76. There Are No Coincidences …Or, Are There?: 8 Ways To Find The Meaning In The Messages

Life is richer when you realize there are no coincidences.

Life is richer and much more meaningful when you understand that every moment has a purpose.

Everything that comes in is purposeful.

Welcome to Spiritually Hungry Podcast episode 76 out of Chile,

New York City.

It was like zero this morning or it felt like it anyway.

Yes,

It's very cold outside.

Thankfully,

We're inside in the warmth.

And we're not here to talk about the weather,

Are we?

Well,

I think the most interesting conversations are about the weather.

Really,

Those are the conversations that happen when you're avoiding real conversations.

Sometimes.

Sometimes it's really interesting.

Really?

I've had interesting conversations about the weather.

Well,

You're out with me.

So I know that you love my storytelling.

I do.

I do.

And by the way,

I heard actually this week from a few of our listeners that they as well are riveted week to week to hear about Alison.

For real?

No.

Yeah,

Actually there was one for us.

So I'm going to tell you a story.

This is the story about Esther Gratian's dollar bill.

Have you heard of it?

Those four words are three words.

The story of Esther Gratian's dollar bill has turned into somewhat of an Internet legend,

Although you've never heard of it,

Michael.

It's an against all odds tale of romantic serendipity.

So as the story goes,

Esther and Paul were dating and after stopping for a meal at his regular deli,

Paul decided it was time to discuss exclusivity as he was about to pay his bill.

He saw that the dollar in his hand had the name Esther written in pencil.

He kept that dollar,

Framed it,

And then gave it to Esther.

Esther surprisingly was strangely quiet and unenthused when Paul presented her with the gift,

Remarking that she would tell him something later.

Many years later,

It's funny when I read this,

I was like,

You would not have,

It would not have been many years.

You'd ask the question an hour later,

Two hours later.

And the next day you would have driven me crazy till you got the answer.

So Paul's more patient than you,

Michael.

Is that the word I was going to say?

Less interested than me.

Hey,

Hey,

It's a love story.

Many years later.

The best love story.

Well,

You might insult them.

You might be listening to our podcast right now.

So many years later,

When they moved into a new home,

Paul was reminded of the dollar bill when he found it in a box and proceeded to ask Esther about it.

So it seems that Esther didn't think it was that significant either.

She shared a story that was unexpected.

At age 19,

She was in an unhappy relationship and wondered how she would identify the right man if she'd meet him.

She wrote her name on a few dollar bills and decided that she would marry the man who brought one of those dollars back to her.

She basically said a prayer as she wrote her name on different dollar bills.

And she asked.

It's a true story?

It's a true story.

Internet legend.

Yes.

Oh,

Internet legend.

No,

It is.

You can Google it.

It's a true story.

It is true.

And she asked her.

So she said a prayer to God saying,

Like,

I give up,

I'm not good at this.

Please help me find someone.

So she couldn't share this when Paul gave her the frame gift.

After all,

She didn't want to scare him off.

Oh,

It was like at the beginning of the relationship and the frame dollar.

So it sounds like the kind of thing you would say at your wedding speech or something.

You know,

They were busy.

It ended up in a box.

I don't know.

I'll tell you.

So that frame.

I'll tell you something,

If this happened to us,

This would not be in a box 20 years later.

Well,

Maybe we're just more sentimental.

That frame dollar still sits cozily on their dresser to this day.

So clearly it does have some dignity.

And thank you for trying to ruin my story yet again.

You like you know what it is?

I like people that are complicated.

You like happy ending stories.

You're like happy.

Like,

It just makes sense.

And also factual.

This is factual.

Internet legend does not mean factual.

You can Google it when we're done.

Anywho,

In today's episode,

We're going to discuss if there are truly coincidence,

Random happenings or whether there are no coincidences or accidents.

So the big question or questions are,

Is there meaning and coincidence or are we trying to impart meaning to make sense of our lives or are these coincidences messages we really are meant to receive?

So I'm not going to bury the lead here,

But this is what the Zohar says,

The main coupleistic text says there's no there are no coincidences in life,

No random events of chaos.

It is our inability to perceive the metaphysical influences that manifest in our environment that creates the illusion of disorder.

So I know you're going to go way deep into Kabbalah.

And before we do that,

I just want to continue on this.

If you ever said that to me,

Really,

I'd be terrified.

So I think this I thought this was really interesting because we can put Carl Jung in the not so and the no such thing as coincidence category.

Synchronicity,

A term coined by Jung,

Describes seemingly meaningful coincidences supposedly not accounted for by random chance or natural causes.

Jung,

A believer in paranormal phenomena,

Which I didn't realize,

Actually,

Thought that such events are telling as something about the way the ways we are all mysteriously connected to each other and the universe.

