26. EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS ABOUT
SYNCHRONICITY

Steve Piersanti, the president of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, suggested that I include a representative sample of the hundreds of letters I’ve received since the first edition of Synchronicity was published. I’m moved by these letters—and initially was overwhelmed by them, especially by those that asked for help or advice. It is these letters and my feeling of inadequacy in relation to them that helped inspire me to learn as much as I could about the principles that informed the journey described in Synchronicity—and that are at the heart of my forthcoming book, Source.

Sometimes the comments were dramatic and short: “I liked this book so much that I resigned from work. (It’s true!)” But often they went on for many pages. A teacher wrote me from New York, describing a terrible tragedy that led her to enter an ashram for a prolonged retreat period. One day while on the retreat, she had a long conversation with a Brazilian named Adrian.

Then, later that same evening, Adrian sought me out and one look at his radiant face and sparkling energy let me know something was up. He said he’d been thinking about our conversation all day and had happened into the neighboring bookstore where he was startled to find your book. He told me Synchronicity had been instrumental in changing the course of his life two years ago and, without even knowing why he did it, he was compelled to buy me the book. I tried to thank him for such a generous gift but Adrian was adamant, even embarrassed, and kept saying he wasn’t the “giver” so much as the “messenger.” He knew he should deliver the book into my hands, but he didn’t know exactly why.

His words rang in my ears as I finished the last pages of Synchronicity yesterday. Your book (although it feels strange calling such an entity a “book,” when I really see it as a ray of light) has helped me realign myself, body, soul, and spirit, with the reason why I got into teaching in the first place. It’s not about content, it’s about changing the world, one day at a time. This is why I breathe, this is why I care, and ultimately, this is why I teach. Your text has set off a series of chain reactions both internally and externally (sort of like a back adjustment) that allows me to return to my life with gratitude and new vigor. In fact I designed an AP literature course around Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces simply due to your mention of it in your book.

Thank you, Joe, for holding up your light as a torch in the form of this great book and for reminding a ragged and tired soul the importance of the work we do. God bless you, Joe. I’m glad to be on a team with such heartfelt players as yourself.

Many of the writers said they had never written an author before—that it was four-thirty in the morning or some other time in the night and that they had read the book straight through and had to write me.

The letters came from all over the world:

Allow me to start by letting you know that your book, Synchronicity, changed my life. Thank you. Yours is the only book that a formerly avid reader was compelled to finish in thirty years of exile from his homeland.

From a meditation retreat in the Netherlands, a young man wrote to tell me that:

Many recognitions have followed in the past two days that I’ve been reading your book. For a long time I’ve been searching for a way of how to be a leader. Somehow I have a strong desire to be that, but the way in which to do so has remained a mystery. Strengthened with the flow of the meditation retreat, I know now that my life will never be the same. More than ever I will act out of love and out of the awareness with the flow of life. I do not know yet in what realm my leadership will [manifest] itself, but I’m sure that it will happen and that the opportunities will reveal themselves.

As the years passed, I began to receive letters from people who were rereading the book and telling me how their lives had been changed. “I have just been rereading your book, Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership, having read it easily eight years ago,” wrote one reader from South Africa. “By now hundreds and thousands of people must have read your book … and I am sure that as one who writes the book, you never fully grasp the impact that your book may have on a person’s soul and heart.”

I felt close to so many of these people. I remember one woman who worked in a chemical laboratory and who gave up her job to create a business bringing the principles and practices of sustainability to the horse world:

I would like to thank you for writing your Synchronicity book! I first read it years ago (five, six?) and it was a pivotal book in my life then. …

I knew I needed to read your book again, so I am (just hit Ch. 18)—and this time I am underlining a bunch, so I can come back to the passages! I have been able to really identify with some of the personal feelings and challenges you experienced! It is comforting to know that you, even as highly successful as you were in the law and business circles, faced the same doubts about your ability to start the new venture, ALF. Who am I—mother, biologist—to take on my mission? If I didn’t understand that I am tapped into Consciousness, like everyone else, and therefore a conduit of that Unlimited Wisdom, I would run begging for a desk job.

Many of the letters shared the writer’s aspirations, or described projects:

I just want to thank you for writing such an incredible book. For over ten years I’ve been working on a plan to develop a consensus-driven, organic, grass-roots network that is structured to stimulate and empower the collective human imagination into gathering councils at local, regional, and global levels. It’s an enormous undertaking that can be a bit overwhelming at times.

Synchronicity has struck such deep chords within me. I am completely uplifted by the expansiveness of your work and the depth of your commitment.

From the bottom of my heart—THANK YOU!

A twenty-two-year-old Polish student described the book as giving her the faith that she was not alone:

Until now, my dream was to work for [name of company] and all of the steps I have undertaken from then on were focused on achieving it. Anyway, I knew I could make it happen if only I entirely focused and believed in it strongly enough—I thought. In November last year I went through all the interview stages and finally I received the contract I dreamt about. I thought that I have accomplished what I had set and I should be now happier than ever. Yet, there has been always this intrusive and insistent thought that maybe this is not what I was really called for. I went over to the “people management” section of the books and browsed through them. I initially picked a couple of titles, but in less than five seconds I dropped all of them and was left only with the Synchronicity in my hand. I started reading and I couldn’t believe how aligned all the concepts were with everything I have believed in. I felt that finally I found somebody who had similar experience and I was not alone. …

I am writing all this probably to justify even to myself why do I dare to bother such a busy and famed person as you. For the last week I felt a strong urge to write to you and every time I wanted, some thoughts would stop me from it. You are writing about your mature life experiences and how could I, at twenty-two years old, claim to understand and feel it. But at that moment I found my notes from a conference I attended in London back in February. One of the speakers was emphasizing the importance of having a mentor in anything we want to do—somebody who possesses the qualities we admire. Concluding, she said: “Ask for what you think you would never dare and you will be surprised”—I underlined this sentence in my diary. I grabbed Synchronicity again and reread the chapter about the Guide and the moment of swing. One of the quotes I heard some time ago came to my mind: “When the student is ready—the master appears.” I have no right to ask for it, nor any idea how could it happen, but I believe that the Universe readjusts itself as needed—from that moment on, I knew you were the only person I completely aspired to be like and whose actions were perfectly attuned with the values I have always looked for. What surprised me was the fact that this conviction was so strong that I caught myself on thinking I could be ready to drop the job offer I have worked so hard for and follow the calling.

