Awareness vs. Synchronicity

One of the things I’ve noticed in following the Google alerts on synchronicity is that techie people, writing about techie stuff, have adopted and adapted the term. They did the same a few years ago with ‘intuition.’ A certain software, they would say, is intuitive, meaning you could learn how to use it without the manual. To me, that meant the software was easy to use. It was logic not intuition that made it easy to operate. When software actually becomes intuitive, it will mean the machines are running the show.

Now the techies are co-opting synchronicity. Some days most of the Google alerts are from technical sites. where ‘synchronicity’ is the term used for things that run parallel…but by design, not chance. It’s casual, not acausal.  In other words, they’re referring to synchronous operations, as in ‘Let’s synchronize our watches.’

All of that said, those of us who see synchronicity as similar events coming together in a non-causal fashion sometimes also misuse the term. We sometimes point to synchronicity when we’re actually dealing with awareness. In other words, we become alert to the possibility of synchronicity.

Here’s an example. Recently, I posted a story about a famous or infamous yoga teacher and his notoriety for sexual expoits with his female students. I pointed out that he is now seen far and wide seated on a mattress, notable by himself. These mattress ads are on television, in magazines, and elsewhere. I considered that synchronicity as well as karma.

So a few days after that post, I was driving along a thoroughfare and realized that directly in front of me was the yoga teacher in question seated on a mattress staring at me. It was an ad plastered on the back door of a City Mattress truck.

To me, that was a case of awareness, not synchronicity. If I had been thinking about that particular teacher and then spotted him staring at me from the back of the truck, I would’ve considered that synchronicity. Instead, his appearance alerted me to the possibility that if I had not made that post, I might not have noticed the poster on the truck. I might have completely overlooked it, or it might not have been there at all.

Here’s another example, this one arrived yesterday from Sansego, well timed.

“I was on Facebook yesterday and saw that a lady I had been interested in for the past two and a half years (we went out a lot and had fun, even though she was in a long distance relationship with a guy in the Netherlands) had posted a picture of Jewel, saying that this singer was who people thought she looked the most like. When I saw that, I immediately thought of Jewel’s song “You Were Meant For Me”, as that is how I feel about Christine. Within five minutes of thinking that, the radio station I had been listening to all day actually played Jewel’s ‘You Were Meant For Me’ as the next song!”

Sansego’s story resonated with me on a couple of levels. When he thought about that song and how it fit his feelings for Christine, it was an example of awareness. When the song came on the radio a short time later, that was synchronicity, and it clearly captured his desires for the relationship, even though his love-interest is out of reach.

In terms of guidance, it seems that a part of him that exists outside of time and space and cause and effect was echoing his desires, or maybe taunting him like a trickster, since the woman has moved to the Netherlands and is engaged.

I might be splitting hairs, distinguishing awareness from synchronicity, but if we see virtually everything as synchronicity, then we might be deluding ourselves and diluting the meaning of the term–as the techies have done. – Rob