And I thought this was a really kind of cute another story.

It's his story about a scarab,

Actually.

So this happened when he was in a.

Oh,

You're showing me your paper,

Beat you to the punch.

Now you can add on to it.

Oh,

I will.

I love when we do that,

By the way,

What are the chances?

Seems like a big coinkidink.

So no coincidence.

That's very funny.

So he was in a therapy session with a young woman who described herself as a fierce rationalist.

So this is what he wrote in his book.

A young woman I was treating had a dream in which she was given a golden scarab.

But she was telling me this dream.

I sat with my back to a closed window.

Suddenly I heard a noise behind me.

I turned around and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside.

I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in.

It was the nearest analogy to a night when I first heard.

Oh,

My God.

Would you catch a scarab as it was flying?

I would.

I would hide behind you.

I just thought about that.

I'm not catching nothing flying into the window.

But OK,

I think you did for Carl.

Yes.

So anyway,

As I was saying,

It's the analogy is the closest to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes.

A scarab beetle,

Which contrary to its usual habits,

Had oddly felt an urge to get into a dark room at the exact moment.

Young believe the coincidence was not,

In fact,

One at all.

While the two incidences were apparently separate,

They were intriguingly tied to each other by the way of synchronicity,

According to Young.

After the incident,

The woman's strict stance of rationality collapsed,

Allowing the psychological process of transformation to truly begin for her.

What he said is,

What I found in my work were coincidences connected so meaningfully that their chance concurrence would be incredible.

And it actually reminded me of a conversation we had with somebody last weekend.

We're talking about ayahuasca and this journey he took.

And we've had conversations about this where it can be kind of an opening or awakening for somebody to then know what's possible and then do the work of spirituality in their own lives.

But the way he had said it when he was explaining his journey,

Because he did it four times for the first time this year,

He had never touched any drugs and he's like 50 now.

And he said it gave him a view,

A feeling of what he was capable of and what was possible.

And I thought that was very much aligned with coincidences,

Serendipity and the topic that we're covering today.

Interesting.

So,

Right.

Well,

Very interesting because apparently you pulled the same story.

Yeah.

I mean,

I think,

And I'll just add a little bit to that.

I think the fact that.

.

.

Because there's not a lot to add,

Right?

Exactly.

You said it all.

So we both like very often having studied spirituality for many,

Many years,

Seeing either scientific,

Psychological dovetailing of these concepts.

So Carl Jung is relatively famous for his book,

Synchronicity,

Really a phrase that he coined that takes away the thought of any coincidences that rather seeing,

Even if I can't see the cause and relationship between two things happening,

That there is one.

So in his introduction,

He writes the following.

If this is nothing less than a restoration of the original state of the cosmos and the divine unconsciousness of the world,

And I love that phrase,

The divine unconsciousness of the world,

We can understand the extraordinary fascination emanating from this mystery.

It is the Western equivalent of the fundamental principle of classic Chinese philosophy,

Namely the union of yang and yin tao,

I have called synchronicity.

And interesting,

He spent many,

Many years,

Carl Jung,

Both developing and thinking about this idea.

And he had a partner that he reached out to a very famous Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist.

And so I want to share a story from Wolfgang Pauli,

Who was again with Carl Jung,

Helped him develop mostly through correspondence,

But they developed this idea of synchronicity even further using Wolfgang was one of the,

Seen as one of the fathers of quantum physics again,

As I said,

Also a Nobel Prize winning physicist.

So there's a book called 30 years that shook physics,

The story of quantum physics,

The story of quantum theory by George Gamow.

And he writes about the following with Wolfgang Pauli.

You said a whole lot of words today.

It's like names.

Okay,

I'm sorry.

I'm focusing again.

Did I lose you?

I hope I didn't lose any of our listeners.

Should I start again?

It's like just name it then.

The book and the reference.

Okay,

Go ahead.

Should I start again?

No,

No,

Don't start again.

Just go ahead.

Deliver,

Deliver the message.

So it is well known that theoretical physicists cannot handle experimental equipment.

It breaks whenever they touch it.

Pauli was such a good theoretical physicist that something usually broke in the lab whenever he merely stepped across the threshold.

A mysterious event that did not seem at first to be connected with Pauli's presence once occurred in Professor J.

Frank's laboratory in Gottingen.

Early one afternoon.

I like that I make you laugh.

Early one afternoon without apparent cause a complicated- Wait,

Did we need to know where the lab was?

I just feel like there's extra words happening.

I think you should write a letter to George Gamow and tell him that you have some edits to his book.

No,

You can edit.

Okay,

Anyway.

Yeah.

