9
Synchronicity Is the Language of the Effortless Mind
In the logical sphere built around our culture and society, we see the unfolding of life as a matter of mere chance, with no real significance or meaning. This view of ourselves as strangers to this world puts us in a constant battle with the events of life. The art of wu-wei, on the other hand, is an affirmation of life, because wu-wei is a trust in the function of the universe and how it expresses itself through human beings. Chance has no place in this context, because all events are perceived as fate and therefore have deep meaning for us. Sri Ramana Maharshi, the great sage of the twentieth century, expressed his view of the differences between chance and fate in a short note he wrote to his mother, who was pleading with him to break his practice of silence and return home:
The ordainer controls the fate of souls in accordance with their prarabdha karma [the karma of past experiences and lives pre-determined and manifested in one’s present body/incarnation, prarabdha is often translated as destiny]. Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.1
The silence of Sri Ramana Maharshi is the verification that he lived the power of wu-wei. Like Lao-tzu, Ramana Maharshi understood that oneness and unity are only revealed through absolute trust. When we unquestionably trust that there is a path that is guiding our life, it is complemented by a deep inner voice that we hear as our intuition. This phenomenon is commonly known as “divine guidance” or “the voice of God,” even though both these terms have been deprived of their true meaning by organized religion. Leaving things alone through trust aligns your life with fate.
CHANCE OR FATE?
Chance, on the other hand, arises out of our primal instincts for survival, because we incorrectly believe we are opposed by the events of life. The idea of chance, then, relates to the unnatural, linear perspective on life. This perspective sees the future as having no significance to the way we are in the present or in the past.
Taoist wisdom rejects the idea of chance, because it is a one-dimensional perspective. Being bound to the world of form, chance excludes the inner world. Fate, which takes into account the relationship between our inner and outer worlds, is diametrically opposed to chance. This relationship is of the same essence as the natural, nonlinear world. Fate is nonlinear because it depends on our inner world synchronizing with the external world. This synchronization relates to the deep content and conditioning of our mind, which remains unconscious. The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung discovered this connection between the unconscious and the material world through his own experience. Jung states, “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.”2
Jung postulates that the unconscious and fate conspire against the conscious self to further the growth of the individual. This is one of the main principles for understanding the shadow element of the psyche, as the world we experience will continue to reveal suppressed and unconscious aspects of our minds. Both fate and the unconscious uproot our plans to control life.
Our identity, or ego, is the aspect of ourselves that attempts to control and plan our present and future experience. But as we all know, no matter how hard you try to control life, it somehow has a way of changing those plans. And yet upon self-reflection, you discover that these unexpected events helped to shape your life and allowed it further inner growth. So what we think disturbs our life is actually fate and our unconscious conspiring against our rigid personality for the purpose of our evolution as individuals. As the softness of water slowly wears away at the hardness of rock, so too does fate wear away at the rigidity of our conditioned identity.
Fate relates to the unconscious—those deep aspects of ourselves that need to be made conscious for us to grow. This process has nothing to do with the ego, because the ego is built on conditioned beliefs and thinks it knows what is best for you. But your ego does not know what is best for you. It is the lazy, distracted aspect of your mind, which believes it is special. What is best for you arises out of fate, which brings to light those aspects of yourself that your ego has suppressed. Being built into the fabric of consciousness, we cannot live exactly how we want according to our identity, because everyone’s life would resemble their pleasures and fantasies, and this would put them grossly out of sync with the homeostasis of the planet. This is not freedom.
In the modern era we are audaciously attempting to build a world based on our pleasures and fantasies. But we are slowly learning that nothing can be learned from a world whose chief motive is to avoid pain. You only have to look into your own life to understand that pain has humbled you and has given you the greatest growth.
This striving for control and pleasure is the major difference between organized religion and Lao-tzu’s Taoist understanding of fate. The faith of many religions is based on the hope that one day the events of life will turn in favor of our conditioning and pleasures, instead of understanding that to trust fate is to have faith in God.
The Taoism of Lao-tzu says trust and fate are a single thing. Living wu-wei brings trust into harmony with fate, not because events coincide with your individual desires, but because you have let go of these desires. We are out of sync with fate when we plan and strategize about the future; furthermore, we are wasting our time and energy, because these dreams in many cases never come true. Not that it is useless to have imagination—there is nothing wrong with imagination—but the problem occurs when our imagination is linked to our personal agendas, which in turn are based on our conditioning. Imagination in a lot of cases consists of nothing more than dreams of controlling our destiny. This ultimately hurts us, as these dreams are invariably very distant from reality.
These misunderstandings distort the principal truths handed down from the mystics of each religion. Having faith that is separate from fate leads to idiotic dogmas, such as that the individual and God are separate from each other, or that God is not found in the natural world, or that this world is somehow a construct coming from God as if God were an architect and we were mere pawns in a stage show. Faith as seen by many organized religions has no relationship to the external world, because they think of the material world as something we should conquer or try to escape.
