The term simultaneity was introduced by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in an attempt to find a rational approach to coincidences in time (and space) that seem random and without casual logic but which nevertheless reveal meaningful connections within the life of an individual. Following the scientific knowledge about the cosmos of his time and testimonies of philosophers of all times, he had come to the conclusion that there had to exist a purposeful simultaneity in the cosmic workings which most of human beings have at some point experienced in their lives in form of an apparently pre-determined event.
By (ambihemipherically) balancing systematic rational reasoning and the trusting intuitive momentanous perception of others and himself, Schopenhauer had come very close to what today’s most recent theories of quantum mechanics, of biocentric design and a design of the cosmos for creation of consciousness are suggesting. Schopenhauer’s conclusion was that the nature of cosmic reality had to be a determinstic reality.
Schopenhauer believed in determination until the very last detail of events. His entire life he observed himself and his dreams. But more so, he studied cases of other people’s testimony about their personal experiences and, possibly, clearvoyant dreams. In a brief text of Schopenhauer about a man named Mark Lane who had been found dead in a river in 1851, an event another person had dreamed about the night before in all detail, Schopenhauer comments: “Something as random as the passing by of a trout can be seen predicted several hours ahead, to the second!” I had first read the text which introduces Schopenhauer’s serious considering of the probability of a fatal determinsim in the cosmos in a small book found during my university years in Köln on a flea-market: Okkulte Erlebnisse berühmter Frauen und Männer, by W.M Treichinger, Sankt Gallen, 1949, Verlag Zollikofer, page 98-99.
When Schopenhauer had finally come to write about the phenomenon of simultaneity he had observed over a long period of time his own experiences and testimony of others. C.G Jung had read Schopenhauer‘s essay (as discussed in my last article, Ambihemispherical Holosophy’s Translucidly Mindfuls Words 8 Inevitable Light) and decided to call that same phenomenon “synchronicity” – and he became famous for it. Much of Jung’s theory about the phenomenon is based on myths and personal believes, whereas Schopenhauer bases his thoughts on the history of philosophy about the topic and on scientific observation. The decisive essay in which he presents his theory of Simultaneity is found in his book Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume I, under the title:
Transcendent speculation on the apparent deliberateness in the fate of the individual. The below quote is taken from that text:
“The belief in special providence, or else in the supernatural guidance of events in the course of an individual‘s life, has been universally popular at all times, and occasionally is even found, firmly and unshakably, in thinking minds averse to all superstition, even without any connection to any definite dogmas. {…}
Furthermore, when bringing to mind (…) how ultimately this well-ordered, wondrous planetary world had to emerge from the play of blind natural forces following their immutable laws, then we have here also an analogy that can serve, in general and from afar, to portend the possibility that even the course of an individual life is governed by events that are the capricious play of chance – albeit as planned, as it were – in such a way as is suited to the true and ultimate good of the person. (…)
The following general reflection can make this clearer. ‘Accidental’means the coincidence in time of that which is causally not connected. However, nothing is absolutely accidental; on the contrary, even what is most accidental is only something necessary that has come about on a more distant path, in that definite causes high in the causal chain have long ago determined with necessity that it had to happen just now, simultaneously with another thing. For every event is the individual link in a chain of causes and effects that progresses in the direction of time.”
Based upon my personal observations and many books I read related to the topic, reflecting on them with the knowledge about the most recent findings in quantum science and quantum consciousness, my conclusion is that there is a working of deterministic design in everything happening. As far as for human life, it is obvious how much we are predetermined in our life’s possibilities simply through birth: born to certain parents, born with certain genes, born into a specific cultural environment etc., we already start off pretty predetermined and only have a small range of freedom for our will to decide at crossroads coming up ahead of us.
Crossroads are moments where clear decision is required of us in a very precise time frame. We all know those moments which Schopenhauer did not talk about, but which many religions and philosophies talk about and which, through the average simple day to day reasoning of people, has made it into much of self-help litarture of our days. Those crossroads might be foreseen in dreams as many writers have reported: in the weeks or a couple of days before an event people tend to have alarming dreams or especially beautiful dreams or lightful visionary dreams.
In moments that we perceive as crossroads we might see „signs“ in our daily lives that most certainly point toward one of the decisions to be the better one, we might have a strong reasoning to think that the signs point in the right direction, and more often, a sure gut feeling. And yet, there is the free will of our ego-selves to kick in and say: but I still don’t do it that way, and then we will be searching for all kinds of reasonable excuses, we might make us smaller than we are, or even create (more or less unconsciously) a psychological problem or, for the more defensive big egos, create a full new system of thinking, make up whole philosophies to justify a decision that opposes the clear intuition of a certain simultaneity happening for a good reason in our life.