Early one afternoon without apparent cause a complicated apparatus for the study of atomic phenomenon collapsed.

So I'm totally listening.

Go,

Keep going.

This is me at the lab track to my wisdom.

Frank wrote humorously about this to Pauli at his Zurich address and after some delay received an answer in an envelope with a Danish stamp.

I didn't say anything.

Pauli wrote that he had gone to visit Niels Bohr and at the time of the mishap in Frank's laboratory his train was stopped for a few minutes where at the Gottingen,

That's why it's important to know,

Railroad station.

You may believe this anecdote or not,

But there are many other observations concerning the reality of the Pauli effect.

I just thought it was a cute and obviously a funny story to you.

And this idea that certainly Jung,

But also many physicists and others have been thinking about this.

There's this phrase that Jung uses,

This idea of one world and he uses the Latin phrase and I don't want to make you laugh.

No,

You won't.

Go ahead.

But the idea is,

And again,

Because I think for some people when we think about coincidences to them,

It must be either a religious connotation,

But I think it's much more palpable for certainly for those who aren't necessarily steeped in either spiritual tradition or otherwise to know that all this means is that there is purpose.

And if there is purpose,

Not because as I often like to joke about the guy in the sky,

But that there's a consciousness,

A consciousness again,

Which is spoken about in books of science to our world.

And that means that there's a cause for all things,

Whether we see it or we don't see it.

I'd just like to,

If I can go a little bit deeper now with the Kabbalistic understanding,

Which to me is both fundamental and if you understand it or accept it,

It really changes the way you view your entire life.

And the view is this,

That my life and everything that comes in it,

My life and everything that comes into it from the greatest things to the smallest things,

From the happy things to the sad things is all perfect.

Perfect for what?

We understand that we're here to grow into change,

To manifest what we call our soul,

Our potential.

And that process is not a linear process.

There are ups and there are downs and there are learnings and there are failures and there is growth.

And thankfully it's not just up to me.

As a matter of fact,

It's mostly not up to me.

The universe conspires to help me.

Love doesn't always come in the forms that we'd like to see it,

But it is always there to help.

And if you understand,

This is the way I try to live my life,

That absolutely everything that comes into the box that you can call my life is what I need.

So of course there can't be any coincidence.

Of course,

Therefore also I can't be upset at somebody for doing something that came into my life because I need it.

So I see the idea of accepting that there are no coincidences predicated on the understanding that my life is perfect.

What does that mean?

That the box that is my life includes everything that I need,

Everything that I need.

And to explain that just a little bit further.

So for instance,

The questions can be asked,

There's a phrase that we often refer to that a person has to say that the whole world was created for me.

The whole world was created for me.

It doesn't necessarily mean that everything that goes on in your life or his life or any one of our listeners' life is connected to me,

Although on a deeper spiritual level it might be,

But rather that everything of the hundreds and the thousands of people that interact with me,

Be they in obvious or non-obvious ways,

Is what I need.

So if I look at my life again,

As I said,

As a box,

Everything that enters that box,

Everything that enters the box,

The person who annoys me,

The person who upsets me,

The person who brings me joy,

The person who challenges me,

I need,

I need.

And therefore- It's sort of like you had a box,

Like you were putting together our fireplace screen the other day,

Right?

And it comes with a lot of different tools.

Now,

If you didn't know how to use the screwdriver or you lost the screws,

Which you did for a few minutes and I helped you find it,

Then you wouldn't be able to assemble the screen,

Right?

You have a life that you come in a box,

Let's say,

And you have all the different pieces,

Parts that you'll need.

But if you don't connect them and you don't use them to support each other,

You don't understand how they work,

Then you're really going to make a mess of things,

Right?

Nothing's going to make sense to you.

You might even lose a few screws.

You might never put it together.

So I think because really anything that,

I mean,

Of course we have free will,

But we will be given the opportunities throughout our lives to ultimately live our best lives.

But in order to do that,

You have to be able to change,

To transform,

To grow and derive purpose and meaning from even the most difficult things.

Right.

And I think that a very important element to all of this is therefore the understanding that everything is purposeful,

Right?

Because what does coincidence mean to a person who says,

Well,

It has no cause,

It has no real purpose,

It's just an effect of coincidence.

It means that there are things in my life that don't have a purpose,

That are necessary.

But if you live a life that is based on the understanding that my world is perfectly created for me,

Not only do you look at coincidences differently,

You look at life and every moment of life differently.

Well,

That's why that book was so popular,

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People,

Right?

A lot of people have a hard time not just accepting what we're saying,

But really living that,

Right?

Because and I think especially the last three years have been very difficult for many across the board.

And still,

There's more challenges coming up in ways that we haven't seen in the world,

I think for us so far.

