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 history—social, 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 Universe—as "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.

We’ve 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 one’s 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