Synchronicity: When Everything Really Does Happen for a Reason

"All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord" - St. Paul

Sometimes everything really does happen for a reason.

Last year I wrote a post debunking the commonly-heard remark that "everything happens for a reason". I called it the EHFAR attitude. It's much favoured by New Age acolytes, because it sounds profound and casts a rosy - and often misleading - glow over all kinds of mistakes and problems. If we can't recognize when we've made a mistake, we can't change. So the EHFAR philosophy, applied too broadly, kills spiritual progress.

For instance, one New Age-y alcoholic of my acquaintance once took a wrong turn and ended up in Miami, Florida, hundreds of miles from his destination. The fact that he was drunk at the time didn't stop him from claiming that it had "happened for a reason". The reason, he said, was that he had been given an unexpected stay in Miami, which he'd always wanted to visit. But, I pointed out, spending 48 hours semi-comatose in a motel was hardly "visiting Miami". Still, he so much wanted to justify his drunken spree that he clung tenaciously to the idea that all had happened for the best, in the best of all possible worlds.

As an example of self-justifying, this was a typical response by someone who wasn't ready to see their own mistakes.

Years later, when at last he came into recovery, he saw that spree - what he could remember of it - as yet another one of the really stupid things he'd done while drunk. Which, of course, it was. And he made amends to his family for the harm and distress he had caused them, which he had never realized before.

Many, perhaps most, people live under the Law of Accident. Nothing then happens for any kind of sublime, spiritual reason. Things just happen. They go the only way they can go, and the result is entropy, sometimes chaos. We can all slip to that level if we give up trying to become more conscious.

But, if we are living at a higher level than that of life, everything really does begin to happen for a reason.

I'm assuming that you, dear reader, are living at this higher level, or at least that you would like to, that you are making real efforts.

In this case, everything may well be happening for a reason in your life, and you can very often see that reason quite easily.

Not only those of us in the Work may experience this higher level. A Good Householder, someone who follows the path of duty and lives according to his or her conscience, will also often find that events have worked out well in unexpected ways, and that benevolent "coincidences", which Jung called synchronicity, occur far more often than chance.

Those following a religious path, whether in the world or in monasteries, also frequently live at this higher level. They understand what Sufis call "the Cause behind the cause", and see how seemingly unconnected events may actually be joined at that higher level and lead to spiritual progress.

Accidents happen all the time at the level of life. There is nothing but mechanicalness in many people's lives, because they don't even know that a higher level, a higher purpose than just eating, sleeping and reproducing, exists and that they could reach it by making efforts. We see this most clearly in the lives of active alcoholics and addicts, whose series of accidents will most likely end in death and on the way destroy the happiness of those around them.

But we may choose to live more consciously, and then God - Conscious Humanity, Jesus, the saints - can reach into our lives and bring about miraculous happenings. This is what St Paul meant by his cryptic statement at the start of this post.

Let me give two examples from my own experience.

After a Work week in New York I was returning with a group of friends, driving back to Georgia. We lost our way in the maze of highways around Washington, DC (this was long before the days of satnavs). But, as we were there, I felt very strongly that we should visit a Sufi sheikh of my acquaintance, who taught at a well-known university in Washington.

This sheikh was surprised to see us, but accepted our visit in the spirit of Sufi hospitality. We were all full of the higher energies generated by a week of intensive work, and he could see this. He was free that afternoon because a tutorial had just "happened" to get cancelled. And, by synchonicity, a friend of this sheikh, a well-known Middle Eastern sheikh of another Sufi Order, also "happened" to be visiting him at the same time.

That sheikh, whom we met that day for the first and last time, was in Washington only for a very short stay, and that night he had been invited to hold a special tekke, or service, in an apartment near the university.

We too were invited to join the circle, and that night we experienced what I can only describe as another world; the chanting and prayers led all of us into an even higher state than we had reached in New York, and it was a life-changing experience for all of us. All kinds of mysterious but clearly fated events began to happen to us after that, and all of us felt that our time in the Sufi circle, so different from anything we'd experienced before, acted as a catalyst for an amazing series of "happenings" that changed us all for ever in the months that followed.

This was real synchronicity. Our "getting lost" had happened for a reason, and the reason was that we could come closer to the Law of Fate, and experience, even though temporarily, what it would be like to live at a much more conscious level. Because I was in a higher state of consciousness my intuition functioned perfectly, and I knew we had to visit the university where the Sufi Sheikh taught.

On the journey back to Georgia, we experienced many more synchonicities. They came thick and fast, and we reached our homes much earlier than we'd believed possible.

But there was one small synchronicity that amused us very much.

One member of our party was married, and he said, in mock gloom, "I'll really be in the doghouse when I get back. We've taken two days longer than we were supposed to, and my wife's going to be furious."

And then, just a few seconds later, we passed a dog-grooming parlour outside which was a huge sign proclaiming "Kim's Doghouse".

And our friend's wife's name was Kim!

We all thought that was a significant sign from Conscious Humanity that we were indeed on the right path.  God has a sense of humour, after all. And in that little synchronistic event He'd shown us that He was with us, even in the very small things, and that confirmed the rightness of what we'd done.

My friend was indeed in the "doghouse" when he got back, but that too turned out well, and he made some beneficial changes in his life as a result. He become a much better husband and father, living more responsibly from then on.

I suspect that you, my reader, have also experienced many synchronicities in your life. When they happen, we can be sure we are on the right path, living according to the Law of Fate, approaching closer to our destiny.

And sometimes they seem to happen in advance of our living at a higher level. God knows when we are in a more approachable state, when we just might be willing to pay attention to our level of consciousness and rethink the way we've been living.

Such a synchronicity happened in the life of my alcoholic friend. He was arrested for drunk driving, but instead of being sent to the town "drunk tank" he was shown a video of a rehab centre and he chose to apply for a place there. His motive was to avoid a jail term, but the result was that he came into recovery. The arresting officer would have immediately locked him up in the cells, but for the fact that a social worker, visiting another suspect, "happened" to be present when my friend was brought into the police station.

That social worker saw something in my friend, some deeply-buried longing for recovery, and responded - albeit unconsciously - to that longing. She persuaded the deeply suspicious police officer to show him the video she "happened" to have with her.

God had anticipated my friend's recovery, and given him a nudge. And today, that man has been sober for more than 20 years and is very active in AA, visiting alcoholics in their homes and persuading them, often successfully, to try going to AA.

God does indeed work for good in the lives of those who love Him.