David and I met in Denver at the National Chess Championship for grades K-6 where our children were participating in the tournament. My children and I were staying several blocks from the conference, and one morning, running late, rushing down the street to make the morning meet, David and his children drove by, pulled over, and gave us a ride to the tournament. We began talking about synchronicity then, and we continued this discussion over the phone. —Lindsay Ahl
David Sanders: The notion of synchronicity that’s been established in psychology and mysticism, even on a solid level, is that particles that have a relationship to each other can have effects across significant geographical distances. A relation or change within one area or system can have an effect on another area or system, even down to the minutest level. So what that’s showing us is that even on a subatomic level there is an interconnection that underlies the universe. And the same holds true for people. As they show with twins, they can have feelings and awareness for someone who is not in proximity or close.
Lindsay Ahl: So this could also apply to thought?
David: Yeah. I’m not a physicist; I’m taking at face value what the physicists are teaching us. But more importantly, I’ve experienced the other part. Which is that someone can be thinking of something and there can be a connection that is occurring that creates a thought pattern in someone who is connected to that at the moment even if they’re very far away. This is a common experience. I was thinking about you and the phone rang and there you were. Obviously, if this is someone you talk to everyday, that’s not impressive, but if you haven’t thought about that person in twenty years, and have had no contact with them and then you think of them and the phone rings, then that certainly ups your awareness of that.
Lindsay: You mentioned that it was important to tell some stories of synchronicity. Did you want to tell one of those?
David: Okay. This is the story that actually got me started on this. This is a story about a young woman who had become pregnant and there was a little complication with her pregnancy so she had to find out about her medical history, during which she found out she was adopted. So to make the story shorter, she was adopted from the state of Washington, and inquired about it and was told that they would contact her family (the state of Washington has an open adoption policy) and if they found the family they would ask if the family was interested in being in touch with her. This young woman was talking with me, and I was going to a conference in Seattle, Washington in two weeks, and I told her, I had this feeling, this premonition, that I was going to meet her family in two weeks. This was back in 1999, and I had no reason to say that, actually. I wasn’t a particularly good receiver at that time. I was actually a little shocked I said that. Anyway, as it turned out, a few days before I left for Seattle, this woman called and said that she had contact with her biological family. And there was some good new and some bad news. The bad news was that her biological mom had died, a few years after giving birth to her, but there were aunts and uncles, and the grandparents were alive. But the grandfather was ill and dying of cancer. So I asked a few more questions and it turned out that the grandparents lived in Seattle. I had their last name and the pretext for visiting, because the grandfather owned a gift shop, and because he was ill, he was selling lots of inventory. Exactly how this information was presented to her, I still don’t understand, but that’s the information she had. So when I was in Seattle, I went to visit them, was ushered into the basement of the gift shop, and while I was looking at various items, and while I was taking aside various items to purchase them, I was taking a family history from him. I was not in a position to tell him who I was, because the family had not informed him of the existence of this young woman. They were going to tell him at some point, but they weren’t sure he was going to live long enough. So I was there for a number of purposes, one was to get some family history, and if I could, to find the name of the woman who had died, in other words, the mother of the young woman who lived in Denver. As I was talking to this man it was very clear that he had never had a daughter that died, and he was very emphatic about it. Since I never asked him point blank, he never denied it, but his story was that he had one son and two daughters. I felt like I had failed my mission in terms of knowing this person. Just as I was leaving, after spending a couple of hours with him, I asked him a question. I don’t know how this question popped into my head. I asked him whether he had named anyone after his mother who had died. It’s a Jewish custom to name someone after the deceased, so I thought that discussion that might lead somewhere. He started crying, and he said to me that in fact he had another daughter but she had died young. So as it turned out, this young woman in Denver who was his granddaughter, had a girl she named after her biological mother. About a month later she went out to Seattle to visit her biological family. The Grandfather was still alive at that point, and he held in his arms his first great-granddaughter from his daughter who had died young. He had never had a reconnection with her after she had gone away with the baby from the pregnancy that was not something the family was happy about. He died a week later. So even before all that happened, my experience when I walked out of this man’s house, was a feeling of being somehow a messenger between the past and the future. And what was remarkable for me, in terms of my own spiritual growth, was that I had had no reason to think I was going to meet her family, and yet I said I would. And I think that stems from the fact that something was coming to me and saying, here’s a very interesting story and it’s developing. And my seeing that I was being told about this and pulled into it in the sense that I was traveling to that very same spot, and somehow making this tenuous and illogical connection, but subsequent to that I now see that that is in fact the way that synchronicity operates. Meaning that there are things that are going on, and it is up to you to see how you are connecting with it.