So I think many people have a hard time accepting that everything is meant for their greatest good.

Of course.

But by the way,

I think that what is powerful about transforming our view of coincidence is it makes life much more meaningful.

I'll give an example.

One of the great capitalists,

The Baal Shem Tov,

Says the following,

When a leaf falls off a tree,

The way it falls and where it falls,

There's a purpose,

There's a reason.

We might not understand why this leaf has to fall there.

So this past Saturday,

I was walking in Connecticut,

And as I'm walking,

A leaf falls down.

And it was a little bit windy,

So as it falls down,

It starts moving.

And I was reminded of this teaching of the Baal Shem Tov.

And I can't tell you why that leaf fell,

But I could say that that moment for me had much more purpose than if I would just be thinking,

Oh,

This leaf,

You know,

Leaves fall,

They fall,

What they do,

No reason behind it.

It's much more- Well,

It made you have this thought that now you're sharing with the world.

Exactly.

And it's a much,

Much more purposeful existence.

And this is really what I hope our listeners,

One of the inspirations that our listeners receive from today's podcast,

That it's a completely different view of life.

Everything.

The leaf,

The shirt that you wear,

I'll give you another example.

The Baal Shem Tov says when you walk into a store and they have,

You're buying a shirt,

Right,

They have 10 of the same shirt and the same color and the same size.

Why did I choose this one?

They don't usually have 10,

By the way.

Five,

Three,

Two.

Why did I choose this one?

Because there's an energy in that shirt that corresponds to my soul's energy,

That I actually need the internal energy within that shirt.

That's what I say every time I go shopping.

I'm just kidding.

Right.

And it's a really,

And I hope this is,

I'm explaining this properly,

That it's a really completely different life.

It's a completely different life when you see everything as having a purpose and everything as having a cause.

So this is interesting because I do feel,

And we're going to pick up here again and go deeper with it,

But I do feel like it's important to bring up kind of the naysayers and science,

Actually there's science for it and against it because everything has a meaning,

But sometimes we make too big of a deal out of things and it's not that important and it really doesn't have that much of a meaning.

Right.

So I think we actually need to unpack this just a little bit.

I think that it's our inherent search for meaning,

Full stop,

Just as human beings.

Recognizing patterns is one of our most basic cognitive skills and it's been crucial for survival and evolution.

For instance,

Our ancestors recognized both food and predators using pattern recognition.

If they heard a rustling in the bush,

That pattern recognition alerted them to consider that the movement was because of wind or because there was a predator out to get them.

Right.

So it had a very important purpose,

But our brain does not know how to distinguish between true and false patterns,

Which leaves us vulnerable to false interpretations.

So the tendency of our brain to mistakenly detect patterns where they don't exist is called apophenia.

It's a term that was coined by the German neurologist Klaus Konrad,

Who originally described the phenomenon as a psychotic thought process.

I thought this was really interesting too.

And as one of the symptoms of schizophrenia.

However,

Now it's viewed as a universal feature of human nature.

So imagine the following scenario,

Another story for you.

On Monday morning,

Your alarm clock does not wake you up and you're late for a very important meeting at your child's school.

Your potty trained dog has had an out of character accident overnight.

The coffee maker suddenly stopped working.

This is why you choose instant.

It's snowing heavily and you don't have a brush to remove the snow from your car.

What would you think given the string of incidences?

One or two of these minor events would seem insignificant,

But as the list grows,

It can easily start to look like a scheme of negative forces conspiring against me.

And maybe you just shouldn't leave the house today.

Right.

And I'll give you a story that actually happened to me a couple of years ago.

And I was thinking,

But as I was preparing for this is that,

You know,

We all have this moments where sometimes we feel like the world's caving at us and we're doomed for like darkness.

It's not just a black cat that that's crossing your path,

But he's camped out in your yard.

Right.

We have those moments and you feel like that kind of energy.

So a few years ago,

I was driving across town and I was on the phone with somebody in the school system about Josh and they were giving really bad news about how expensive it would be for his education,

Which is ironic because,

You know,

He has special needs and they're making us jump through hoots.

I'm on the phone and I'm getting I'm having a reaction to this call and I'm about to cross the intersection and I am realizing that I'm in a right turn only lane.

I decide that I'm going to keep going,

Even though I kind of saw the police officer on the side there.

So I sped up.

I cut the car off in front of me.

Of course,

I hear sirens.

It get pulled over while I'm on this call.

I hang up abruptly.

She was not too happy with me.

And then she goes on to say that she's going to give me an additional ticket because I have something obstructing my my view in the,

You know,

Hanging on the mirror.

And and it's not for a dice or anything like that.

It happened to be a necklace that Miriam had made me.