There were so many requests for meetings—and when I said no to these, I often thought, with some guilt, of how generous David Bohm had been toward me.

During the height of the tsunami of responses, I hired a friend and colleague, Sheryl Erickson, to act as a kind of “firewall.” Sheryl organized a number of small workshops and fireside chats so that I could respond to people collectively instead of individually. Most of these took place in or around the North Shore of Boston and were attended by twenty to fifty people, with Sheryl leading the dialogue. In these dialogues, my key understanding that I attempted to explain to people was that “Synchronicity came through me and was not by me.” But, as I’ve mentioned, I couldn’t answer all the questions that were thrown at me.

After one of these sessions, Sheryl wrote to me about what she saw as a potential paradox:

As author of what is to be a popular book, you will be hailed as guru and as the one who knows. We all (yourself included) will knowingly and unknowingly collude to create and then maintain a position for you as one of the next organizational gurus.

At the same time, the core of your story’s message clearly contradicts the “guru paradigm.” Synchronicity speaks of insight for new leadership residing not in the other, the guru, or anyone outside, but rather insight as accessible to everyone through newly honed sensibilities of looking and listening within and to Life as it moves all around.

Also, inherent in the popularity of the book, will be the workings of a set of beliefs imbedded deep in the psyche of its readers. These beliefs are in stark contradiction to Synchronicity’s essential message. Herein lies the not-so-obvious paradox. Synchronicity’s popularity will derive in part from beliefs such as:

• Somewhere out there is the hero.

• Someone else has the answer.

• He knows. (I don’t.)

• They know. (We don’t.)

. . . .

The Western mind is conditioned or “wired up” not to believe Synchronicity’s message. The Western mind is not prepared to accept an alternative belief that [is described] through your story, i.e., I have access to wisdom for action that I need at this time.

Because I took this warning deeply to heart, I was encouraged that so many of the readers of Synchronicity did indeed experience the message Sheryl was afraid they might miss:

Good Morning, Mr. Jaworski. I feel compelled to communicate with you. You mention in your book the several significant times you met people who were important to your life and growth. I, too, have experienced the awe of such unexpected perfection. In this case, I have had that experience with you through your written word. Where indeed life is “enfolded,” it makes sense that we do not have to be in physical proximity to have relationship.

While reading your book, I sat many times with tears rolling down my cheeks as I was so touched by the sacredness of your experiences and what I was learning for my own path. In describing your path, you made a map for me to understand my own. I so related to your comment about feeling perhaps crazy—going somewhere, knowing on a deep level it is where you must go, but not seeing a path. This is what I have been experiencing for many years. I communicate with you as I sense this is one of those “cubic centimeters of chance” that has presented itself. I am not allowing myself to fall prey to my conditioned thought that you are too busy or important. I am allowing me to “listen” to my heart. I have no goal, only that I feel compelled to “talk” with you.

I think the most significant thing you provided for me was understanding the validity of my path. The Western mind is so conditioned by the “empirical.” I was not finding connections with others who were on this path, not in the public school arena nor at the university. My contacts came from books and conferences. I thought I was out of step with my organizations, etc.

You also are a call to arms. The call for commitment was loud and clear for me. I was breathless while reading the story of the coal-mouse and the dove. Thank you. I believe I am ready to hear it and feel I am ready to take some action. I am listening more intently to my heart and realizing it is my destiny to follow. . . .

Bohm says we must give a lot of attention to consciousness. . . .

Consciousness illuminates our life. It brings to “life” experience. Knowing comes from our entire being, we must understand to listen.

Essentially, through an understanding of these principles, people from all walks of lives are learning to live in the “flow.” They are learning how to release capacities within themselves. The implicate order is enfolded within life. When people understand, they live differently.

The word “numinous” is meaningful here. I can really find no words to articulate the deep and transforming impact you provided for me. Thank You—from I to Thou!

Many readers recognized that I was primarily a messenger—and when they experienced the message, they experienced the same powerful reactions that I had.

I would like to express my sincere thanks for sharing your personal leadership journey through your work, Synchronicity. I feel inspired. The impact is sure to stay with me.

Late one night last week, I completed the epilogue. My emotional experience was so profound, I immediately started weeping (from the gut) for the first time since my father’s death. … From the flood of emotions that entered my perception, I was able to clearly sense every key adult event (negative and positive) in my life simultaneously, wholly connected and without any conscious effort. … I have never felt such a sense of openness and connectedness in my perception, as in the immediate moments after completing Synchronicity. I experienced a most overwhelming “openness” in the clarity of my perception of who I am. As I lay next to my wife sobbing, I could clearly perceive at once, all these significant events that had shaped my trajectory and bring me to where I am now. I got up [and] kissed each one of my small children. I remember feeling entirely enfolded as one with them. Gazing down on them, my thoughts from this experience culminated with the profound words from Jung—“invoked, or not invoked, God is present.”