The Tao of Psychology

I bought and read this book many years ago, but re-reading God's Debris brought it to mind again. I was a little surprised as I re-read The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self at how many ideas were shared in God's Debris, and also, how much I have been feeling the message of this book during the last few months.

Synchronicity describes the meaningful connection between seemingly unrelated events. It can be described as meaningful coincidence, but it cannot be explained by cause and effect. The meaning attributed to the event by a person is what differentiates it from a coincidence. When we keep our eyes open to the synchronicity around us, opportunities present themselves where they might have otherwise have been missed. Synchronicity is not describing supernatural occurrences, but rather a connectedness with the world around us. I believe that synchronistic events happen around us all the time, but they are only noticeable when we are open to seeing the connections. In the book, it is compared to people who remember their dreams when they wake. Studies have shown that people generally dream six to eight times every night. Some people remember their dreams each night, while others remember a few and some don't remember any of their dreams. Variations in personality and levels of inner turmoil can impact a persons ability to recognize synchronistic events, much as they can impact a person's ability to remember their dreams. While synchronicity can be useful, when it is one of the many tools we use to interact with the world, it can also be problematic if it leads us to use "magical thinking" to the exclusion of logic and common sense. We need balance between the logical and the intuitive parts of our mind.

I think the following quote from the book sums up what I like the most about synchronicity:

"If we personally realize that synchronicity is at work in our lives, we feel connected, rather than isolated and estranged from others; we feel ourselves part of the divine, dynamic, interrelated universe. Synchronistic events offer us perceptions that may be useful in our psychological and spiritual growth and may reveal to us, through intuitive knowledge, that our lives have meaning."