She was 10 at the time and I'd been hanging up there for four years.

Why on this random day after I'm having this horrible call,

I've run the whatever.

I was in the wrong lane.

I get pulled over.

I'm getting a ticket.

She wants to give me an additional one.

And and she did,

Actually.

So I drive home and then I walk in the door and I notice that the chandelier at our entrance is hanging by a thread.

It had suddenly come undone.

And then I finally sit down to start working.

My office was right by that light.

And this huge truck goes driving by our street and rustles the tree.

And now this beehive that's come in front of our our house,

They're swarming all over.

So these five things happened in the matter of an hour.

And yeah,

My thought was like,

What is going on now?

Of course,

We have spirituality and we study and I was OK.

This is just to know not to take anything too seriously.

I already took the high road with it,

But it would have been very easily to stop.

And I was nine months pregnant.

Right.

I was hormonal.

I could have taken that as a sign of all kinds of things.

So it is kind of,

I think,

An important point of.

First recognizing that our brain chooses false positives,

Meaning believing something to be real when it isn't over false negatives,

Not believing something is real when it actually is.

So the brain is kind of tricky like that.

And there's three different types of apophenia.

Would you like to hear them?

I would love to.

Are you interested?

Very.

This was interesting.

The first is parietalia,

Which is visual.

It's when we see something our brain uses prior knowledge or context and expectations to make sense of it.

And that's why we frequently see nonexistent things in sandwiches,

Clouds,

Dirt.

Moreover,

Since faces are the most common sites in our memory,

We see faces in just about everything.

In fact,

I saw a little smiley face on my coffee cup today.

Then there's gamblers fallacy.

Gamblers often think that they see patterns in the numbers that appear in roulette wheels and lotteries.

The common belief is that a particular outcome is due to happen since it has not happened before or vice versa.

And the third is confirmation bias.

This is a cognitive bias that makes us seek and favor information that confirms our previously existing beliefs while neglecting the clear evidence that would argue against those beliefs,

Commonly called cherry picking information.

I do want to say one thing because I do know somebody who recently their behavior has been a bit different and they keep making connections with numbers.

This is when I got married.

This is when you got married.

And numbers,

Like never before.

And then when I read this,

It kind of made sense to me.

So scientists have recently explored the ways in which it's closely tied to mental illness,

This whole thing that we're just talking about,

Alerting us to the real dangers of this pattern seeking habit of ours.

Researchers have found that those suffering from schizophrenia or perhaps bipolar disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder as well have a higher tendency to see patterns and randomness and find meaning in coincidences,

Leaving them vulnerable to false perceptions of reality.

I just thought that was kind of interesting the way the brain again.

So I want to go back to the spiritual conversation because then how do you know what to take seriously and what not to?

How do you actually know?

And maybe you've seen this where other people interpret a coincidence in a way that you find illogical or just plain wrong,

Right?

Some students come to us and they're like,

Okay,

This is the person I'm supposed to marry because they had whatever their name is the same as my great grandmother,

Whatever the thing is.

How do you know when it's random or when it's not?

I'm not sure I can answer that question completely.

I like when you can't answer a question.

Except to say that you want to approach all of this with humility.

You want to approach all of this with humility.

That's a good word.

Explore that.

Right.

Because I wouldn't make huge decisions based on a sign.

This is sort of going a little bit off topic of coincidence.

Well not really because I think that many people who,

I don't want to say are not believers,

But tend to,

Like you said at the beginning,

Think that coincidences are just for people who are religious or really believe that it is connected to,

Is it a sign,

Is it not?

That's why some scientists really believe in this,

Some do not.

Right.

So I think that most of us are probably on the other gamut,

The other side of the gamut,

Which is that we do not pay attention enough to what you can call a coincidence.

I think I might have shared this story,

But my mother lived very much in the realm of knowing.

Well she always,

Right,

Connecting things.

Like I remember,

This is maybe 40 years ago,

She was looking for an accountant and she stops at us at a red light and she sees a big sign that said an accountant's number and he became an accountant for many,

Many years.

I think that where we do want to work is being aware of the fact that the universe is talking to us all the time.

And if we're living every moment with purpose,

Meaning we understand that nothing is happening just because there are no coincidences,

You start picking up.

I don't think this is.

.

.

I often find where people don't live their life in this way,

But maybe a choice like a spouse,

They'll find a reason.

You can call it a coincidence,

You can call it a sign.

I think most important,

I can't answer the question,

How do you make sure you never fall and make a mistake in this way?

But what I can see is that I would recommend starting to live your life assuming that they have a purpose to everything and trying to be keenly open to the messages that the universe is telling you.

And the more you do that,

The better you will become in figuring out,

Is this meaningful right now?

