Synchronicity and Presencing
Synchronicity
is no more baffling or mysterious than the discontinuities
of physics. It is only the ingrained belief in the sovereign
power of causality that creates intellectual difficulties
and makes it appear unthinkable that causeless events
exist or could ever occur. But if they do, then we must
regard them as creative acts, as the continuous creation
of a pattern that exists from all eternity, repeats
itself sporadically, and is not derivable from any known
antecedents."
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity - An Acausal Connecting Principle.
Routledge 1955. Reprinted 2006.
There
is a Tibetan word called 'tendrel' that means 'auspicious
co-incidence' or the interaction, interconnection and
interrelation of supposedly separate factors. Carl Jung
spoke of synchronicity as being an "acausal connecting
principle" ie. a pattern of connection that is
not explained by causality. It is about those moments
in time when it seems impossible that mere co-incidence
could have created such a perfect fit in your circumstances.
The
biologist
Rupert Sheldrake talks of something called 'formative
causation' that creates the underlying organizing pattern
of the 'morphonogenic field'. Each kind of thing has
a field which gives its form, pattern, field or structure.
This generative living field is like the plan, the shaping
influence that maintains the health of the larger system.
This is very similar to the Jung's idea of the theory
of collective unconscious - his name for the governing
dynamic that underlies the whole of human experience
and historysocial, emotional, psychological, and
spiritual. It could also be said to be in accord with
the Vedic idea of the 'Akashic Records' representing
the living "library" of all the experiences
and memories of human minds.
"Thus
synchronicity is basically creative whether at the level
of the atom, the molecule, the cell, the organism, or
the system. Enigmatic, inscrutable, mysterious, seemingly
acausal, playful and funny, synchronicity makes us laugh,
cry, pay attention, and shake our heads in amazement.
In 1996 Combs and Holland stated it well: "Nothing
is closer to the heart of the experience of synchronicity
than the feeling that the world itself expresses creativity
in synchronistic coincidences. Such coincidences often
have more the feel of poetry than physics" .
Rupert
Sheldrake
Goethe
looked at the world as something dynamic and living
- the whole existing through the continually manifestation
of the parts, and the parts existing as embodiments
of the whole and Buckminster Fuller talked about the
existence of a patterned integrity'.
Our
bodies are physical, but life is metaphysical. Housed
in a temporary
arrangement of energy as cells, life is a pattern integrity
far more complex
than the knot or the wave. Remember that all the material
present in the cells
of your body seven years ago has been completely replaced
today, somehow
showing up with the same arrangement, color, and function.
It doesn't matter
whether you ate bananas or tuna fish for lunch. A human
being processes
thousands of tons of food, air, and water in a lifetime.
Just as a slip knot tied in
a segment of cotton rope, which is spliced to a piece
of nylon rope, in turn
spliced to manila rope, then to Dacron rope (and so
on) can be slid along the
rope from material to material without changing its
"pattern integrity," we too
slide along the diverse strands supplied by Universeas
"self-rebuilding,
beautifully designed pattern integrities." No weight
is lost at the moment of
death. Whatever "life" is, it's not physical."
Buckminster
Fuller
Otto
Scharmer and Peter Senge are now exploring the new concept
of 'Presencing' which implies the capacity for 'deep
sensing' into the field of the emergent future. It is
something common to all visionaries who 'see' things
in their heads as though they already exist. It is also
something very familiar to indigenous peoples, whose
wisdom traditions tap directly into this field in order
to obtain teachings and guidance.
Weve
come to believe that the core capacity needed for accessing
the field of the future is presence.We first thought
of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the
present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence
as deep listening, of being open beyond ones preconceptions
and historical ways of making sense.We came to see the
importance of letting go of old identities and the need
to control and, as Salk said, making choices to serve
the evolution of life. Ultimately, we came to see all
these aspects of presence as leading to a state of letting
come, of consciously participating in a larger
field for change. When this happens, the field shifts,
and the forces shaping a situationcan shift from re-creating
the past to manifesting or realizing an emerging future.
Senge,
Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers