Synchronicity

Sounds good in theory.

Peace and love

 

It's actually a humourous parody of Geoge Orwell's 'All animals are equal but some are more equal than others' from Animal Farm.
However, I think it is also true.

The whole point of exploring synchronicity might be to uncover connections which one didn't suspect existed previously.

 

Right, but bottom line is that everything is connected even though our minds don't recognize it. Synchronicity is very empowering and scary at the same time because you realize that everything you do has the pebble in the pond effect.

 

Not all the connections between things have any real relevance for us living our ordinary lives, but some do. Some may be very significant indeed for one individual, but pretty meaningless for another.

My own attitude towards synchronicity is not just to go 'wow!' but to seek to understand and even use it in a practical sense. Hence my interest in the I Ching and the Tarot cards.

 

I know what you mean. It's all personal. But if you are "seeing" it, it is relevant because it is mirroring your mind.

I've been exploring quantum and in my meditations I've seen how every thought, word and deed affects the whole. Nothing is separated, nothing stands alone. All is an intricate ever weaving tapestry.

So in using it in a practical sense - I have noticed, for example, when I focus on people waking up, I will see it in the news, online, in the real world, etc. And, of course, I notice lower frequency foci I have and then I can change them to a higher frequency.

 

That is interesting, have you been experimenting long? How do your findings have practical value in your everyday life?

 

put in the work-be nice when you feel annoyed, do something for someone when you are tired, show love when you are sad-and you will see extremely practical results for yourself.

 

Perhaps we actually miss a lot of what the mind is mirroring in our everyday awareness. We think only a certain bandwidth of stuff is relevant to us. As well as the conscious mind there is the unconscious - also there may be a collective psyche - as per Jung's theory.
Symbol systems like the tarot are only really like a kind of triggger to connect with what is already there outside and inside.

 

It is a plausible idea, at least worth exploration. What I am wondering is, if I stucture my perceptions to that degree, how then can I maintain the freedom of mind that is required to pick up on what the subconscious is doing? Is it possible for these two mental modes to take place simultaneously?

 

I think probably it means tuning into the unconscious in some way or another.
This is actually a huge question, and no doubt there could be many answers.
Probably, one useful step is to look into different belief systems and try to enter to some extent into them. If I were a Hindu, how would my perceptions differ fom my perceptions if I were an Orthodox Christian, or a Buddhist, or a strict materialist?
As well as percieving what we call reality, we also decode it. A particular event may have a big significance for one person, and not much meaning for another depending on how they generally view the world and themself.

In Roman times, it was believed that divination of future events and so on could be done by observing the flight of birds - as I'm sure you know the people who did this were called augers, and hence our word 'augury'.
Others look at tea leaves. The ancient chinese would put tortoise shells into a fire and read hidden things depending on how they cracked.

This might be linked to things like the famous rorscharch ink blot test, where one is shown an ink blot that is actually quite random, and asked to say what it looks like. Also stuff like word association.

A lot of stuff which can be a kind of key to whats bubbling under the surface often seems quite trivial - for instance, I sometimes find a passage from an old song going through my head, almost without knowing it. Maybe there's something surfacing in things like that. It may seem trivial but if you begin to pay attention to stuff like that it can lead to insights into your self.
In the I Ching in one place it is said 'pull up one stalk of grass and others come with it' - because the roots are all tangled together in the hidded world under the soil.

Also of course, co-incidences. It seems that if you try to look for them, you suddenly begin to see co-incidences everywhere. Even in my 'song in my head' example - it has happened that an old tune has been in my mind which I haven't heard for years, then I'll go into a mall or somewhere and find it's on the muzak system.

Explore with an open mind - thats about all I can say really.
Of course, you have also to retain the capacity for critical analysis.

 

That makes sense, not forcing a structure on perception, but more like opening it up. Just by being more aware, maybe we can gradually move our perceptions to take in more, and then expand or enhance our intuition.

 

Co-incidence is synchronicity. The more you pay attention, the more you are aware of it but it's happening all the time. BBB, I think you are getting our personal definitions about the synchronicity mixed up with the phenomenon of synchronicity itself. Like when 10 people view the same incident, when interviewed, they will all have different takes on the same One thing.

I know what you mean about the song in your head. I have the same thing and I have noticed what I was thinking or looking at when the song popped up and it's always a reflection of where my head's at. Everything speaks to us if we would but listen - birds, the rustling wind, car horns, cat fights, everything!

 

But surely even to use the term 'synchronicity' is to get into definitions? But I'd agree that I am stating my personal view - I would never claim any more than that.

Another one that's happened to me more than once is dreaming about someone I haven't seen for a few years, or perhaps not even thought of, then a while later I run into that person.
With the song thing, I think there may be quite a lot going on. For instance, the scene you were into when you first heard it, or used to listen to it. Perhaps something one needs to look at, an attitude one picked up, an idea or set of ideas ans so on. It seems the connections and associatons between things are also linked in terms of meaning, but probably only at a personal level in many cases.It seems patterns become linked or are actually part of a much bigger pattern. Probably it's like fractals, and that bigger pattern is part itself of something much bigger still.

 

Yes, and the way I see it increasingly these days is that often our thinking mind is more of an obstruction to being open on that more intuitive level. It's hard to let go, to be fully open. We have to overcome a lifetime's conditioning, and set aside many of our cherished illusions - but it's also quite exciting when you do get a peek into a deeper strata of things.

Just to add that in my opinion, this new opness is really what the Christian teachings about 'putting on the new man' etc are meant to signify.

 

I agree that we must overcome our conditioning or socialization. However, I get nervous when some people mention freeing oneself of the intellect, did you mean it that way?

 

I'm not anti the intellect as such, just it's dominace to the exclusion of a more subtle intuitive type of approach. I'm not for 'cults of un-reason' or anything like that. As I said before, you need to exercise critical judegement, esp in dealing with stuff such as we are discussing in this thread.
It's more a question of being able to suspend intellectual judgement and so on of what we are experiencing.

I've mentioned the tarot cards before so I'll use them as an example. You can take a given card and read up on it's meaning and significance in different books. You can think about the significance of the symbolism, but really it's only when you begin to get a direct intuituve understanding of the card that you really begin to understand.

I think the rational side is very useful in many respects, but has it's limitations, and of course common sense is always a good thing.

We need balance - a balance between the feeling and the thinking side.

Yin and yang.

 

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.

 

Haha....In theory?!

Have you ever done any psychedelic substance?

Well, for me, at first, I thought the co-incidences were the magic of the drugs. But soon after they became blatantly obvious in everyday life. And likewise, after coming upon that realization I was even able to look back in life before I ever used psychedelics and notice the coincidences.

In fact, to me, in theory, synchronicity sounds like bullshit. I love reading this thread and hearing everything that's been said about synchronicity, but I find myself at a huge loss of words when thinking about life in this manner.

IT HaPpEnS eVeRy DaY!