The Synchronicity Challenge, How Is This Coincidence?

a reply to: TomSawyer

I have a very synchronistic life. One of my most memorable events: I went to a used book store and they had a "bag of books" sale that day. The provided a brown paper bag and I got to fill it with paperback books for $10.00. 2 hours later, I left the little bookstore hugging my bag-o-books, pleased with my choices. I had read the back of each book.

Once at home I dump the bag onto my bed, throw caution to the winds, and close my eyes, diving in to the stack to blindly pull out my first choice. I settle into my favorite reading place and anxiously turn the page.

There it was. Written at the top of the Chapter 1 page, in blue ink, was my mothers handwriting. The words read:

" I really think ewe are going to enjoy this book! I Love Ewe, Mom". And a smiley face.

It was, beyond any doubt to me that my mother had written that note in this book. My nickname as a youngin was "Ewe"!! Why?

1. As a toddler, I would always hold up my arms and, instead of saying "carry me", I would say, "carry you", to initiate getting a lift. This gave birth to my nickname.

2. Having, ahem, forged my mother's signature on absence notes for school, I learn to mimic her backward slanted handwriting quite well.

3. The little smiley face was the equal sign sideways, the ) for the mouth, and a little "u " making a tongue at the mouth.

My mother had passed away 7 years prior and I have to question....when did that note get written?

a reply to: TomSawyer

I hardly ever use the word coincidence. What I see are Rythms, Patterns and Associations.

I was trying to think of an appropriate way to respond to the OP.

1)First I thought of saying to you that events , incidence, incidents, happenings, etc that coincide with each other are in fact happening as one event . It is a bit like a rope but the brain cuts only a bit of it and does not see the rest.

2)Then I thought of the phrase "string of events" and how it describes the point 1) above. String/rope..do you get it ?

Some of us (like you) are more open to seeing a longer piece of that string . Thus they can see connecting events readily which might be perceived as coincidences . In fact they are coincidences inasmuch as they are incidence that coincide.

If you can readily connect to events that coincide, you can take it a level higher.

Also bear in mind that if you take space and time out of the equation, it is easy to inderstand how one event can be perceived as separate when it is in fact connected to the String of events. It is in fact just ONE occurence in different shades.

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: spygeek

It is an impossibility to be alive and not accumulate karma its really a matter of what intent is behind what you do to generate it. Sometimes a situation calls for generating negative to turn it into a positive as a profound teaching tool where the negative and positive collide and cancel each other out. Any action does via body speech and mind is karma... impossible to remove all volition but change the volition to positive? easy peasy

Try telling that to the people who invented the concept of karma in the first place, nearing 3000 years ago. Karma is a barrier to be overcome through literally lifetimes of introspective meditation and self-realisation, in its original conception. Your textbook new-age, simplified, westernised idea of karma will not fly for them.

Clearly you have never practiced or even heard of kriya yoga, or understand the escape from karmic reincarnation through the enlightenment of spiritual self-realisation as defined and practiced by adherents of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism.. Please don't give me your western new-age interpretation of eastern philosophy as if it constitutes you being an authority on it.

In any case, it doesn't really physically exist any more than collectively unconscious synchronicity or any other spiritual or imaginary or metaphysical quality, so believe whatever you like, it makes no difference to those of us who live in an objective, material reality based in observable and measurable truth.

originally posted by: crowdedskies
a reply to: TomSawyer
...Some of us (like you) are more open to seeing a longer piece of that string . Thus they can see connecting events readily which might be perceived as coincidences . In fact they are coincidences inasmuch as they are incidence that coincide.

If you can readily connect to events that coincide, you can take it a level higher.

the human brain is wired to recognise and make patterns out of what it observes, this doesn't mean that these patterns objectively exist outside of the subjective person's biased viewpoint.

Also bear in mind that if you take space and time out of the equation, it is easy to inderstand how one event can be perceived as separate when it is in fact connected to the String of events. It is in fact just ONE occurence in different shades.

also bear in mind that if you take time and space out of the equation, nothing exists at all. a "string of events" is not a string or an event if there is no time or space for it to eventuate..