The usual notion of causality is the result of such misguided views. Many religions teach that in this world we are opposed by a meaningless cause-and-effect process, which is constantly uprooting our wishes and desires. The answer to this problem is supposedly to have more faith. Yet if the unconscious and fate are connected, could we say that what plays out as cause and effect has a deeper meaning than we may think? The I Ching suggests that all events in life are connected in a way that is beyond intellectual comprehension. In writing about the I Ching Jung states:
This assumption involves a certain curious principle that I have termed synchronicity, a concept that formulates a point of view diametrically opposed to that of causality. Since the latter is a merely statistical truth and not absolute, it is a sort of working hypothesis of how events evolve one out of another, whereas synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.3
The I Ching explains that all aspects of life have a deeper meaning because of synchronicity, which we experience both collectively and individually. When we trust the unfolding of fate in our lives, we become aware of synchronicity. Synchronicity is the language the Tao uses to offer its miraculous guidance. But the spiritually blind see this guidance merely as coincidence.
Wu-wei, if sincerely understood and followed, harmonizes our inner world with the outer world. This harmony is evident through the synchronicities we experience in our lives. Instead of the idea that fate is against us, synchronicity demonstrates that fate is a teacher that softens our hearts into an honest humility. If we can truly live wu-wei, the magic and miracles of the universe come to life through synchronicity. It is as if the source of Tao is speaking to us directly.
When you trust the workings of the universe, its evolutionary unfolding begins to be mirrored in your own experience. It is as if reality is guiding you and revealing a story about yourself and your place within the cosmic spectrum. Though religions speak of divine intervention, many ignore the fact that this intervention is the by-product of synchronicity. In any event, the idea of divine intervention points out a contradiction in religious belief: If God is separate from the external world, then how could He/She/It intervene in this world?
The Taoist view of the underlying source within all life should not be identified with the Western concept of an immanent, pantheistic God. This view would reduce the mystery of the Tao to intellectual jargon. Furthermore, the Taoist perspective does not see causation in the Western way, whereby each event is separate and stuck together with other separate events. On the contrary, no events can be connected, because connection in this sense would still imply separation. So the Taoists perceive the universe as one single event, with differing fluctuations in the unified field of Tao, in the way that a wave is distinct from the ocean, but it is still the ocean.
Similarly, the Taoist perspective should not be confused with the pantheistic view of the universe as a mass of distinct things and events working in an unconscious fashion. Taoist wisdom is not saying that the universe is unconscious. It is saying that abiding in what we perceive as the unconsciousness of the universe is an intelligence beyond intellectual speculation. To believe that Tao is just an unconscious energy is as absurd as the notion of a personal God ruling separate from the universe. Becoming aware of synchronicity demonstrates that there is more to the Way of the Tao than meets the eye.
A trust in life and an alignment with synchronicity affirm life on all levels, physical, mental, and spiritual. These metaphysical, psychological, and spiritual profundities are too vast and deep for the average materialist to comprehend. (Average materialists include most members of organized religions, because they are predominantly materialist in thinking and character.) The spiritual adepts of antiquity never thought of the material world as gross matter, because upon deep contemplation nature has a story to tell for those who have come to a place of nirodha, stillness, within themselves.
Synchronicity proves that the material world is not mere gross matter but the unconscious intelligence of the Tao playing out through our own being. All forms of matter, whether of a human body or a rock, have the same intelligence within them at different degrees of magnitude. The intelligence of Tao synchronizes with the external world when one follows wu-wei. This trust harmonizes both the inner and outer world through the language of synchronicity. Lao-tzu, like practically all sages, revered nature. In contemplating the interconnectedness of nature, the sages have discovered how we fit into and indeed belong to nature. Those who dwell only in the material world have no such spiritual vision. They do not see how everything is interconnected and unfolding into something that at the moment is beyond human comprehension. Many religions are based on the assumption that the world is merely gross matter and that spirit exists only in humans and not in anything else. Those who reside in pure awareness will know that this is absurd.
