By Deepak Chopra, MD, and Jordan Flesher, MA Psychology<\/p>\n
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The human mind can adapt to almost anything, but not chaos. No one can lead a completely random and chaotic life. The messy room of a teenager may look completely chaotic, but even there a decision was made. The choice was to be messy rather than straighten up the room, and as long as choices exist, true randomness isn\u2019t in charge.<\/p>\n
Yet clearly there are random events in Nature, and a vast body of science is based on them, from the random collision of atoms to the random mutations that drive Darwinian evolution. It\u2019s hard to square the randomness in Nature with the incredible orderliness of human thought at its best (allowance must be made, unfortunately, for our own random impulses, which can be capricious, self-defeating, and violent.) Science tends to ignore the fact that the researcher who is driving to work in order to study random particles isn\u2019t heading for a random place on the map. He is guided by purpose, meaning, and direction.<\/p>\n
In the last few posts we\u2019ve been looking at how to break this deadlock through synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences. This is a perfect junction point, since \u201cmeaningful\u201d has a purpose and \u201ccoincidence\u201d is by definition random. What often accompanies experiences of synchronicity is a feeling of trust. The synchronous event seems to reveal to that there is a meaning, purpose, and direction \u201cout there,\u201d somewhere in a mysterious domain where the event was organized. This is what is meant when people say \u201cEverything happens for a reason\u201d \u2013 synchronicity is a reminder that randomness is being countered. But saying that everything happens for a reason isn\u2019t provable. It exists as a shared belief, an article of faith, or wishful thinking, and sometimes all three.<\/p>\n
It would be more accurate to say, \u201cEverything happens for a reason, despite appearances to the contrary.\u201d Life isn\u2019t about both things, an apparent orderliness and a lot of messiness at the same time. It\u2019s orderly for a teenager to go to school every day; it\u2019s messy to keep your bedroom a shambles. The key word, \u201cI believe, is \u201cappearances.\u201d Things can appear random when in fact this is true only in appearance. Einstein appeared to be a clerk in the Swiss patent office when in fact he was cogitating over the deepest questions in physics. Creative people appear to muddle and mutter while they are actually searching for their next inspiration. To someone who can\u2019t read, letters on a page appear to be randomly chose when in reality they are precisely ordered.<\/p>\n
This basic notion that appearances can be deceptive leads to some very intriguing possibilities.<\/p>\n
Having gotten this far, we reach an intriguing conclusion. People\u2019s stories contain a mixture of order and chaos, so it may be that reality is completely orderly and meaningful, the only difference being how much orderliness we choose to bring into our lives. In other words, the reason that synchronicity smooths the way for one person and not for another depends upon them.<\/p>\n
Everything happens for a reason if that\u2019s how you perceive life; you allow the underlying meaning to express itself. You hold back chaos by trusting in orderliness. Trust isn\u2019t sufficient, not by any means. It\u2019s just one ingredient. The larger picture is about setting up a partnership between yourself and larger, invisible forces. They aren\u2019t mystical forces but aspects of your own consciousness.<\/p>\n
The invisible forces include creativity, insight, intuition, intention, and attaining a state of mind where you are centered enough to know who you really are. The partnership between you and Nature lies at the core of the world\u2019s wisdom traditions. No topic is more fascinating, and we must go deeper to explain how the right connections are made.<\/p>\n
(To be cont.)<\/p>\n
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Deepak Chopra, MD is the author of more than 80 books with twenty-two New York Times bestsellers. He serves as the founder of The\u00a0<\/em>Chopra Foundation<\/a>\u00a0and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing. His latest book is\u00a0<\/em>The 13th Disciple: A Spiritual Adventure<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Deepak Chopra, MD, and Jordan Flesher, MA Psychology The human mind can adapt to almost anything, but not chaos. No one can lead a completely random and chaotic life. The messy room of a teenager may look completely chaotic, but even there a decision was made. The choice was to be messy rather…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1186,817,1179],"class_list":["post-2184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consciousness","tag-coincidence","tag-randomness","tag-synchronicity"],"yoast_head":"\n