Many religious schools know about this important moment of decision making at crossroads: you flow with what feels right or you oppose yourself. Most of us know about the probable outcomes: ease, happiness, peace, sometimes including a happy and successful career if we chose what feels right – or a loop of denial, regret, errors, alienation from the essence of our souls, or even difficulties, problems on the other side if we don’t take the chance. It is to be assumed that personal decisions in crossroad situations affect anything else beyond our personal lives in the chain of predetermined events – which aludes to the famous wing flip of the butterfly of quantum physics. Any important politician’s decision is just a very obvious exemple of those effects.
Consequences arising from internal struggles entering our lives because of personal decisions at a crossroad are not to be confused with situations when inappropiate behavior or violation of our dignity or violence by others is involved, nor when we have to deal with natural catastrophies or political changes. In those cases it is more about our ability to cope with the situation and react to it in an appropiate way – which then will determine how well we find a way out of the post traumatic stress or out of the catastrophic situation.
This last thought, which I first wanted to only mention in parenthesis, is actually important enough to have its own excursion into the spiritual world of C.G. Jung: one of the many spiritualistic myths propelled by C.G.Jung is that when we are faced with maliciosness in another human being this might reflect our own hidden dark side. This is not only scientifically obvious nonsense (what becomes clear enough when you go to criminalistic cases and watch the perpetrators/violators and their victims) but also a very cynical and sociopathic way of looking at people who have been victims of malicious abuse and crime of any kind.
Jung’s fantasies and forms of belief about the human sure aleviate all those who are not able to get rid of their dark demons and can now attribute them to whomever they face – something which clinical psychology knows under the term of „projection“. If everybody has those demons in them, but some know to hide them very well, then the really bad guy who admits them openly seems still better off than an apparently innocent person. Perfect mind game for any Joker to avoid deeper self-questioning (even if, agreed, still better then the perfectly conceiled dark person who perfectly knows how to play the good guy).
The victims, on the other hand, might be completely oblivious to those kind of dark mind games played by a dark person in front of them. They might not even have a the neuronal wiring that would recogneize the manouvers of a misuser. The belief in new age spiritualistic formulas as „you attract what is hidden inside you“ or “we are all just mirrors of each other” together with the empathy of the innocent person might lead them to make most detrimental decisions for their own lives. Most often those kind of „good souls“ attract the darker caracters who could use the chance to raise above darkness but who might end up just consuming the energy of the well intended person. Clear decisions needed.
The question might arise why both persons were determined to meet. Who knows. Karma can hold for anything to be explained, but Karma is another much too easy spiritualistic fantasie. Staying with explanations we derive from a view point of quantum consciousness, it might just be one of the endless repercussions of a butterfly wing’s flap, – could be in form of a socially installed belief form that has allowed for a long time that any dark villian will rather feel as a victim of society then to be held responsible for his actions, maybe the repercussions of a famous psychologist’s and philosopher’s theories that nobodoy has really questioned in the transcourse of time.
So, coming back from the realm of the crossroad of decision making, we can keep going with the exemple of malicious abuse, might be in personal relationships or at work, and state that there are moments in life when the crossroad offered to us is so obvious, the path away from the abuse made so easy, the perspective of a better new life so clear – that we should certainly trust our gut feeling which way to go even if it seems difficult.
Crossroads are not about instant gratification. They are not about the inertia to do what seems easier and less stressful in that very moment. Crossroads are about decisions that will for longterm make us feel more able to be ourselves, connect with our essence, make our lives better or even prevent a future disaster. If we don’t make the right decision in the right moment, the alienation of our souls from our being in our actual real life might just worsen.
There is, throughout life, a certain spectrum of choices given to our free will within the determined range of our potential. The process of making good or bad choices is known as „spiritual learning of the soul“ by religious schools or, by the average rational fellow human being as „learning from mistakes.“ The range of free choices is, at the end of the day, cleary pointing toward the path of the best realization of our predestined potential. (Our brains even have a future events preview function which allows us to generate possible scenarios, as neuroscience recently found out.) Genetical potential of our physical constitution and intelligence of our brain are the most important factors of what is our personal potential, choices at crossroads are what we can contribute with our free will.
Imagine Albert Einstein, having, as a youngster, given into the endless doubts and questionings of reality and his personal life which a highly intelligent and sensitive person tends to have. Having tired himself day by day, having rejected to stand up to work and asking his questions on a scientific level, having resisted to live up to the talents he knew to have (most of us know, silently, at least, how far it could get if we really wanted to), spending his days in the cosy world of right hemisphere dream waking and day dreaming or in the dark world of self-doubt and anxiety.
