Little Serendipities
What are the chances . . .
Today I opened a used book that I'd ordered through an Amazon reseller called "EVIL: Studies in Jungian Thought." A card fell out from the bookseller, an occult bookshop in Richmond, TX of all places, but the real astonishment was that the book was originally part of the Meadville Theological School Library collection! My alma mater.
Wonders increased when I flipped to the back inside cover to see if the old library card was still in the book and, sure enough, there it was. Scanning the short list of folks at a liberal seminary interested in the problem of evil and - look whose name is first: Mircea Eliade! - the famous historian of world religion to whom Joseph Campbell is often compared, who taught at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, where I also graduated.
This is not the first time that Eliade and I have ended up in the same book. Back when I was still a student I came across a book in the library at Meadville on "The Cat Goddess" and when I pulled out the card to sign it the only other name on the card - the only other person who had looked at the book during the 25 years that it had been on that shelf - was Mircea Eliade!
I have sometimes been asked - by those who know my long association with Joseph Campbell - how you can tell if you're following your bliss; if you're on the path of life you're supposed to be on; if you are in harmony with your soul tribe. My friends, I suggest that curious encounters like the ones I've just mentioned are a sure sign that you're hanging out in the right places with the right people... even if they're no longer walking in the same plane of existence. Kindred souls never lose sight of each other for very long, because we're all coming down to the same watering hole for our spiritual nourishment and sooner or later you'll run into everyone you're supposed to meet!
Serendipity is the world that Joseph Campbell loved to use, but it is in the same vein as the word Synchronicity that was used extensively by C.G. Jung to describe those meaningful coincidences that often occur. Far from being an overly romanticized superstition, synchronicity is a phenomenon with a long history. In ancient Buddhist texts it is referred to as pratītya-samutpāda, sometimes translated as “mutually dependent co-arising” and points toward the belief of a profound interconnectedness at the heart of all manifest reality. The American Buddhist and scholar, Joanna Macy, writes about this principle in her book World as Lover, World as Self, to describe her felt sense of being in a dance with the world:
“Confirming an intuitive sense I've always felt for the interconnectedness of all things, this doctrine has provided me ways to understand the intricate web of co-arising that links one being with all other beings, and to apprehend the reciprocities between thought and action, self and universe.”
― Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self
From the scientific establishment, the brilliant physicist, Wolfgang Pauli, carried out a decades long correspondence with Jung on the deeper implications of synchronicity, which he saw psychology and physics grappling with in their respective domains - but essentially exploring the same phenomenon. [Pauli and Jung: The Meeting of Two Great Minds, by David Lindorff]
One of the most treasured quotes from the mythologist, Joseph Campbell, points to the importance of synchronicity when he says:
“Follow your bliss, and the universe will open doors for you where before there were only walls.”
The serendipity of an unexpected meeting; a book falling open to just the right page; a missed train that allowed you to finish a conversation with radical results . . . any event or series of events that gives you the feeling that an invisible hand is helping to play this round in the game of life may be a sign of serendipity.
When was the last time you experienced such an event? What does it mean to you - that experience? These are moments to treasure and savor for they often remain doorways to greater awareness and appreciation of the deep laws of this mysterious world we live in!