Lindsay: I love those kinds of things. I love how insane people are really great at connecting things. Like in A Beautiful Mind, he connects things to secret codes that he sees in the newspapers. As a psychologist, you would know how close being receptive and seeing those connections could be to madness.
David: This in an incredibly important point. And that is one of the challenges in the study of the Kabbalah, and the study of other mystical paths, that it opens you up to more subtle levels of connection. And there is the possibility of seeing things that are even deeper, or overwhelming to the circuitry of the brain. And I think what can happen is that it doesn’t mean that there aren’t connections there that someone in madness is seeing – there could be some very interesting connections, it just becomes so overwhelming. Being able to say, “I have a premonition that I’m going to Seattle and I’m going to meet your family,” is somehow a message, either diabolic, or even neutral or positive, but a message that is granted to you and providing a special power, or on the other side of it, fears and worries, about if the world can operate this way and I’m beginning to see things connecting which actually aren’t connecting.
Lindsay: Looking at just the physical construction of the universe, how radical and beautiful and interconnected it is, it would make sense that there are other moving patterns. Talk a little bit about what you mentioned regarding synchronicity being a kind of undercurrent, underworld …
David: An operating system?
Lindsay: Yeah, an operating system underneath the usual visual realm …
David: Well, I think that most of us just take life as it’s presented to us. We basically see things as operating in the natural order. And we call things that occur outside of that coincidental, meaning that something is co-existing that we weren’t anticipating. But anybody and everybody we meet, whether we’re sitting in our office or at a chess tournament — everyone we’re meeting — we have the potential to be drawn to them, and them to us. So a part of what I would call this other operating mechanism, (in Kabbalah we talk about it as the connection of souls), is something that is operating there that allows us to seek out and be sought out by those souls that need connection with us. And the souls don’t only need to be human, they could be animals, they could be places or things, they could be pieces of art, or ideas, that are connecting with us because they are pieces that are important for us to connect with. It may be that much of this just floats by, and we’re unaware. But every so often we get an awareness of this connection we’re supposed to make, whether it’s a job or a person or an experience that was really an important part of who we are becoming and who we need to be. So that’s what I would say about the operating system. It’s there, but we’re not necessarily tuned in.
Lindsay: So how do you become tuned in?
David: Well, I think that the first thing about learning is to just be aware that this is a possibility. It’s actually changing one’s awareness. As opposed to seeing this as irregular, to actually see it as the way things happen. And what quantum physics is helping us to understand is, the more awareness we have of this, the more it occurs. Now the question is, is it just that we’re becoming more aware of it, and therefore it’s always occurring and we’re just more aware of it, or I think what’s being suggested is, that the more aware we become, the more we create it. And this is actually a premise that has been established in the Kabbalah. And in other teachings of Judaism. Which is that, when you believe, then it occurs. And my argument would be to take it a step further and so that when you experience it, and tell it, it occurs more too. In a sense our existence is a mirror of what we are ready for and what we put out.
Lindsay: Where that becomes confusing to me personally is in relation to the news. Why is the news out there in that way … and is that me?
David: The answer is, yes it is. And just like you brought up the issue of madness, the challenge now is that we have literally in the palm of our hand access to billions of stories. And we could spend our entire time just watching the news being reported from around the globe. And you could ask yourself, well in what way am I connected to that, or in what way am I connected to this. And in that way we become overwhelmed. There’s an old notion that synchronicity occurs more for people who travel, and what it means is that if you’re waiting for synchronicity to come to you, that’s one level of awareness. If you’re actually going out there and seeking it, if you’re traveling, then you’re opening up the possibilities of connection.
Lindsay: Had you mentioned the idea of parallel futures?
