The Clarity of Coincidence
- Details
- Published: Monday, 17 December 2018 17:03
Tim Boyd – India, USA
The author
One of the consistent experiences of people who have had a near death experience (NDE) is the life review where in one form or another the important actions and pattern of a lifetime are made clear. During the review it is often the case that what in one's ordinary life had appeared meaningless or insignificant, is shown to be vitally important. Frequently this review of the events of an entire lifetime takes place in a few seconds of “real time”. The immediate aftereffect of this experience is commonly a sense of purpose and direction. This extraordinary capacity for a vision which sees the whole and unerringly illumines with the light of a wholistic understanding is one expression of the spiritual intuition – in theosophical terminology, Buddhi. While this expansive and illuminating intuition is an ever present potential for us, in our normal lives it seems inaccessible, or at best, sporadic.
Certainly the drama and intense clarity of the NDE review will not be the norm for many of us, but our access to intuitive insight is perhaps more common than we acknowledge. It has a way of appearing in unsought moments and subtle ways. Probably the usual way people access this part of themselves is in those moments of gratitude, absorption, or admiration - of the colors of Fall, a sunset, watching a baby take its first steps - or in moments of crisis, or even despair, those times when we momentarily stop recycling our list of worries, wants, and frustrations, allowing the blinding constraints of self-centeredness to briefly slip away. In those moments what is unveiled is a very pure vision – a dimension of the illumined mind (manas taijasi) – an inherent quality of the mind that knows without knowing why, unobstructed by the noise and activity of our usual personal emotion and thought.
When we look closely we can sometimes become aware of a mysterious pattern in our lives. Intuitions, synchronicities, promptings – the many forms for the whisperings of the inner self – seem to mark our lives, revealing a web of connection with a greater life. In recent days I have found myself thinking about a time when the workings of this unconscious knowledge subtly, but profoundly affected my own life.