WAAAKE UUUUPPPP! Jim Morrison
Most long-term meditators know what the Dark Night of the Soul is. It's the time when you meditate and meditate and nothing seems to be happening. There are no wonderful sound and vision experiences in your consciousness and no deepening of serenity and bliss. It's the Big Zilch Time when most meditators start to question what this half lotused half an hour per day is really about. If there are no returns, why bother? Why not go for money, sex and power instead? I call this time the Crunge Point; reaching one, you either stop meditating altogether or you cathect faith in the process of your practice and press on. (And isn't this as true of psychotherapy as it is of meditation?)
Some years ago, I hit a crunge point slap-bang in the middle of watching something banal on prime time TV. The yearning Child that I am started to spin a sort of O-Shiva-Why-hast-thou-forsaken-me inner monologue. Hours and hours on the yoga mat and nothing to show for it. So I was seeing the TV but not watching it and I was thinking Okay Shiva, I'm at my wits end. Just help me along the path a bit and give me a sign to show me that yoga is not an escape hatch for the unworldly. Just a little sign will do."
My wife, sat next to me, was wearing a new sweater her mother had knitted for her. We have it still. It has Michelangelo's David on the front and the word 'Michelangelo' rimming the top of each sleeve. The instant I asked for a sign the letters "chela" was visible to me on her sleeve. Chela is a Sanskrit word meaning "Disciple" or "Student" and is used exclusively for one who practices yoga. "A sign!" thought I as Child. "Malto thanx, Lord Shiva." "Bah!" thought I as Parent, "Coincidence." "Lord Shiva" implored I Child getting intimidated by I Parents righteous scepticism, "how can I be certain that You have sent me a message?" At that moment, Louise shifted the position of her arm. The letters "angel" were now visible on her sleeve. "Angel" is a Hebrew word meaning "Messenger".
I as Child whooped about this amazing sign to Louise for days afterward. I as Adult reckoned that, sign-wise, you couldn't get much clearer than this, short of Lord Shiva Himself coming out to the Teevee and prodding me with his trident. And sceptical old I Parent was a bit quieter after this. This is because it is the purpose, or telos of the universe to unfold its latent consciousness like the petals of a rose. Whenever there is the opportunity for life to become more awake the cosmos will find a way of giving life a bit of a tweak. What we tend to call 'synchronicities' are the slightly stronger tweaks to our slumbering selves, giving us the impetus to rise from the Parental bed and see the world for what it wonderfully is.
If we are awake to the fact, all of life is a synchronous process. It always was. Sometimes, though, the sheer miraculousness of the process, like seeing the word 'chela' on my wife's sleeve, will cut through the slumber and seem to be an isolated event. Don't be misled. This is like thinking of clouds as 'things' rather than places in the sky where the air is a little moister. The cosmos is always giving you precisely what you need at THIS MOMENT and at every other- in order to grow more fully as an expression of life. The trick in therapy, meditation and all the other bits of your life, is to discover the lesson in the moment, with your thinking, feeling and ever-developing intuition.
Another word for synchronicity is 'guru'. This is a Sanskrit word meaning 'leading from darkness to light'. We could reframe this definition as 'sleep to wakefulness'. Most people think of the word in connection with an exhalted person (usually very bald or very hairy) who teaches All Things Spiritual to willing disciples. This is partly true. Actually a guru is whoever or whatever is more awake than you are to show you how to be more awake yourself. This may be a person who has meditated enough to awaken from a sense of separate selfdom-the word 'Buddha' means 'awakened one' or guru may be the hammer, picture frame and the swollen thumb which gently reminds you that Mindfulness is Best. Synchronicity, then. The Everlasting Kiss of the Goddess. The Flavour of the Lifestream Water We Swim In.
Guru. The Foundation of Karma. The Parallel Process. If you fancy a bit of homework, try counting the number of times you encounter the number 23 in the next few days....
A final word; rereading this short piece substituting the word 'life' for 'autonomy' in the sense that Erie Berne meant it has a lot of implications regarding the relationship between politics, the transpersonal and the process and goal of therapy. But that is another story.