David: Well, one of the things people are asking about, is that if you are in fact having a premonition about something, expecting that synchronicity is going to occur, are you in fact limiting the future possibility? If I say, I’m going to meet your family, well, in some way, is that already going to occur? We look back in retrospect and say, it’s interesting you said that because in fact it did occur. So in some ways there is the other possibility, the other piece of it, which is that, are you limiting your possibilities by saying what is going to occur in the future? And I think that what is made out for us is the understanding that there are many possible futures, and you are seeing and living into one and maybe one could argue that you are creating it. So when you say something about the future, according to quantum physics, you are actually having an impact and effect on that future. And that gets created in the present moment and lived out into the future. That doesn’t mean to say that you couldn’t have done something else. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t change your mind, which will then also have an effect on the future. So where it gets a little challenging to the mind is, Are you creating the future? Is the future already there? What are you calling forth? I’m not clear on that one either yet. But I do know how it operates, which is that, in answer to your question before, if you are intent on something and ready for something, then the universe will meet you.
Lindsay: Suppose you think you’re ready and you’ve gone through all the motions but what you think you need never comes your way. What does that mean? That you weren’t actually projecting it the way you thought you were? That you weren’t ready?
David: I think that’s unfair to say. I think it has to do with the receptivity of it. So for instance today, I’m thinking about a person I’m supposed to call, that I made a promise I would call. But part of me is hesitating to call because I’m not sure how receptive he’ll be to my call. And in that thought, that hesitation, I’m creating interference around having that connection be made. So if I can overcome it, then there is a better possibility of making the connection. But I still don’t know how receptive that person is going to be. And if that person is not receptive, then maybe I’ll end up having the wrong number, or maybe they won’t answer or won’t be available, or if they do, they won’t be interested in talking to me.
Lindsay: What are some of the ways that your ideas of synchronicity parallel ideas in the Torah and in the Kabbalah?
David: The paradigm of synchronicity in the Torah is the story of Rebecca at the well. When Abraham’s servant makes the long journey, he stops and has a conversation with God — and says, here’s how I’d like it to play out, and if it plays out this way then I’ll know in fact that I’m being guided by you. He set these parameters, and Rebecca walks out and fulfills them. And what’s remarkable about the story is that, the servant recounts the entire story to her family, and it’s the only time in the Torah that a story is repeated. Now this would not be that unusual in a movie script or as a literary form, but we’re taught that the Torah is very circumspect in the words that it chooses and uses, so why repeat the entire narrative? A novel teaching from the Kabbalah is that if we have an experience of synchronicity, it is of critical importance that we share that with others both in terms of helping them have a greater awareness, and also solidifying our own awareness. Because our challenge of connecting with this unseen operating system is that once we move away from it, it is very easy for our awareness to fade. So from the Kabbalah perspective, putting the albatross around the neck and continuing to tell the story is of critical importance.
Lindsay: What you’re kind of saying underneath what you’re saying is that that’s one of the ways God communicates with us.
David: Yeah. I think that … I’ve used the phrase … we have to be aware of Divine appointments. There are appointments we make. We know we’re showing up at Starbucks at 9 o’clock for a meeting. But sometimes the person we’re supposed to meet doesn’t show up, so then we might start having a conversation with someone else we know, or a stranger. And then the question we have to ask ourselves is, what really was my 9 o’clock appointment? So, it’s heightening one’s awareness that the experiences that we have are all a communication to us about our highest awareness. They are there to help us grow into who we potentially are. I don’t know how this can be woven in, but I love this teaching. I encourage my children to ask good questions, and they get rewarded for good questions. I give them five dollars for a good question. I’m not looking for answers as much as just questions that are really interesting. So one question that one of my kids asked a while ago was, if you had to choose what chess piece you could be, what chess piece would you be? So without much thought, I said, I would choose to be a pawn, and although my child thought that was kind of an intriguing answer, it seemed kind of obvious, because the pawn has that capacity to change into anything. Though sometimes it’s more powerful by just remaining itself. It doesn’t have to change, but it can change into anything, except a king. And then I thought, well that’s only if you adhere to the rules of chess. So somebody made that up. Someone could have made up the rule that we’re allowed to have two kings on the board. And that even though you checkmate one king, you could make one of your pawns into a king and you’d have a reserve king. It’s just that we sometimes get locked into seeing the world in the rules that we’re given. As opposed to thinking, who’s to say it has to be that way? It could be something totally different. I was once talking to a friend of mine (John Connell), and I mentioned to him this little story about pawns, and he said, “Well I would have actually had a different answer for the piece I would have chosen.” So I asked, “What piece would you have chosen?” He said, “Well, the piece I would have chosen would be the board.” I thought that was brilliant. So I’m just trying to make this connection, (this is where madness begins) because you and I connected around chess, and I’m trying to think about how it connects to synchronicity.