Am I understanding the right meaning of it?

How many times do I.

.

.

Again,

Like you said,

We have people say,

This happened and therefore this must be the reason when sometimes it seems obviously that's not it.

Well,

I think also in those cases,

They're usually looking for an excuse.

They can't make a decision for themselves,

So they want the universe to decide for them.

I think it's a way out of taking responsibility on some level.

And or that it's confirmation bias,

Which is that they really want to do something and they,

Okay,

Oh,

This happened.

But what I think what we're talking about on the important level is not the flash of,

Okay,

I'm going to make this decision or that decision,

But living your life in a different way.

If you live your life with the understanding that the universe is desiring to help you and you have to be living life with the understanding therefore that there are no coincidences,

That everything is on some level purposeful,

Then you get better at figuring out what are the messages.

But I do think it's a balance.

Like I remember I told you this a few weeks ago,

Because I'm always looking for the connections,

Right?

Like I felt this and this happened or even when I first had the surgery for my attendant repair,

I was like,

Okay,

Well,

This is meant to be so I'm supposed to give energy somewhere else that I couldn't,

Right?

I'm always looking for that.

But I remember basically I was just really tired and I'm like,

What could it be?

What are the vitamins I'm taking?

You know,

Did I sleep enough?

What did I eat?

And then I'm like,

You know,

I'm just tired,

You know,

And that's okay too.

But I think it is,

It is a balance.

And I think the more in tuned you are with yourself and with knowing who you are and what you believe,

The more you'll be able to decipher what is,

I mean,

Again,

Everything's a message,

But what is something to act upon and what is something just to be aware of.

Right.

And just to underscore that point in the book,

The Power of Coincidence is this quote that I really liked.

We do not create our destiny.

We participate in its unfolding.

Synchronicity works as a catalyst towards the working out that destiny.

And I think this is really the consciousness.

Synchronicity is the working out of that.

Of that.

Meaning when you lived your life,

Which by the way is on some level also freeing,

Right?

And we spoke about this some when we spoke about parenting.

My life is not all for me to do or to figure out or to work out.

There is a beautiful universe force that is desiring to help me,

To message to me,

To support me.

And you really want to be open to that.

And you really want to live your life with that understanding.

And then by the way,

When you live your life in that way,

You'll get the messages that other people will miss,

That you even would miss prior to living your life in a thoughtful,

Keenly aware and listening to the messages.

Yeah.

I mean,

I can,

As you were speaking,

I was thinking about how many times that's happened to me in my life where it was so clearly I was in a place I wasn't supposed to be and it meant something or I saw something at a certain time in my life and it meant something.

And sometimes it took even like months later to understand what that meant.

But those moments when you really start to pay attention,

You can actually feel something occurring.

It becomes kind of like an energy in and of itself.

I thought this was really interesting because I brought up how scientists were kind of against this.

But they're not all on the same page.

And this is a quote from Bernard Bateman.

He's the head of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia.

And he said,

Just the sharks have ampullae in their skin that detects small electromagnetic changes that help them locate their prey.

It's plausible,

Maybe even probable that humans have similar mechanisms that detect coincidences.

And I thought that was really interesting because I think that if you look at nature,

Right,

And you look at the world,

You look at human beings,

We're so multifaceted.

Our ability to do and to do so many things is magnificent.

Why wouldn't this be part of that equation as well?

Yeah.

And there's a beautiful story that I often share when it comes to understanding coincidences.

And really,

The purpose,

I think,

Is not this is not a theoretical discussion.

You do or do not accept that there's a purpose or reason behind everything.

For example,

There's a biblical story about Joseph.

Those of you who know the story,

He had great tension with his brothers.

They hated him so much that eventually they sold him as a slave.

The biblical story relates that as he's sold as a slave taken down into Egypt from the land of K'tan,

The people to whom he was sold who were merchants were carrying beautiful smelling things,

All kinds of incense and perfumes.

And the Kabbalists point out that usually the merchants in those times when they would travel,

They would travel with things that didn't smell well.

Joseph noticed that these,

Again,

So he's going through a terrible.

.

.

Why would they do that?

Why did it happen?

Why did they travel with things that didn't smell?

Oh,

Because they were selling things for the most part,

Like hides of animals.

Most of the merchants in those times when they were traveling to sell things,

The things that they would travel with.

.

.

That happened to be smelly,

But they weren't.

.

.

Smelly.

Not on purpose,

No.

No,

I was lying.

Not on purpose,

No.

Not on purpose.

But so Joseph is in a very dark moment in his life.

His brothers hate him.

They sell him as a slave.

He's now going to be enslaved for 17 years.

And then he smells something good.

And then he smells something good.