(i'm sacred, i should have never stepped foot here in newageland, nothing makes sense and words literally have no context or meaning... shades of one occurance appear as seperate events on a string??? kill me now..)

I don't believe in coincidence, but I also believe that if you are looking for everything to be connected to each other or somehow make them related, that you create that in your head simply because you are trying to connect everything already.

My hubby is a huge Steve Vai fan!! We are up in Loveland!

I just want to say thank you to all of you that responded to this post, whether you believe in synchronicities, or don't believe in synchronicities, or are indifferent to them, I enjoyed reading most all of your posts. With the exception of the one poster that wanted to diagnose my mental instability for believing in synchronicities. So I just wanted to thank you all for sharing, because there is no way with all of the things I currently have going on at once, to take the time to respond to each of you individually. If I had the time I would.

NewzNose, if I had to give an award for best synchronicity that I have read in this thread, your story would get it to this point, I found what you said simply amazing. That must be the closest thing to a virtual hug a person can experience. Very special.

spygeek I do not mean to offend you in any way, shape, or form with what I have to say here. But you strike me as the strictly scientific type of person, that has to see physical evidence for something to exist. I'm not saying you're wrong for viewing it that way. But I wanted to share a story with you and the other people that responded in like manner.

This was told by the minister of my church, when I went to church back in high school. The same minister my minister dad took me to, to set me straight about Christian doctrine, because I refused to believe the "once saved, always saved" lingo of the church. So not someone that I saw eye to eye with by any stretch of the imagination. Yet I was still able to gain value in the story that he told this one day many years ago.

He told the story about a man that had told him that he didn't believe in God. Basically because of the lack of physical evidence that God actually exists. So he asked the man, if I were to say to you that you know 90% of everything that there is to know on this planet, would you say that I am being generous in that evaluation. To which the man replied yes. Then he asked him the same thing for 70%, 50%, I'm sure you get the picture. When the man acknowledged that the actual percentage of the things that he knew, of all of the things that there are to know on this planet would be generous at under 50%. He asked the man, isn't it possible that God exists in that 70% of the things that you don't know? That has always stayed with me, out of the hundreds of sermons I heard this man give. So maybe it will have some value for you?

I'm going to be busy this weekend, but I will try to respond more to this thread when things calm down in a few days. Again thank you to all of you, and have a great weekend!
TomSawyer

P.S. I am going to be posting another thread here in a few minutes, that I strongly encourage all of you to check out if you get the chance. I had posted the synchronicity that I posted here in this thread on Craigslist a while back, looking for other like minded people in my area to possibly form a group with. But I didn't get much of a response to say the least. I was a little bummed about that one night. So after smoking a cigarette, I went back in my room to surf the web for a bit. So I checked the time, and it was 11:11. Then I got on Youtube, and typed in synchronicity to see if I could find people on there that had had any experiences like mine. Which is when I found the video that I am going to be posting here in a few minutes.

If you have a soul and compassion, you may want to grab some tissue before watching it. Just sayin'. But it was posted by a man named John St Julien, and what happened in his life when he followed the 11:11 synchronicity. It blew me away! In all of the videos that I have watched on Youtube over the past few years. This may very well be the best video I have ever seen, and I'm not the only one that has expressed that. But I want to give this man the exposure that he deserves, which is why I want to give him his own thread here on ATS. All I ask, is if you disagree with him, or don't like him for whatever reason. Please do not attack him in any way, shape, or form. If you do, I will feel guilty about bringing that upon him, and then I won't be happy. Again, just sayin'.

a reply to: TomSawyer

A close friend my mine told me a book called "God Winks". I think all of his closest friends had a bad feeling very shortly before his death. I had a very bad feeling the night before, and felt it was like extreme pain... I would have remembered that night even if nothing happened. I knew very well I should be talking to someone, but I couldn't think of who. It was fairly late, so I didn't want to make any calls.

One friend who normally sleeps instantly and like a brick, couldn't sleep the night before. And a week before the event, another friend had "that dream she gets one someone is about to die".