SYNCHRONICITY IS THE SONG OF SPIRIT AND MATTER
If divine intervention and synchronicity exist, spirit and matter cannot be separate. Sincere contemplation of nature brings this unity of spirit and matter to the forefront of our awareness. This understanding is not found only in Lao-tzu’s Taoism, but it is common in the East and at the very core of many spiritual traditions. The spiritual science at the basis of Gnosticism and Hermeticism esoterically explains how spirit and matter can be one. The Hermetic tradition, as set out in a book called The Kybalion, explains in seven laws how spirit and matter, or in other words the inner and outer worlds, are in mutual relationship to each other. The laws of vibration and rhythm show how spirit and matter are in a constant dance, made up of subatomic particles, which ebb and flow at varying rates of magnitude according to the harmonic resonance between them:
III. THE PRINCIPLE OF VIBRATION
Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.4
V. THE PRINCIPLE OF RHYTHM
Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.5
Yet both of these are meaningless if they are not understood in relation to the first principle of Hermeticism, which indicates how there could be any fluctuations of vibration and rhythm in relation to spirit and matter. This principle states:
I. THE PRINCIPLE OF MENTALISM
THE ALL IS MIND; The Universe is Mental.6
Mind here should not be mistaken for the superficial mind, or ego, which is only an accumulation of conditioning. Rather this mind is consciousness, which is the foundation of the entire universe.
Modern spiritual and scientific understanding are coming to the same conclusion: that everything is a manifestation of a unified field of consciousness. Consciousness, according to the sages, is not isolated within the mind of the human brain, but exists everywhere in three planes, which are defined in the wisdom traditions as the physical, mental, and spiritual planes. The Hindu philosophy of Vedanta is in part based on the deep understanding that what we in the modern era know as the atom is actually a spiritual aspect of the one consciousness of Brahman (irreducible essence/ultimate reality/godhead), which functions like a breath coming from the spiritual plane into the manifestation of the physical plane. The spiritual atom is a product of consciousness and moves according to the focus of conscious awareness. My book The Science and Practice of Humility goes into this subject in depth.
Consciousness produces the spiritual atom, which multiplies through the principle of vibration and rhythm until we have the outward form of matter, which in essence is nothing more than a garment of consciousness manifested through the dance of subatomic particles. The physical, mental, and spiritual planes of consciousness are connected by the vibration and rhythm of subatomic particles producing the dance of life. Consciousness dwells in everything, both space and matter, in a cosmic symphony. The individual is part of this symphony, and synchronicity is the harmony that is produced by this dance. Yet only those who trust the universe can perceive this dance with clear eyes.
Synchronicity does exist for everyone, even materialists and nonbelievers. But the ignorant pass such experiences off as coincidence and do not learn or grow from them. One who dwells on the spiritual plane perceives things as they are in holistic truth, while one who is primarily on the mental and physical planes still believes in a material world devoid of spirit. In Confucius’s commentary on the I Ching, he explains that what we resonate deeply with will affect our experience and, consequently, the synchronicity experienced between the underlying spirit of the individual and the external world:
Things that accord in tone vibrate together. Things that have affinity in their inmost natures seek one another. Water flows to what is wet, fire turns to what is dry. Clouds (the breath of heaven) follow the dragon, wind (the breath of earth) follows the tiger. Thus the sage arises, and all creatures follow him with their eyes. What is born of heaven feels related to what is above. What is born of earth feels related to what is below. Each follows its kind.7
Whatever our mind is focused on will be the world we experience, because perception is molded by life through the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that we hold as important to us. Although the spiritual plane influences both the mental and physical planes, thoughts, feelings, and emotions exist on the mental plane and cannot become pure unless one dwells on the spiritual plane. People who live only in the two lower worlds are driven by their conditioning; they are attracted only to those realms and suffer according to their apparent duality. On the other hand, those very few who live on the spiritual plane can see the one consciousness in harmony playing out in all forms. Chuang-tzu poetically explains this spiritual perception: “When there is no more separation between ‘this’ and ‘that,’ it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still-point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.”8
The spiritual understanding of consciousness also conflicts with the materialistic scientific perspective. Materialistic science is under the impression that consciousness is a phenomenon limited to the mind, which in turn is believed to be situated inside the brain. From this we can understand why synchronicity has not been given any serious thought in the scientific field outside of psychology and quantum physics.
To regard consciousness as merely the function of the physical anatomy of the brain resembles the religious notion that spirit and matter are separate. From a common-sense point of view, how could anything in life be connected or relate to anything else without consciousness? How could rain nourish plant life and plant life nourish us in turn if there were no underlying consciousness compelling them to do so? All manifestations of consciousness relate to each other in a symbiotic harmony, but usually only a sage can recognize it. Synchronicity brings this awareness to the forefront of our knowledge when our perception has been marinated in a trust in wu-wei and the harmony of Tao.
THE ORIGIN OF SYNCHRONICITY
Although all of this may explain how synchronicity can be experienced in one’s life, it does not give us any indication of the origin of its existence. Questions about the origins of synchronicity arise when we compare the spiritual significance of the evolutionary process of the universe as opposed to the eternally present Self, which is not constricted by time, space, name, and form. People are often in a bind over these two apparently opposing realities. None of this confusion is new, as differing opinions have always arisen on this subject among the Hindus, Taoists, and Zen Buddhists.
