Synchronicity in a False Universe

It has been a week of incredible synchronicity. There is a nice sangha legend (kind of like an urban legend, but known in the spiritual community, not "on the street") that once you experience Self-realization everything is rosey and things come together perfectly. While they might come together perfectly, I think there is a disconnect about what it is meant by "perfect." From the unawakened perspective that likely is attached to a favorable outcome, one that is desired by the individual. But from the Enlightened perspective, EVERYTHING is perfect, so that something that would have been viewed as a failure or shortcoming from the yet-to-be-Awakened perspective, it would be viewed as EXACTLY the way it is supposed to be and there is no desire to have it any other way.

Well, I've yet to pop so I'm coming from the yet-to-be-Awakened perspective. That means I desire and enjoy when things line up in a manner that would traditionally be viewed as "good." For example, on Friday I was coming on to a six day stretch of being on call for United. There was one person on for 3 days ahead of me on the list and there were at least a half dozen people who were on for 4-5 days that were after me. That meant that any long trip that was coming up, I should have gotten the assignment.

When I looked at the open flying, there were at least four trips open for Saturday and Sunday that were 4-5 days long, which meant that barring a miracle, I was going to have to fly out on Saturday or Sunday for 4-5 days. This was quite a bummer as Kitty had been gone for 10 days on the Richard Moss Radical Aliveness retreat and was set to come home on Sunday. Things were lined up so that I would be leaving on a trip right when she would be returning... hence the bummer.

If we are lined up for flying there is a mechanism that allows us to influence which trip we get assigned to, and I considered looking at the list and figuring out how to get on the trip that would return me as soon as possible. But something in me said "You've been trying to take your hands off the tiller and become a leaf on a stream. Let go now and see what happens." It wasn't the B-movie "voice in the head" thing, it was more of a knowingness that I should just detach from the outcome and let things happen as they will.

I shit you not, about an hour and a half after I did this the Crew Desk called and said that they had an assignment for me. They needed a pilot to go fly as a passenger to Denver on Friday night and show up at the training center to be the second pilot for another pilot who was receiving training. The assignment would officially end around 2 pm on Saturday, and I would fly back, on the clock, Saturday evening. As I need a reasonable amount of time off before a long Pacific trip, that basically guaranteed that I would not be going on a long trip on Sunday and would really be back in the hot seat on Monday.

Here's the amazing part. With me having 6 days (which is the most days you can be on call before you have to schedule a 24 hour period off), there is no way that I should have been assigned a 2 day trip. There were many people behind me on the list where that would have made more sense, and one of our scheduling rules is that they assign the trips to someone who has that many days on or one day more. (In other words, if a 3 day trip comes open, they have to find the first person that has "3 or 4" days on in a row. This saves the people with 6 days on for the longer trips, if there are any. By assigning me the 2 day trip, it essentially shot me for any long trips this time on call. Again, to assign me this trip, there had to be some extrordinary circumstances to assign it to me, a pilot with 6 days of availability.

Here's how incredible this allowed things to play out. By going on this assignment on Friday and getting done rather early on Saturday, I was able to fly out to LAX, rent a car and drive 1.5 hours to Ojai to spend the evening with the Richard Moss group on the last night of the retreat. I was then able to help Kitty drive back from Ojai which was really nice as she was emotionally wrung out (which is exactly what we expected and wanted from the retreat.) I basically had Sunday off so even if I were to get an assignment during this on call period, I was safe until Monday.

Had the assignment come on Saturday, I would have been able to see Kitty Sunday evening but I would have missed the last night of the retreat and she would have had to drive home by herself. If it got done on Friday and not Saturday, I would have been in the hot seat on Sunday and I would have probably had to fly a trip and be gone for 4-5 more days. Had they not given me this assignment at all, I would have definitley flown one of the myriad trips that were already open and, again, I would have been gone for several days.

Why was I assigned that trip? I don't know. I didn't ask. I received it with astonishment and gratitude and did not question why. Many things like this have been happening, and they seem to increase in frequency and impact with the amount of focus I have had on this process. I do realize that I need to look at everything as being synchronistic, not just the things that my persona would find handy, "lucky," or beneficial. I need to look at everything as being perfect and find the perfection in everything. But it is interesting how frequently these "favorable" things have been happening.

Now, how do I reconcile all of this with the fact that nothing is real, this is all a dream? Well, I know that I'm focused on Awakening and so I'm trying to mold my vessel to be as open and conforming to that reality. So I've been fundamentally denying EVERYTHING, labeling it all as untrue, unreal.

I do realize, however, that those that have Self-realized do end up reentering into the dream world and playing the game. Why play the game if it is all just an illusion, a dream of the pure Awareness? Honestly, if put on the spot, I'd have to admit that I don't know why. But I would suspect along with Self-realization comes the realization that pure Awareness is facinated with the dream and it is our purpose to live out the dream. So if we're going to play our part in this charade, we might as well understand the rules of the game.

The game has meaning only because we give it meaning. For the unawakened, we do that by accepting this perspective as "reality." For the Self-realized, I'm guessing they do that by coming back in the game and utlizing their ego-shell to function within the dream. Since we do give the game meaning, its interesting to note how synchronicity works.

So that is how I'm reconciling my interest in figuring it out while still working on integrating the "everyting is false" concept. For now, I feel a need to keep the focus on the "everyting is false" track and once I become that and cease to just intellectualize it, I'll know then whether or not I should spend any time at all on topics like this.