious is ready for a step into wider consciousness. The ancient oracles were about precisely this!
The inner artist of our true Self uses two brushes: a conscious one: synchronicity, and an unconscious one: dreams. The synchronicities (meaningful coincidences) of our lives and the dream images that have most excited or stupefied us are the best— though often most ambiguous— clues to our self-actualization. When a dream confirms a movement in the psyche, that is itself synchronicity. Prayer that is answered is synchronicity since prayers that are answered are the ones that are consistent with our destiny.
Synchronicity is the special moment in which destiny summons us to move forward. It is the spur of the moment that initiates movement and may at the same time smart! This is the process by which archetypal reality incarnates itself in historical time: something unknown is doing we do not know what or why or through whom. Synchronicity really means that we are never alone in the universe. “O mighty love! Man is one world, and hath another to attend him,” wrote George Herbert.
Many psychic events do not occur instantaneously but undergo an incubation period in the unconscious. Something has not yet happened but is in the works. Synchronicity cuts across time-bound warps. It transcends the limits of being and becoming. This is because in the inner world there is no separation between past and future, time or timelessness, what is happening, what is about to happen, and what will happen. Only the present exists, which contains it all. In synchronicity, we meet our future—or our past—in our present. “To transform itself in us the future enters into us long before it happens,” Rilke wrote.
Synchronicity is the strikingly meaningful coincidence of two events or of a series of events. It can also be the coincidence of a psychic perception and a simultaneously occurring event as happens in ESP. Premonitions are in this category. In both ESP and premonition, the case can be made for synchronicity only if meaningfulness is present. This is always the ultimate criterion of synchronicity.
Synchronicity occurs in a dream that reveals what is already true or about to become true: Lincoln dreamed he was assassinated one week before the event. Dreams and astrology manifest many synchronous correspondences. There is immense synchronicity in the zodiac and our inclinations/choices. Rituals are forms of synchronicity in that they are outward enactments of corresponding inward graces.
Synchronicity appears in our work on ourselves. There may be synchronicity in the fact that our knowledge of our real issues—in ourselves and in our relationships—comes simultaneously with the strength to face them! We are usually in denial for a long time before we finally recognize and acknowledge our own truth. Synchronicity is in the fact that we often only let ourselves know when we can deal with what we know.
When we are ready to learn, a teacher appears. This is synchronicity. Occasionally a person, who died long ago or recently, comes to mind over and over in the course of a week or more. It could be that the meaning of that person in our life is coming home to us in a compelling way. Perhaps we learned something from that person and need to remember it now. Perhaps there is something we are now ready to learn. This may be another form of synchronicity. The face of the teacher/grandfather appears when the time has come to be instructed or to gain a deeper insight into who we are. This might even be the time to ask that person to be our guide from the other world if that fits our world view.
Synchronicity also occurs in looking back upon your life and seeing how it all prepared you or instructed you for the fullest fruition of your potential. A hidden feeling or truth waited to be awakened by just the right person or circumstance, sometimes painfully. My destiny had to have just such a beginning. My neglectful father helped me practice for the independent life I live now. My empty cupboard helped me care about starving children. James Hillman writes: “This way of seeing removes the burden from the early years as having been a mistake and yourself a victim of handicaps and cruelties; instead it is the acorn in the mirror….”
Everyone and every event in life’s drama is part of the metaphor of our journey. The issue from an old relationship may not be: “how bad he was” but: “how much I needed to learn!” Most of us keep meeting partners who show us exactly where our work is, e.g., men who abuse, women who are unfaithful. The wounds are openings into our missing life. Often, the only way a lost piece of ourselves or of our history comes back to us is through another person. The unknown is scary so people and events come along that help us go there. This is synchronicity. The only mistake we make is hanging on to some people too long or too briefly. How and with whom did I do that? We take them as literally themselves instead of as themselves and metaphorical forces, come to boost or chide. What delivered me from the constrictions into the open air? Who finally pointed the way beyond my limitations?
Finally, there is synchronicity in divination devices such as the I Ching or the Tarot: one ineluctably chooses the hexagram or card that coincides with one’s circumstance. This meaningful coincidence is based on the belief that the psyche will direct us to the exact information that we need when we need it.
IS IT FATE OR DESTINY?
The culmination of synchronicity is its direct revelation of destiny: the design of the whole universe works itself out in the display of each unique human life. “Life is a struggle to succeed in being in fact what we are in design…Our will is free to realize or not to realize the vital design we are but which we cannot change or abbreviate….” wrote Ortega y Gasset.
What we refuse to bring into consciousness, comes back to us as fate. It hits us from without when we refuse to heed its summons from within. It makes spiritual sense to forge a lasting agreement with the universe, which can only be an unconditional Yes to what is. Attention to synchronicity helps us join unfolding processes consciously. The word “design” adds the element of artistry!
Each generation presents to the universe a population of people who have just the right ingredients in them to make the world better. Each person is a crucial cell in this mystical body of humanity. There is synchronicity in the fact that here and now the world always has just the human resources that it needs to further its evolution as is fitting for this epoch. Nature participates in the same synchronicity by its drifts of species and seasons of growth and change in each era. It creates an ice age and a temperate age in accord with the over-all requirements of evolution. I am here at the right time— and just in time— for me to make my contribution and nature is supporting me by presenting just the conditions that promote this enterprise. And so are all the people in my life.
Destiny is often connected to career. Our work in the world is often our form of service or of actualizing our potential. Jonah is the biblical archetype of refusing one’s destiny. Since he was needed as a prophet, his refusal of the call to become one was disregarded. He was swallowed by a whale and forced to swallow his pride. There are also times in the course of life when refusals are allowed to stand and then “a great prince in prison lies,” as Donne says.
Jung said: “We find our destiny on the path we take to avoid it.” The greatest of human tragedies is to be distracted from our destiny and lose our power to activate our potential because of years of addiction to drugs, alcohol, or to relationships that are abusive, unworkable, or depleting. A great potential in us can thereby fade away and no one will do anything to halt the dissolution. The world will stand by as we throw away our fortune. We will stand by as we throw ourselves away. There is no guarantee that a whale will intervene for us as it did for Jonah or a tornado as it did for Dorothy. The challenge is to find our destiny in exactly what we are refusing to engage in. This is no easy task. It is hard to stop and look while we are running the other way! Is my destiny scribbled on parchment, twirled in a bottle and hurled into the sea, to be stumbled upon only long after I am gone?
How does chance figure in? Chance may simply be a playful way the universe has of collaborating with us in the working out of our destiny. Thus synchronicity integrates the irrational into an orderly pageant of evolution. The challenge is always the same: to believe in the artistic design in spite of the random display. The record shows us humans to be crassly ignorant and destructive but also touchingly responsive and restorative.
Perhaps Ghandi expressed this tension between our existential display and our essential design most accurately: “I see that mankind still survives after all its attempts to destroy itself and so I surmise that it is the law of love that rules mankind. “
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I’m not going to say anything you don’t already know. It is time for you to really embody and put into practice that which your father came here to teach you. Remember he left when you were ready, not a moment too soon or too late. He is here in spirit now to support you on your divine mission.