In the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta they would argue that synchronicity is born of the Eternal Self/undifferentiated consciousness (Atman) and that it is only a phenomenon of change, which has no relation to the Eternal Self. The Zen master, for his part, would state that synchronicity appears as a phenomenon when we remain in the stillness of the Void (sunyata in Sanskrit) and could be thought of as a temporary illusion. The Taoists would assume that synchronicity is the result of some connection between the inner and outer worlds, but they could never give a definite reason about why it exists. Though all three insights may appear opposed, they are all in essence valid explanations and hint toward a single origin.
Patanjali’s yoga of practice complemented by stillness gives us an indication of synchronicity’s origins. Patanjali understood that the “doing” of practice is in alignment with the evolutionary unfolding, while the “nondoing” of stillness brings one in resonance with the Eternal Self, which is the source of Tao within us. This is the Vedic wisdom that teaches Atman is Brahman. The aspects of doing and nondoing harmonize with each other and bring forth unity between the changing and the changeless, or in other words, between motion and stillness. This unified harmony, manifested on an individual level, is the origin of synchronicity.
Lao-tzu refers to a “Way” (Tao) that is found by few. The most common understanding of the Way is the course of things, which I’ve mentioned: if we follow it in life, it will guide us as if we were floating down a stream to the greater ocean. When a stream flows down a mountain, it finds its own path. Similarly, living in harmony with nature is finding your own way: this is the Way of the Tao. Even when we block the stream or resist it, it will find its own way, and we will suffer from swimming against the current.
Consider a fallen leaf that is flowing on a stream. If you, like the leaf, allow the stream to carry you in this fashion, its power becomes yours—te. You become one with nature, without clinging, without attachment, and leaving the past behind to live completely in the present moment. The Way in this context is a simple understanding of how one follows the evolutionary energies, or cosmic unfolding, of the universe. But it still does not indicate why it is imperative to follow the Way, nor does it address the reality of our Eternal Self, which is identical to the Tao/Brahman. Every tradition speaks of our eternal and real Self in different ways, but how does that relate to the common perspective of the Way?
The sages of practically all spiritual traditions would suggest that when we follow the Way, it eventually humbles us and softens our hearts, which gives us greater knowledge of the Eternal Self. Conversely, when one sincerely chooses to remain present as the Eternal Self in stillness or self-inquiry, as many Buddhist and Hindu teachers would suggest, one becomes aware of the Way.
So both apparently opposing spiritual perspectives reach the same destination, even though the journey is different. Whether you attempt to remain present in stillness as the Eternal Self or you follow the Way, you will reveal the other, as if they were the same thing. When we look into the Eternal Self we discover the Way, and when we follow the Way we reveal the Eternal Self. This sort of knowledge is only understood by those that Chuang-tzu would call the “spiritual elite.” Only those who are sincere in their own introspection will understand how both the Eternal Self and the Way go together as one. If one does not know the experience of the Way or the Self, then all of this will appear as nothing more than words.
There is no difference between the cosmic unfolding and the Eternal Self, even though many people tend to think so. But they do not understand the wisdom of Lao-tzu because of their incorrect view of separateness between the Eternal Self and the Way. People tend to hold one form over the other while missing Lao-tzu’s point of letting go. The origin and significance of synchronicity are revealed in the mirror of the Self and the Way.
The origin of synchronicity comes from the union of the Way and the Eternal Self. The Eternal Self and the Way go together as one, and this is experienced as synchronicity. Synchronicity is the language of Tao that manifests in an individual’s life as a result of his or her harmony between the Eternal Self and the Way. In Vedanta, as I’ve mentioned, this is known as the connection between Atman (Eternal Self/ undifferentiated consciousness) and Brahman (irreducible essence/ ultimate reality). There is also the movement of energy in the manifest world (prakrti) and the stillness of pure awareness (Purusha) of the yogic philosophy of Patanjali.
One experiences synchronicity when both the Self and the Way are in perfect correspondence. Through the experience of synchronicity one understands that one is in accord with the Tao both within oneself and in the evolutionary unfolding of the universe. This is the “real” Way of the Tao that Lao-tzu and other ancient masters referred to.
The Way of the Tao, then, is the Way of the Self. If you are sincere in exploring yourself, then the peaceful resonance of synchronicity will begin to bring magic to your life. The Way of the Self, or Tao, is to completely follow the reality of wu-wei into a future that is unknown. Synchronicity is our safe guide into the wilderness of the universe. In this wilderness we discover that the Eternal Self and the Way are like everything else—unified. The essential wisdom of Lao-tzu is that everything goes together, but this truth only dawns on those who follow wu-wei. Sages do not bring Heaven to Earth by building upon what has already been established. On the contrary, they deconstruct what has been built by remaining small through simplicity and the power of uselessness.