Spirituality by Any Other Name

In the previous article, I introduced the idea of strange coincidences known in psychology as synchronicity. In order for the experience to be considered synchronicity, the strange coincidence has to be meaningful to the person.

Synchronicity was described as an expression of a personal myth or a collective myth, helping us to see and understand the active myths in our lives. Recall that our unconscious (hidden) psychology is responsible for creating the myths. Actually, it is the center of the unconscious, or the Self, that directs our lives in a meaningful way. This is another important point about synchronicity: it is a spiritual expression. But what could this possibly mean?

If the unconscious Self expresses the synchronicity, it must eventually be experienced in our conscious lives, if we are to have an opportunity to relate to its meaning and understand our myths. This crossing from the unconscious to conscious is quite an interesting process which will be the focus of another article. In the meantime, the idea that strange coincidences originate as unconscious expressions is another way of saying that the origin of synchronicity is spiritual in nature. On the one hand, this is completely unimportant, but on the other hand, it is completely important.

Any expression from our unconscious psychologies is spiritual, presenting us with our human spirituality when we recognize, or become conscious of, the expression. To realize that we are both spiritual and concrete, or physical, is an enormous step in understanding human nature. So, if we remain unconscious of the synchronicity, then the expression is inconsequential, however, if we are conscious of the synchronicity, then we understand the depth of our nature.

Paying attention to the synchronicities that occur in our lives, which means becoming conscious enough to recognize each and to attempt to find the meanings, provides us with many benefits. For this article, the main benefit is to realize that our nature extends beyond physical reality.

To be a whole, or complete, person requires that each of us become conscious of our spiritual nature, as well as our physical nature. The latter is easy and doesn't require much consciousness, however, at the same time, so much of our physical nature cannot be conscious.

For example, try to become conscious of your spleen. You can't, unless there is pain or illness in your spleen. This also is the case for our spiritual nature as well. So much of this side of human nature cannot be conscious but whatever can become conscious can benefit us greatly.

So, you can see that it is important to try to recognize your spiritual nature through your experiences of the unconscious synchronicities. At the very least, it will help you to become whole.