Coincidence, Meaning, and Synchronicity

Coincidence, Meaning, and Synchronicity

There was a loud BANG ... and time stood still... as the car is spinning around in the middle of a busy interstate highway in New Jersey during rush hour traffic... cars and trucks doing 70 miles per hour... and here I am sitting in my car...spinning around in the middle lane... a tractor trailer kisses the door beside me ... the car continues its spin... I feel the bounce off a black 4-door sedan in the right lane... A brief thought wonders if it may be my time to leave this world ... then ... from the back seat area I hear a voice that calls out loudly and clearly,
"LET GO"... and so, with the car still spinning, I let go of the steering wheel... and I am amazed that the car stops spinning as it straightens out...and remains in the middle lane and I am now headed in the right direction... my hands naturally go back to the steering wheel and I guide the car to the nearest shoulder area...

More to come...

 The human egoic mind is constantly making associations and assigning meaning to events that occur. It can be quite a futile attempt at times to try to 'know' or 'understand' everything, since, in the words attributed to Einstein in a James Taylor song, "We can't understand it all." But our egoic mind seems to try its best, both in order to survive in the physical world and also to control or manipulate its environment in direct or covert ways.

Coincidence...
There is a belief by some people that everything is purposeful and meaningful at some level. This may or may not be true. Events that may occur simultaneously or within close proximity in time or space are called 'coincidental'... which may or may not be assigned meaning by the observer. To paraphrase Deepak Chopra: "every event has an infinite number of causes and also results in an infinite number of possible outcomes." And we find ourselves sitting here in the present moment of the causal quantum universe's Now!

Synchronicity...
Carl Jung coined the term "Synchronicity" in the early part of the 20^th century [about 1920] to signify meaningful coincidental events that would not be expected to occur together by chance. And it has become a part of our knowledge base ever since. Synchronistic events are experienced as meaningful by those who experience them. By way of example, one day as I was driving to a community church service with a friend, we were discussing synchronicities. I shared that one time Carl Jung was talking with a 'client' who had a dream about a golden beetle. As they talked he noticed a shimmering object on the window and there was a 'golden beetle' reflecting the sun's light. We arrived at the church and as we walked around the back of the car, I noticed a beetle in the rear window glistening in the morning sun.  we shared this experience in amazement and went into the church. During the morning talk, the minister used as an example illustrating his topic, the same story of Jung, his client, and the Golden Beetle. Later I investigated if there was some explainable way all three things may have happened. Did I read the sermon topic ahead of time and therefore shared my story of the beetle and Jung in anticipation. The answer was "No"... there was no conscious connection indicating what was to come in the minister's talk that day.

Of course, we assigned some meaning to the events of that morning that went beyond mere chance occurrences. It may even point to the interconnectedness of consciousness that plays a vital part in manifestation theories and how our focus and intention can attract similar energies, people, and events.

Some people, myself included, tend to see the phenomena of synchronicity in a good way as the "conspiratorial nature of the universe."  At times, events seem to occur that are both meaningful and guided by some mysterious intelligent energy that is beyond the understanding of our everyday or ordinary personal consciousness.

So, what is the nature of "Meaning"?

'Meaning' in events is related to the significance and assigned value we give to them.

Practical or Everyday Meaning

 'Meanings' of symbols and words are necessary and significant as a shared mode of communicating. In this case, the social group defines the words or symbols by agreement and usage. "Mowing the lawn" easily communicates a certain meaning and experience to the majority in our society, even though each person will have his or her own images and experience with which to interpret these few words. So while "mowing the lawn" conveys a general communication and concept, each person brings their own experience, understanding, education, biases, and feelings to these three words.

There are the actual meanings of the symbols, which are defined in any English dictionary. Then we add to seasoning to the meaning with our own personal experiences and filters and we can call this our interpretation. For this we can easily see how all "Meaning"... even in everyday day practical communication can be quite relative in nature and dependent upon personal differences.

Communication is often fraught with assumptions that we know what the other person means. The relative nature of how we interpret what other say or write can best be seen in the frustration between supervisor and employee, between team members who assume someone knows what to do, between relationship partners, etc.

There are specific communication skills and techniques that can be learned and applied to help improve the conveyance of meaning in our everyday lives.

