 Very often we fall into ruts in our lives; we maintain the same routines and act in the same manner predictably day after day after day.
We set our minds on a certain course of action, and simply proceed. How can miracles happen if we march mindlessly, unthinking and unaware, through our lives? Coincidences are like road flares, calling our attention to something important in our lives, glimpses of what goes on beyond everyday distractions. We can choose to ignore those flares and hurry on, or we can pay attention to them and live out the miracle that is waiting for us.
When I was finishing my medical training, I knew that my interest was in neuro-endocrinology, the study of how brain chemicals work. Even then, I could see that this was a place where science and consciousness met, and I wanted to explore it. I applied for a fellowship to train with one of the world's most prominent endocrinologists. This highly respected scientist was doing Nobel Prize-worthy work, and I was eager for the opportunity to learn from him. Out of thousands of applicants, I was one of six selected to work with him that year. Shortly after I started, I realized that his laboratory was more about ego gratification than about real science. We technicians were treated like machines, expected to mass-produce publishable research papers. It was tedious and unsatisfying. And it was terribly disillusioning to work with someone so famous, so respected, and still manage to feel as unhappy as I did. I had taken the position with such idealism, and I found myself doing nothing but injecting rats with chemicals all day long.
Every morning I scanned the Boston Globe newspaper want ads, aware of my disappointment, but thinking that this path I was on was the only way to go. I remember reading a little advertisement for a position in a local hospital emergency room. In fact, every day when I opened the newspaper, I would see that little ad. Even if I was only flipping through the paper quickly, it would fall open to that same page with the same ad. I would look at it and then push it out of my mind. Deep inside, I could imagine myself working in the emergency room and actually helping people, instead of injecting chemicals into rats, but my dream had been to land this fellowship with the renowned endocrinologist.
One day that endocrinologist addressed me in a cruel and demeaning manner. We argued, and I walked away to the lounge to calm myself down. On the table was the Boston Globe newspaper, opened to the page with the little want ad – that same ad that I had ignored for weeks. The coincidence was too powerful to ignore. Everything finally clicked into place. I knew I was in the wrong place doing the wrong thing. I was fed up with the routine, with the ego of that endocrinologist, with the rats, with the feeling that I was not doing what was in my heart to do. I walked back into his office and quit. He followed me out into the parking lot, screaming at the top of his lungs that my career was ruined, that he would see to it that no one would ever hire me.
With his voice still ringing in my ears, I drove directly to that little emergency room, applied for the position, and started work that very day. For the first time, I got to treat and help people who were really suffering. For the first time in a long time, I was happy. The Boston Globe ad had been beckoning me for weeks, but I had ignored it. Finally I noticed the coincidence and I was able to change my destiny. Even though laboratory work seemed to be the very thing I had been striving for all my life, paying attention to this coincidence allowed me to break my habitual patterns. It was a message just for me, my life's personal road flare. Everything I had done up to that point was simply preparation for that change. Some people thought the endocrinology fellowship itself was a mistake. But if I hadn't gotten the fellowship, I might not have been in Boston. And if I wasn't working in the endocrinologist's lab, I might not have seen that ad and I might never have felt my heart's true calling. Endless details had to fall into place in order for this part of my life to play out the way it has.
According to a poem by Rumi, one of my favourite poets and philosophers, 'This is not the real reality. The real reality is behind the curtain. In truth, we are not here. This is our shadow.' What we experience as everyday reality is merely a shadow play. Behind the curtain there is a soul, living and dynamic and immortal, beyond the reach of space and time. By acting from that level, we can consciously influence our destiny. This happens through the synchronization of seemingly acausal relationships to mould a destiny – hence, synchrodestiny. In synchrodestiny, we consciously participate in the creation of our lives by understanding the world that is beyond our senses, the world of the soul.
From Synchrodestiny, copyright 2003 by Deepak Chopra, published in the UK by Rider.
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