Whats frustrating is that it seems more common that I feel the "something isn't right" that turns out to be true so much more than the "something great is going to happen" feeling. And last that night before my friends death, I was so frustrated that I said something like "spirit world, go away!" and was thinking like "come back when you have something good to say". But never again will I have such a pathetic attitude about it.

The world is an incredibly complex place, and humans have connections with each other science does not even scratch the surface of explaining. We are all connected. We are all one.

originally posted by: TomSawyer
spygeek I do not mean to offend you in any way, shape, or form with what I have to say here. But you strike me as the strictly scientific type of person, that has to see physical evidence for something to exist. I'm not saying you're wrong for viewing it that way. But I wanted to share a story with you and the other people that responded in like manner.

no offence taken, i'm not against anyone's right to believe what they wish, different strokes etc etc.. i would however like to clarify that my position is not that i want to see physical evidence for supernatural claims, it is simply that if such a claim can be adequately explained by natural occurrences and mechanisms, i'll use occams razor and say it's not necessary to believe it is supernatural.

This was told by the minister of my church, when I went to church back in high school. The same minister my minister dad took me to, to set me straight about Christian doctrine, because I refused to believe the "once saved, always saved" lingo of the church. So not someone that I saw eye to eye with by any stretch of the imagination. Yet I was still able to gain value in the story that he told this one day many years ago.

He told the story about a man that had told him that he didn't believe in God. Basically because of the lack of physical evidence that God actually exists. So he asked the man, if I were to say to you that you know 90% of everything that there is to know on this planet, would you say that I am being generous in that evaluation. To which the man replied yes. Then he asked him the same thing for 70%, 50%, I'm sure you get the picture. When the man acknowledged that the actual percentage of the things that he knew, of all of the things that there are to know on this planet would be generous at under 50%. He asked the man, isn't it possible that God exists in that 70% of the things that you don't know? That has always stayed with me, out of the hundreds of sermons I heard this man give. So maybe it will have some value for you?

While i accept this justification for belief in the supernatural, I do not find it rational. Of course it is possible that a God of some kind may exist, but until there is a rational, logical reason for Him to exist, I find it unnecessary to assume He does. Basically, He's a last resort for me, and so far I have been nowhere close to requiring Him to exist to rationally explain anything I have experienced or studied.

My position is that the existence of God does not effectively matter. It would make no difference to me whether he existed or not; His influence is clearly limited to those who have faith in Him, therefore He is irrelevant and unnecessary for me.

a reply to: TomSawyer

Cool story!

One of my favorite of many synchronic happenings in my life happened with my mother in a small Northern California
town that my family had visited for generations.

Pretty much, my mom and I are eating breakfast in this small one road town, and we got to talking about the fact that I haven't owned a pocket knife in a long time. I told her that we should walk down the street to the general store after breakfast so I could buy myself a new knife in the town that has always always meant so much to me.

After breakfast we walk down the street towards the general store which is about 600 feet away on the other side of the road. We cross the street at the cross walk that is right in front of the General Store, and half way across the crosswalk in the middle of the street is a shinny and super awesome pocket knife that was the exact same style I was looking to pickup.

Pretty cool stuff

a reply to: spygeek

"I look forward to reading into this extreme case of confirmation bias leading to its inevitable result. Not attacking him, just saying."

Ok spygeek, have it your way. I tried to be nice. I just have this strong feeling, that I am going to be completely ignoring anything that you post from here on out very soon. So feel free to respond/reply, just don't have any expectations of me reading it, or responding to it. I have enough negativity in my life already, and to be honest I have no need for the stress that it would create. So please try not to spill your negativity anywhere else, you're making a mess.

And if you are seriously asking yourself right now, "well what did I do"? You said what I was going to be posting about John St Julien would be "bias leading to its inevitable result", before you even viewed the video. But apparently that statement isn't biased? Then you mimic/mock me with your "just saying" at the end. You want to sound so mature and wise with the words that you choose to use in your responses, yet your actions seem quite immature to me. Just sayin'.

