too, in one moment. I do not have to wait to know scene by scene as you do. You know the present of the movie and the past (beginning part) of it. You do not know the future (how it will end). You are watching in serial time. This is how the rational ego experiences time. In the example, I am watching in simultaneity, something like the way the inner Self can experience time as timelessness. Synchronicity is a timely moment that takes us beyond the limits of time.
Past and future are opposites in the conscious rational mind and cannot be united. In the Self, opposites are joined and the limitations of serial, time-bound knowing are suspended. Mystics lived in this same time- liberated way. These two elements are what make us refer to this synchronous way of knowing as spiritual.
Our task, as always, is twofold, psychological and spiritual, to fulfill the demands of clock time and to honor the unbound rhythms of the Self. We work out our destiny in hours and days and are escorted to it at special moments under a sky of timelessness. We are consciously aware of clock time here and now and not of simultaneity/eternity. Occasionally it is noticed, and that is synchronicity.
In the fifteenth century, a clock was seen as a model of the divine plan of creation and redemption. The clock was actually revered as a religious phenomenon until the eighteenth century. Thereafter it was considered only a machine. A clock is a mandala in the spiritual perspective. Time is yang and space is yin. Together, they manifest the Tao, the harmonious law governing the universe, the meaning behind appearances. Time is a means of actualizing the Tao since we work in time and sometimes see eternity manifesting in time/space events. In linear time we are spinning out something new from what is not here yet. In moments of synchronicity we are unfolding what was always here. This is the same time-transcendent consciousness by which we discover and experience the spiritual world.
The Egyptian god Aker, whose name means “this moment,” was represented by two lions sitting back to back. The sun was shown over the point of their connection. The lions’ names were “Yesterday” and “Tomorrow.” They are the synchronicity of simultaneous time connected in the present while including the past and future. They were the doorkeepers of the underworld, the guardians of the threshold into spiritual consciousness. In mythology, the conjunction of opposites is the gate to the underworld. It was believed that the death and rebirth of the sun occurred at midnight, that the transforming moment happened in the dark—where the dough also rises. In medieval alchemy the new moon was the time of the conjunction of opposites and of new life. All this is synchronicity, the moment/threshold that joins time and the timely, time and timelessness. The fact that we experience synchronicity is a proof, or rather gift, that we were meant for spirituality.
Since enlightenment can happen at any moment, time is so much more than a series of hours. It is the gate through which our mortality finds a way to meet up with eternity. We cannot hold back the hands of time, but we can be held by them as we stand at the crossroads of every coincidence and then take the path with heart. It all happens in time. “In time” is meant in three senses: in the course of our lifetime, at just the right moment, and in time with the beat of the music of the spheres, those of the earth and sky. Shakespeare says, “Such harmony is in immortal souls.”
Finally, in addition to time, number also partakes of synchronicity. Jung wrote, “Number is the most primitive element of order in the human mind.” Number is the archetype of order made conscious. Mathematical order manifests the dynamics of the psyche. Number is a symbol of the order of the universe and the oneness of psyche and matter. “Our psyche may have a numerical structure of order that is validated by matter and psyche, both
Past and future are opposites in the conscious rational mind and cannot be united. In the Self, opposites are joined and the limitations of serial, time-bound knowing are suspended. Mystics lived in this same time- liberated way. These two elements are what make us refer to this synchronous way of knowing as spiritual.
Our task, as always, is twofold, psychological and spiritual, to fulfill the demands of clock time and to honor the unbound rhythms of the Self. We work out our destiny in hours and days and are escorted to it at special moments under a sky of timelessness. We are consciously aware of clock time here and now and not of simultaneity/eternity. Occasionally it is noticed, and that is synchronicity.
In the fifteenth century, a clock was seen as a model of the divine plan of creation and redemption. The clock was actually revered as a religious phenomenon until the eighteenth century. Thereafter it was considered only a machine. A clock is a mandala in the spiritual perspective. Time is yang and space is yin. Together, they manifest the Tao, the harmonious law governing the universe, the meaning behind appearances. Time is a means of actualizing the Tao since we work in time and sometimes see eternity manifesting in time/space events. In linear time we are spinning out something new from what is not here yet. In moments of synchronicity we are unfolding what was always here. This is the same time-transcendent consciousness by which we discover and experience the spiritual world.
The Egyptian god Aker, whose name means “this moment,” was represented by two lions sitting back to back. The sun was shown over the point of their connection. The lions’ names were “Yesterday” and “Tomorrow.” They are the synchronicity of simultaneous time connected in the present while including the past and future. They were the doorkeepers of the underworld, the guardians of the threshold into spiritual consciousness. In mythology, the conjunction of opposites is the gate to the underworld. It was believed that the death and rebirth of the sun occurred at midnight, that the transforming moment happened in the dark—where the dough also rises. In medieval alchemy the new moon was the time of the conjunction of opposites and of new life. All this is synchronicity, the moment/threshold that joins time and the timely, time and timelessness. The fact that we experience synchronicity is a proof, or rather gift, that we were meant for spirituality.
Since enlightenment can happen at any moment, time is so much more than a series of hours. It is the gate through which our mortality finds a way to meet up with eternity. We cannot hold back the hands of time, but we can be held by them as we stand at the crossroads of every coincidence and then take the path with heart. It all happens in time. “In time” is meant in three senses: in the course of our lifetime, at just the right moment, and in time with the beat of the music of the spheres, those of the earth and sky. Shakespeare says, “Such harmony is in immortal souls.”
Finally, in addition to time, number also partakes of synchronicity. Jung wrote, “Number is the most primitive element of order in the human mind.” Number is the archetype of order made conscious. Mathematical order manifests the dynamics of the psyche. Number is a symbol of the order of the universe and the oneness of psyche and matter. “Our psyche may have a numerical structure of order that is validated by matter and psyche, both
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