"Deeper Meaning"

'Meaning' may have a deeply significant value to the one who experiences an event, whether or not that meaning is shared with others. If I said that when I turned the corner this morning, an acorn almost hit me in the head, we all could see this as a coincidence that just happened and do not need to assign any further 'deeper meaning' to the events. Although some people tend to see a meaning in everything and this is fine for them of course. And it can result in simple projections onto everything that avoids simply being with "what is" without the ego needing to understand or try to figure out "why" something happens.

 If we recall the story I shared above about Jung, the beetle, his client, the clients dream, my car window beetle, the minister's talk of Jung and the beetle, the prior car discussion with my friend about synchronicity, etc., then perhaps we can see how easy it can be to make the leap to the 'universe conspiring with us' in a more personally meaningful way... a deeper meaning that will not be found in the dictionary.

It's my understanding that we cannot really know from the perspective of our egoic mind if something is truly meaningful in any absolute way. We just cannot know for sure. We can sense a "deeper meaning"  within the context of a specific situation. We can intuit that events are meaningful. We can agree that some events are meaningful as a group. That does not make them meaningful in any absolute way. It does however provide a sense of intelligence and purpose beyond our personal ego and experience... a sense of the "bigger picture."

To summarize:

• Coincidences are when two or more events occur either simultaneously or close together in the conventional timeframe. Coincidence is simply 'what is' without assignment of a deeper meaning, whether or not there is one.
• Chance is the assumption that there is probably no known shared cause for events to occur as they do.
• Meaning is both significant for and relative to the person or people who share an event depending on their particular experiences and personal filters of interpretation.
• Synchronicity is two or more events occurring coincidentally that have meaning to the observer(s) and/or participant(s) and which seem unlikely to have occurred due to chance.

The "Rest of the Story"...
I began this section by telling a personal story. So here's "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey used to report on his news broadcasts.

What actually happened?

I don't really know, nor do I need to know... The best I can do is relate the probable cause as compiled by discussions with the Saturn technician, the insurance adjuster, and the body work technician. When I first pulled off the road, I assumed I would find a blown tire since there was an explosive bang that initiated the spin. But all the tires were fine. And the Saturn seemed to be driving fine. I thought perhaps it was something on the road surface that flew up and banged loudly against the underbelly of the car. When I took it to Saturn service technician to make sure it was safe to drive, he could find no evidence of my first theory. He suggested that most likely what happened was that the truck to my rear in the next lane touched the left rear of the my car and sent it into a spin He explained that when race cars are traveling at fairly high speeds, it only takes a slight bump by another vehicle to send a car out of control and into a spin. The marks on the car were consistent with this theory, so that's good enough for me... plus it was confirmed as a good explanation by the other experts I spoke with. To be fair to the driver of the truck, it's impossible to know who did the drifting. I could have drifted a bit so that the lug nuts on his front tires hit my car...or he may have drifted into the lane I was in. Either way, the slight bump started my spiritual experience and lesson of the day.... and that's the "rest of the story."

Lessons from the Whirling Dervish Auto Episode
The spinning on the interstate truly was an extra-ordinary experience in which I simply seemed to noticed everything in a calm and peaceful manner. There were several meaningful lessons I took from that experience:

• No time, No fear, No thoughts: When a real crisis occurred, there was no time and no fear, simply being present. The reality of "what was" suspended the stream of thoughts usually rambling through consciousness and the emotional fears that our minds can create will play we play in fantasylands of past and future.
• Guardian Angel: There is some intelligent guardian energy that uses a form I can relate to when it is vitally necessary. The "voice" I clearly and audibly heard was as real as it needed to be to get my attention in a concise way.
• Trust and Obey: There is a lesson in this to follow the guidance I receive. The voice said, "Let Go" and without thinking about it or considering the options, I did it... with positive results to be sure.
• Life Lessons: I followed the guidance provided for this specific situation. So the first thing is to hear the guidance. I was going through a transition at that time in my life and career and was kind of spinning in circles in my own personal way as I experienced the uncertainty of that transition. I took from the near-disastrous highway incident that perhaps I simply needed to let go of trying to steer my life out of the spin and trust the guidance that is available. And in Life's own timing, the guidance will always be here when needed.