Coincidences are not accidents

[Guest guest]

Coincidences are not accidents but signals from the universe which can

guide us toward our true destiny.

By Deepak Chopra

Most of us go through life a little afraid, a little nervous, a little

excited. We are like children playing hide and seek, wanting to be found,

yet hoping we won't be, biting our nails with anticipation. We worry when

opportunity approaches a little too closely, and hide deeper in the shadows

when fear overcomes us. This is no way to go through life. People who

understand the true nature of reality, those whom some traditions call

enlightened, lose all sense of fear or concern. All worry disappears. Once

you understand the way life really works—the flow of energy, information,

and intelligence that directs every moment—then you begin to see the amazing

potential in that moment. Mundane things just don't bother you anymore. You

become lighthearted and full of joy. You also begin to encounter more and

more coincidences in your life.

When you live your life with an appreciation of coincidences and their

meanings, you connect with the underlying field of infinite possibilities.

This is when the magic begins. This is a state I call synchrodestiny, in

which it becomes possible to achieve the spontaneous fulfillment of our

every desire. Synchrodestiny requires gaining access to a place deep within

yourself, while at the same time awakening to the intricate dance of

coincidences out in the physical world.

When a coincidence arises, don't ignore it. Ask yourself, What is the

message here? What is the significance of this? You don't need to go digging

for the answers. Ask the question, and the answers will emerge. They may

arrive as a sudden insight, a spontaneous creative experience, or they may

be something very different. Perhaps you will meet a person who is somehow

related to the coincidence that occurred. An encounter, a relationship, a

chance meeting, a situation, a circumstance will immediately give you a clue

to its meaning. “Oh, so that's what it was all about!”

The key is to pay attention and inquire.

Another thing you can do to nurture coincidence is to keep a diary or

journal of coincidences in your life. After years of note-taking, I classify

coincidences as tiny, medium, whoppers, and double-whoppers. You can do this

in any way that is easy for you. For some people, it is easiest to maintain

a daily journal and underline or highlight words or phrases or names of

things that show up as coincidences. Other people keep a special coincidence

diary. They start a new page for each significant coincidence, then jot down

any other connections to that event on its page.

For people who want to delve deeply into coincidence, one of the processes I

recommend is recapitulation. This is a way of putting yourself in the

position of observer of your life, and of your dreams, so that connections

and themes and images and coincidences become clearer. Because our

connection to the universal soul is much more obvious when we are dreaming,

this process allows you to access a whole new level of coincidences.

When you go to bed at night, before you fall asleep, sit up for a few

minutes and imagine that you are witnessing on the screen of your

consciousness everything that happened during the day. See your day as a

movie. Watch yourself waking up in the morning, brushing your teeth, having

breakfast, driving to work, conducting your business, coming home, eating

dinner—everything in your day right up to bedtime. There is no need to

analyze what you see, or evaluate, or judge... just watch the movie. See it

all. You may even notice things that did not strike you as important at the

time. You may notice that the color of the hair of the woman behind the

drugstore counter was the same as your mother’s when you were young. Or you

might pay special attention to a little child who was crying as his mother

was dragging him down a supermarket aisle. It’s amazing the things that show

up in the movie of your day that you may not have consciously noted during

the day itself.

As you watch your day go by in the movie, take this opportunity to view

yourself objectively. You may find yourself doing something that you’re

particularly proud of, or at times you may notice yourself doing things that

are embarrassing. Again, the goal is not to evaluate, but to get little

insights into the protagonist’s behavior—this character that is your self.

When the recapitulation is over—which can take as little as five minutes or

as long as a half hour—say to yourself, “Everything that I’ve witnessed,

this movie of a day in my life, is now safely stored away. I can summon

those images on the screen of my consciousness but as soon as I let them go,

they disappear.” The movie is over. Then, as you go to sleep, say to

yourself, “Just as I now recapitulated the day, I am giving instructions to

my soul, my spirit, my subconscious to witness my dreams.” Initially you may

not notice much of a change. But if you practice this every night for a few

weeks, you will start to have a very clear experience that the dream is the

scenery, and you are the person watching it all. When you wake up in the

morning, recapitulate the night, just as you recapitulated the day at night.

Once you are able to recall the movie of your dreams, write down some of the

more memorable scenes. Include them in your journal. Make a special note of

coincidences. Nonlocal intelligence [literally " without location, " the

spiritual domain, the field of potential] provides clues in our sleep just

as it does in our waking hours.

What starts to happen, then, is that gradually we see correlations, images

that repeat themselves both in dreams and in everyday reality. More

coincidences provide more clues to guide our behavior. We start to enjoy

more opportunities. We have more “good luck.” These clues point out the

direction to take our lives. Through this process of recapitulation we see

recurring patterns and we start to unravel life’s mystery.

This process is especially helpful for departing from destructive habits.

Life has certain themes that it plays out. Sometimes those themes operate to

our advantage. Sometimes they work against us, especially if we repeat the

same patterns or themes, over and over, hoping to get a different result.

For example, many people who get divorced fall in love again, but they end

up in exactly the same kind of relationship they were in before. They repeat

the same trauma, relive the same anguish, and then they say, “Why does this

keep happening to me?” The process of recapitulation can help us witness

these patterns, and once we discern them, we can make more conscious choices

Journaling isn't absolutely necessary, but it helps bring insights and

coincidences to the surface.

So remain sensitive, observe coincidences during both your daytime living

and your nighttime dreaming, and pay special attention to anything that

breaks the probability amplitude—the statistical likelihood of a space-time

event. We all need to plan things to some extent, to make assumptions about

tomorrow even though we actually don't know what’s going to happen. Anything

that upsets our plans, anything that takes us off the trajectory we think we

are on, can provide a major insight. Even the absence of events that you

expect can be clues to the intent of the universe. People who have a hard

time getting out of bed in the morning to go to a job they hate, who find it

difficult to become engaged in their professional activities, who feel

emotionally “dead” after a day at the office, need to pay attention to those

feelings. These are important signals that there must be a way to get more

fulfillment out of life. Perhaps a miracle lies in the wings. You'll never

know unless you form an intention, become sensitive to the clues from the

universe, follow the chain of coincidence, and help create the destiny you

most desire.

Of course, life can be difficult, and we each have daily chores,

responsibilities, and obligations that can become overwhelming. Coincidences

may come flying at you from all directions, or they may seem to dry up

entirely. How do you find your way in such a complex world? Take five

minutes every day and just sit in silence. In that time, put these questions

to your attention and heart: “Who am I? What do I want for my life? What do

I want from my life today?” Then let go, and let your stream of

consciousness, your quieter inner voice, supply the answers. Then, after

five minutes, write them down. Do this every day and you'll be surprised at

how situations, circumstances, events, and people will orchestrate

themselves around the answers. This is the beginning of synchrodestiny.

For some people, answering those questions for the first time can be difficult.

Many of us are not used to thinking in terms of our own wants and needs, and if

we do, we certainly don't expect to fulfill them. If you haven't defined your

life’s goal for yourself, what do you do then? It would be helpful if the

universe would give us one big clue, or a giant compass, if you will, pointing

to the direction we should be taking. In fact, the compass is there. To find it,

you need only look inside yourself to discover your souls purest desire, its

dream for your life.