It is very probable that Einstein‘s brain and psyche would have collapsed under an overkill of unused energy and an entropy of all those transmitters and receptors in his not only highly talented but also ambihemispherical brain, transmitters which are released by the brain’s reward system when we live up to our potential. The result of a refusal to live up to one’s potential very often has the result of life long depressions and anxieties. Many cases like this are known to clinical psychiatrists all over the world. There is a reason for our personal predetermination with which we enter this life and everybody has to find what his or her specific imprints are and why they are given to us and what we should try to realize and achieve with our potential.
There is this very banal sentence popular right now in spiritual groups and gladly used by marketing strategists. „You are here to be happy.“ Obvious why marketing strategists like that: instant gratification, you can sell any well being product, spiritual class, yoga class, dance class, luxury product, amusement park ticket or other amusement tickles with that sentence. Therefore the sentence is of pretty limited use in the realm of finding the path of soul realization. First, we have to see where happiness and enduring satifsfaction with life comes from. Before all, from delivered fullfilled love, and then, most surely, from working on the hight of our potential in a realm that fits the predetermination of our skills.
Simultaneity is perceived by people in their lives in situations when the predetermined path coincides with an event or a series of events in the present moment – and intuitive people as well as scholars of spiritualistic schools know how to read such simultaneities as „signs“ of which way to head. In the heat of the popular spiritualistc movement and literature we hear a lot of talk about following those signs, only believing hard enough in them and in your personal power to have success, only wish strong enough without doubting.
Should we base our decisions on belief or on reasonable considerations? All “12 Translucidly Mindful Words Of Ambihemispherical Holosophy” are trying to bring a rational clarity into the spiritualistic interpretations of quantum physical reality. While Schopenhauer was convinced that everything had to be predestined by a higher consciousness at work in the cosmos, ambihemispherical holosophy suggests, that there is, in fact, a high percentage of our life‘s path predestined by many factors beyond our own will, but that there are many moments in life for the free will to chose which way to go.
With an ambihemispherical pondering of both the available scientific facts, experiences written down in the literature of many cultures, and intuitively observed personal experiences I came to the conclusion, that there are, despite the large percentage of predestination of what the path of our lives will look like, many crossroads with a small window in time to make decisions on which direction to move forward.
These moments have less to do with the power of belief than with the power of attention and intuitive awareness to be right on time in the right place. Belief in one’s own power to achieve is nothing spiritual, it is psychological self-observation and auto-suggestion to strengthen one’s will power. Any belief in one’s power beyond what is strictly dependend on our own performance is another spiritualistic wishful thinking: it comes to its limits as soon as one other human being is involved in the success of our striving, and much more so when more people or even politics are involved in the reaching of a possible outcome.
You can lose a lot of your personal energy and power when you keep for a long time believing in the will of somebody else to achieve the same goal together with you – that can concern workproject, political goals or personal relationships. Focus on your own path, don’t deliver your energy and power too long for a goal that another one should share and pursue with the same will and energy as you do.
So far, I think, this is an useful brief summery of the state of the art of objective and strictly observable data of many people’s life experience on the topic which coincides with the state of the art findings of quantum science. Schopenhauer seems as urgently contemporary as any philosopher or psychologist could be right now. He only did not consider the frame of possibility of the free will in crossroad situations. Dreams anouncing fate for him where clear signs that the dreamed outcome would inevitably happen, while latin american shamanism as well as old east asian philosophy, Zen and the I Ching, know that there is a small time frame for free will to kick in and turn the situation around.
We have to learn to know when this moment is there and to act spontaneously following our clear gut feeling, the brain of the heart and the right hemisphere’s intuition while analyzing pros and cons of the possible outcome of a decision with the left hemisphere in its “best chance for survival driven logic” – and than to turn the situation around before this small window of time closes and the anounced probability of a less favorable actualization of a different path enrolls in its then inevitable reality.
In all of this we did not get deeper here into the question of determine inevitable fate, something in fact being beyond the workings of our free will, natural catastrophies, accidents, diseases. On the other hand there are political situations – where humanity as a whole with the conspiring will of every individual could have an impact, but the bigger the weight of the entity of individuals the higher is the inertia. The dramatic consequence of this inertia is obvious in these years of catastrophic climate change when many natural catastrophies seem to be consequences of humanity’s behavior. We should probably all know what path to take at this crossroad, the time window might be very narrow, the signs are clear enough.
Copyright Susanne Steines, 09.12.2021