Now,

I think most of us would say,

Okay,

Who cares?

This is a terrible day of my life.

My life is going to be terrible for the next few years,

So great,

Something smells.

But Joseph realized something.

Joseph said,

Well,

There's no coincidences.

Why is it the unlikely reality that the people,

The merchants to whom I was sold have a beautiful.

.

.

They were traveling with incense.

It must be,

And I refer to it as a kiss from the creator.

The creator is basically telling me,

Yeah,

There's something really unfortunate that you're going through.

On a deeper level,

Your soul needs to go through this.

You might or might not accept or understand that in this moment.

But I want you to know that I,

The creator of this universe,

The force behind this universe is here with you even in this dark moment.

And if I give you this little kiss,

The coincidence of the travelers,

The merchants to whom you are sold traveling down to Egypt with beautiful smelling incense and so forth.

And I think when you live your life in this way,

Yes,

Even during the difficult times,

You'll see something.

And it might be small,

But if you pay attention to it,

It supports,

It gives you strength.

You see it and understand it as a kiss from the creator.

I love that.

It reminded me of with my father being sick all those years.

It's interesting because through song,

It would be an indication of how I was supposed to understand it.

So I remember the first time that happened,

I was exercising and in a room full of sweaty women,

It's so hot in there that you can't tell tears from sweat,

Honestly.

And the song was playing.

It's official.

A room of sweaty women.

And the song started playing.

The song by John Legend started playing.

And for some reason it hit me,

Really hit me that my father was declining rapidly because it wasn't so obvious at that point that he had Alzheimer's.

And I remember that moment,

Like I better wake up and connect with them as much as I can because it's going to be rapid.

And it just,

It just the way that I heard the words of that song while I was exercising in that moment made me understand it.

And it really changed the way that I started to interact with him.

Then years later,

While he was really in the decline of it,

A friend sent me this song by James Blunt.

And she said,

I don't know,

I think this really reminds me of you and your father and what you're experiencing.

And he is a friend of my friends.

And it was about his own father being sick and passing and the exchange between the father taking care of the son and now the son taking care of the father.

And I remember sitting at a nail place,

Getting my nails done,

And I just pushed play.

And I didn't expect to have this effect on me.

And I start to cry hysterically.

And this woman,

Imagine she's doing it.

I'm like sobbing hysterically.

It's not you.

It's not you.

And and again,

It was a sign for me that,

OK,

This is he's he's nearing the end.

And I don't know when that is,

But I know it's coming.

And I understood what my role was and how I should help him exit.

And again,

It just was a song that came to me.

And I remember when the text came through from my friend,

It had an energy to it.

It was just like,

I need to hear this now and it's significant.

So I think it's even those those kinds of moments like the smell for Joseph.

It is those it's those moments where you can just write it off as like,

Oh,

You know,

I smelled that.

But that was different.

But now I'm going to go on and go with my day and my intention and what I have to do and we take ourselves so seriously.

But I think it's really about pausing in those moments that are unexpected,

That seem random,

But they make you take pause.

Don't write them off.

Just stop for a moment and say,

OK,

What could this mean for me?

Absolutely.

Those those are two very powerful stories because it really underscores this idea that what if you hadn't been open to those messages?

Right.

Your life would have been.

I would have thought I would have had regret of how I spent the last eight years with him in his life.

And really,

Like,

I feel so close to him now that he's not here,

Because there is a lot going on between us in a beautiful way in those late state years that perhaps we were closer in a weird way than we ever had been.

Interesting.

So I guess the point is,

And this is an interesting thing to say,

That even if you don't believe that there's a purpose for all the coincidences,

Your life will be richer and better if you act as if there is.

Right.

Because,

Again,

These are two perfect examples.

And I can point to many in my own life.

Had you just gone past them,

You would have been less happy for it.

I would have been full of regret.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

And then I think that there's this one last idea.

So in August 2001,

Alisa O'Kane,

A United Airlines flight attendant,

Signed up to work her usual trip from Boston to Los Angeles in September.

But she accidentally entered an incorrect code into the airline's computer system and was assigned to a different schedule.

She managed to swap flights with other attendants for all her trips except Flight 175 on September 11th.

I know you know where this is going.

She tried again to request that flight on the computer system the night before,

But the system froze.

And by the time it finally processed her request,

She missed the airline deadline by one minute.

Her request for Flight 175 was denied.

She resigned herself for flying to Denver instead of Los Angeles.

This is Denver bound plane left Logan Airport between American Airlines Flight 11,

Which crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower and United's Flight 175,

Which struck the South Tower.

When her colleagues found out that she was not on board,

They told her repeatedly,

God has a plan for you.

You were meant to be here.

