The Role of Meaningful Coincidences in Our Lives
Within the framework of the nondual understanding, synchronicities aren’t just quirky anomalies. They are the natural manifestations of a deeper, unified reality.
The prevailing materialist paradigm, with its clear division between mind and matter, struggles to accommodate the phenomenon of synchronicity. If our inner world of thoughts and feelings is fundamentally separate from the external world of perception, how can there be such direct and meaningful correspondences between the two? Such occurrences are usually relegated to the realm of statistical improbability, or they are attributed to unconscious biases in perception.
However, the problem is resolved when we understand that the apparent separation between inner and outer, between subject and object, is ultimately an illusion. All experience arises within the single, indivisible, seamless awareness or consciousness. There is no “out there” independent of “in here” because all experience is an appearance within consciousness, known by consciousness, and made out of consciousness.
Movies, for example, contain exterior and interior scenes, but every scene is only an appearance on a screen. Likewise, consciousness is the screen of perception in which we are fully immersed. And just as the movie screen itself is not an activity of the movie projector, consciousness is not an activity of the mind; consciousness is the substrate upon which and out of which all mental phenomena are made.
Here it is worth repeating that consciousness is the ultimate ground of being. Consciousness as the basis for all perceptions, all existence, is the ultimate self-evident truth; nothing can be known without it. (This article explores why.)
When a thought aligns with an external event in a meaningful way, it is not a case of external forces manipulating our lives, or some supernatural intervention. It is a reflection of the deep interconnectedness of all things resonating with and mirroring each other.
These reflections between our inner and outer worlds are subtle reminders, then, of the fundamental unity that underpins all of reality. As such, each synchronicity is an opportunity to further ground our understanding and to celebrate the oneness of being.