Lindsay: It does, because it’s about altering your perception. There’s this quote that Jim Harrison tells about a schizophrenic man who said, “Birds are holes in heaven through which a man may pass,” which is just about shifting your point of view. And it is totally related, because seeing synchronicity, feeling synchronicity and being attuned to it, is about allowing your mind to be the board.
David: Right. As opposed to being limited to seeing yourself as a piece. Even the piece that can transform the most. So there are two additional teaching points there, the first one is, who said the pawn can’t become a king, and then the other side is, when asked about being a piece you tend to just think about them, but the board itself is the most fundamental piece; without it you can’t play the game at all. So I think in other words, the constraints of the pieces, how they move and how they have to shift to places that are open – that’s how we live the logic of our lives, but there is an underlying reality, or operating reality, which is the board itself. And to realize how did you get to be a piece on the board to begin with. How did you find yourself in a king-rook fork? Or how did you find yourself as a pawn ready to transform into something totally new? You made the journey. You create the chessboard.
Lindsay: Lately I’ve tried to change old patterns of behavior, or old patterns of thought, and I find it very difficult. And I don’t see why it should be so hard once I see it and decide to change. But certain things are triggers and I’ll revert back to square one.
David: That’s a kind of synchronicity itself. Thoughts keep coming back because you’ve been there so many times – that’s how you operate. But the power of transformation is when you realize that things can be completely different. Here’s maybe even a further teaching regarding chess, which is there is a game of chess that can be played, not even on the board itself. You know, when I was at that tournament, I signed up to play. This was the first tournament that my kids had gone to, and I wanted to see what it was like. And I tell you, the moment I sat down with that clock, (you know I played chess recreationally for many years), but as soon as I sat down there, with a live opponent and a clock, I honestly wasn’t playing chess any more. I was playing to win. But I wasn’t playing the game anymore. But with the second game, after I got to a point where I was certain my opponent was going to beat me, I started playing chess. It was like dancing or playing music, it was a thing of beauty. It was like the pieces came alive. So in a sense, even though there is a chessboard in front of you, the question is, who are you, playing chess. And that’s the game that is being played outside the chessboard. I think the challenge for a lot of kids there, the reason they experienced it as so intense, is because they weren’t playing chess, they were trying to win. And in that moment, they weren’t playing chess, they were losing pieces. Or tying to win, or trying not to lose. But once you let go of that, you’re not playing the board, but just chess, just the game in front of you.
Lindsay: There is a kind of freedom, not worrying about if you win or lose, but using what’s there to create something interesting, beautiful …
David: And there is that notion that what does it really mean to be the board? Can anyone be the board at all, because competitions are about winning or losing, that’s not about chess ….
Lindsay: You’re talking about something really radical, which I think in Buddhism is called a kind of detachment, which is a way of standing apart from time so that you are there and you are playing but you’re free only because you’re not thinking about the outcome but only the moment.
David: Yeah, I don’t know if that’s attached to the idea of synchronicity but that’s what I was trying to say.
Lindsay: But I think that’s totally in alignment with synchronicity because if you’re in the moment and you’re feeling it, then you’re attuned and receptive to what’s happening—all of it …
David: Yeah. So then, okay good. So then, in that moment, you’re not only playing a game of chess, but you may even recognize, this person who is sitting across from you, how are they entering your life. Normally, if we ask our kids, so tell us the seven kids that you played … they might know, this one kid was annoying, this other kid walked around all the time, but did they find out who that person is or why they’re sitting across from them … that’s going to be completely lost because they’re focused on the board instead of what you just said … I liked what you said, something about freedom? That you have the freedom to experience fully … what is …
Lindsay: …that moment …
David: … in that moment, what is being transacted, what you are connecting with. There is this saying that Buddhism is about detachment and Kabbalah is about connection, but what you’re saying is a combination of things, that when you can detach — that leads you to the ultimate conductivity.