After taking the time to consider what such a meaningful plan might be,

She eventually entered a career as a nurse feeling a need to give back and fulfill myself,

She said.

So it's not that God didn't have a plan for others,

Because I think that this gets really complicated in that way.

It's just that she understood that was just not a coincidence,

Right?

The fact that all of those things,

It was three different things,

Right?

She put in the wrong code,

Then the computer froze,

And then she was a minute late,

Right,

To actually finalize it.

That what woke her up,

Right,

That there is a message for her,

That there is something greater that she's meant to be doing.

Yeah,

It just reminded me,

There's a story that my mother would tell.

This story goes back about 45 years ago.

My parents were in Israel at the time,

And they were facing a lot of challenges.

As they would often do,

There are many spiritual sites in Israel.

They decided to go and travel to the different sites.

And it was in the middle of winter,

And it was very rainy,

And there was nobody out.

There was nobody going to these sites.

And as I said,

They were going through a very difficult time,

And my mother would say that every place that they went,

There were two candles lit.

One place to the next,

To the next,

To the next.

What are the chances?

There was nobody out,

There was nobody there,

And why would people leaving exactly two candles in each?

And again,

And she saw it,

And my father at that time,

They both realized this was a message,

As we say,

It gets from the creator saying,

I am here with you even during this difficult time.

And I think for me,

This idea of being open at least,

And I think sometimes it's messages that inspire us,

Sometimes it's messages that give us some comfort and support during difficult times.

And like I said,

I have experienced so many of these,

And life is richer when you realize there are no coincidences.

Life is richer and much more meaningful when you understand that every moment has a purpose,

And everything that comes in is purposeful.

Now you're going to ask me what I'd like to leave everybody with.

Yes.

So,

Monica,

What would you like to leave our listeners with?

Well,

I think that there's no black and white way to approach coincidences,

And regardless of the nature of an event in our lives,

Be it seemingly good or bad,

We're always the ones in charge of looking for and ascribing meaning or lack thereof.

I think that's up to each person.

We can choose to believe the universe is random,

Chaotic,

Punishing,

Even against us,

Or we can choose to believe there's something governing,

That there's some governing force of goodness working in our best interest,

Attempting to teach us and guide us towards greatness in every moment,

And therefore there's a positive lesson to be gleaned from every event in our lives.

We always have the power to ask the question,

Why is this in my movie?

It is our belief about the nature of the universe that will ultimately determine which answers are revealed to us,

Answers that invoke a sense of helplessness or answers that propel us towards change and growth.

And again,

All I would add to that is what I've said before,

Which is try it.

Try to live a day seeing everything as purposeful,

And I will almost guarantee that that day will be more fulfilling.

It'll be a good day.

That that day will have much more meaning and purpose and fulfillment for you.

So before we sign off,

I want to share actually.

Yeah,

This is from Apple Podcasts.

Somebody left a review,

Which I thought was both very inspiring for us,

But also hopefully for our listeners.

So I stumbled upon the Spiritually Hungry Podcast as a suggestion while scrolling through the Apple library spirituality selections.

And I liked that sort of,

He didn't know anything about us or what we do and just coincidentally came upon this podcast.

I have listened to all of your episodes,

Sometimes multiple times,

And they have transformed my life forever.

I began to become more interested in learning about the wisdom of Kabbalah.

And he read us more of the books.

I have complex PTSD and substance abuse issues.

My desire is to complete my soul's journey and share with others in spite of my own suffering surrounding my issues.

Thank you for the guidance and inspiration your work brings to all of your listeners.

That's so nice.

So beautiful.

And again,

That story,

For example,

That review really is everything we spoke about in this podcast.

Now coincidental that he was scrolling through Apple Podcasts and he found this podcast and now has brought in some level of inspiration and hopefully assistance and wisdom.

And all I can say is that this is,

The proof is in the pudding.

Your life will be transformed when you live it more with the understanding or consciousness or even try to see it.

Try to see every moment.

Try to see every coincidence.

Try to see every aspect of your life is purposeful.

We hope you enjoy listening to this podcast as much as we enjoyed recording it.

And as always,

Please go to Apple Podcasts,

Write five star reviews,

Share it with all of your friends and family.

Wherever you get your podcast,

Make sure you review it and share it.

Continue to send your questions,

Comments,

Stories to Monica and Michael at Kabbalah.

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By the way,

You can also send us some of your ideas for topics that you'd like us to cover.

Certainly questions that you have and certainly inspirational stories that you'd like to share with us because we record this podcast to hopefully bring some wisdom and inspiration to our listeners and it inspires us to hear from you.

So please do share everything that you can with us at Monica and Michael at Kabbalah.

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Stay spiritually hungry.

Bye.