Now can we play nice?
TomSawyer

a reply to: Akragon

coincidence doesn't exist...

the very word describes something that is a mutual meeting of synchronicity

Two instances which coincide.. and mutually become one instance which relates to a previous occurrence in most cases...

synchronicity is like a wink from God

There goes that modesty again!

a reply to: TomSawyer

Now isn't that funny? spygeek you are the one that doesn't believe in synchroniicities, yet here you are caught in the middle of one. Don't blink, because you might miss it. So let me point it out to you, before you do. You had posted "I look forward to reading into this extreme case of confirmation bias leading to its inevitable result. Not attacking him, just saying." In your response to me. I read it and was typing up my response to it, while you went back to your post and deleted that part that I quoted above, that I had found somewhat offensive. (I'll be nice again, and assume that you deleted that from your post while I was typing my response to it, because you read what you had said, and felt that it may be offensive so you deleted it?) But they were both happening at the same time. I know this, because after I posted my response. I went back to your post and saw that you had deleted the part that I had quoted. How do you like them apples?

Peace,
TomSawyer

a reply to: TomSawyer

I wrote something that was a bit insensitive, thought about it, realised it would likely provoke the kind of knee-jerk response you were already typing, went back and deleted it. I was too late to prevent your reply, and I would like to apologise for offence caused.

Still, I have no idea how any of this is representative of synchronicity. There is nothing in that sequence of events to suggest a collective unconscious controlled them. What exactly is coincidental or synchronistic about this?

Two arbitrary, insignificant, and related things happening simultaneously do not make a meaningful or unusual coincidence.. I am at a complete loss as to what significance you could possibly attach to these events to justify your claim that I am caught in the middle of a synchronistic event.. If all that needs to happen to justify such a claim is that a couple things happen simultaneously, then literally every single thing that ever happened or will happen is synchronistic, rendering the definition completely meaningless.

In short, there are no apples, just a promise of apples that never eventuated. I do not like imaginary apples, I guess that's your answer..

For the record, btw, every single story about 11:11 I have ever read, without exception, has relied heavily on self reported confirmation bias and magical thinking, which ultimately led to paranoia and delusions. I decided to remove the comment after considering that I had no knowledge of this particular case, and it would be unfair to not have open mind toward it, despite the precedent set by my previous experiences investigating such claims.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Akragon

coincidence doesn't exist...

the very word describes something that is a mutual meeting of synchronicity

Two instances which coincide.. and mutually become one instance which relates to a previous occurrence in most cases...

synchronicity is like a wink from God

There goes that modesty again!

you mean honesty of course

i am totally into synchronistic experiences. hence my user name (dream lotus 1111)
i think that they are a wake up call. pay attention to your thoughts when you have an experience like this. there is a reason for why you became aware in that particular moment.

originally posted by: dreamlotus1111
i am totally into synchronistic experiences. hence my user name (dream lotus 1111)

i think that they are a wake up call. pay attention to your thoughts when you have an experience like this. there is a reason for why you became aware in that particular moment.

Pay attention to your thoughts at all times and you will find there is nothing special about any such coincidence other than whatever subjective significance you decide to attach to it. There is a reason you become aware when you wake up in the morning and remain aware throughout every waking moment of your day.

/thread

originally posted by: spygeek

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: spygeek

It is an impossibility to be alive and not accumulate karma its really a matter of what intent is behind what you do to generate it. Sometimes a situation calls for generating negative to turn it into a positive as a profound teaching tool where the negative and positive collide and cancel each other out. Any action does via body speech and mind is karma... impossible to remove all volition but change the volition to positive? easy peasy

Try telling that to the people who invented the concept of karma in the first place, nearing 3000 years ago. Karma is a barrier to be overcome through literally lifetimes of introspective meditation and self-realisation, in its original conception. Your textbook new-age, simplified, westernised idea of karma will not fly for them.

Clearly you have never practiced or even heard of kriya yoga, or understand the escape from karmic reincarnation through the enlightenment of spiritual self-realisation as defined and practiced by adherents of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism.. Please don't give me your western new-age interpretation of eastern philosophy as if it constitutes you being an authority on it.

In any case, it doesn't really physically exist any more than collectively unconscious synchronicity or any other spiritual or imaginary or metaphysical quality, so believe whatever you like, it makes no difference to those of us who live in an objective, material reality based in observable and measurable truth.

Ah how refreshing an abject stranger knows so much about my experience that has never occurred, I suppose that would mean you have no interest in knowing the actual experiences that have arisen to this form tethered to the physical manifestation without my having shared it with you. There is a word for this called presumption... and all that you have presumed? Incorrect. However you do not have to accept this as reality as clearly you have your own.

BTW if it matters? kriya yoga is the secret transmission of the mind seal or transference of consciousness in relation to kundalini through the chakra system, and it says the ultimate expression as most Hindu branches suggest is to unite with the godhead so that it may inhabit and work through your vessel in surrender. Why? So that it can guide and ride you as it's vessel taken you where it wants to go? How lovely if it desires to carry you further into avidya than one already had.

While there is much wisdom to gain from such a practice you are the host, and anyone you invite should be a courteous guest... in my practice of such a thing, that harmony only lasts for so long before the guest fails in steering... so a constant possession of your vessel is just that... possession of a disembodied energy that does not have one of its very own... some of them are so desirious for a vessel they will do anything to inhabit it and if you allow them in and they show they are not very respectful? They can be quite tenacious upon eviction... but im sure you dont care nor will have any of this experience as a consideration because it does not align with your biased opinion of people you have no knowledge of nor direct experience of what I am speaking unless you are running some sort of test... sigh if the latter is the case, however if it is not I felt it compassionate to leave you a way out of the hole of ignorance you have dug here.

As knowing me and others you broach on the subject with assumption so well, that you expect anything anyone says on the topic has no knowledge of with they speak... so you generalize and lump them all together with one sweeping of the brush as ignorant when one holds up a mirror to you you call it ignorance meaning you cannot even recognize yourself in others... that being the case? How could you recognize the energy host of your own vessel? Is it you? If so where is the self in your condemnation? As you have shared no personal experience and instead parroted ahem what you have "read" the cracker I hand here may or may not be satisfying to your palette but the salt atop has but one taste.

Om Ah Hum

a reply to: spygeek

i cant speak for you because we are two different individuals. but my experience is obviously going to vary from your experience. how can you tell me what is correct when you have not experienced the same events that i have?

topics like this are for people who wish to share similar experiences

if it resonates with you go with it if not then move along to something different that does resonate with you.

originally posted by: dreamlotus1111
a reply to: spygeek

i cant speak for you because we are two different individuals. but my experience is obviously going to vary from your experience. how can you tell me what is correct when you have not experienced the same events that i have?

I'm just sharing the objective reality we all share. Subjective experiences attributed to coincidence are not objective rational truth. All I'm doing it offering the reality-based alternative natural explanation, you don't have to accept it, but at least the thread gains some balance.

topics like this are for people who wish to share similar experiences

Topics like this invite objective rational analysis. It's not a secret club just for believers only.

it resonates with you go with it if not then move along to something different that does resonate with you.

You know, I think I will do just that. I've had my full of new-age crankery for today.

reply to: dreamlotus1111
...

Om Ah Hum

Yup. New age wooisms that misunderstand the original eastern philosophy it bastardises (parodies? attempts to imitate?), exactly as I called it. I knew I should never have set foot in this thread.

Lesson learned, I'll leave you guys to it.

a reply to: spygeek

More assumption and stereotypical labels... I'm sorry you limit your experience so much that it tries to limit the experience of others in cognitive dissonance. Is it perhaps possible you do not give others a chance because you do not give yourself one? I am sorry if this is painful or upsetting in any way... but I do not like closing off dialog and communication as it can lead to understanding, and even if that communication does not lead to understanding at least there may be the possibility of tolerance... if you are exiting as a form of tolerance then thank you for your time and tolerance of us you disagree with by leaving peace to our discussions that speak of experience as it is universal when not attached to a self rife with bias claiming experience as ones own, as experience takes many forms claiming a small slice as ones own may be called a self but that is not the reality of enlightenment nor how it expresses itself.

If you care not to reply, good day and take care

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

What a remarkably synchronistic coincidence!
(thankyou for illustrating my point).