I recently had a friend tell me that I'd better be careful with my emphasis on following Synchronicity, because he had often experienced 'false synchronicities' -- events that seem to point toward a certain course of action but that later went nowhere, or worse, turned negative. I responded with my sincere belief that synchronicities are never false; it is our interpretations of those events that turn out to be hasty or self-serving. I believe that circumstances come together and get our attention to bring us a message. Unfortunately we often miss it altogether or see it only much later. That's why truly following a flow of synchronicity in our lives, while representing a more actualized level of human functioning, is still, at best, a kind detective story into ourselves.

Two keys in staying in a synchronistic flow that I often write about are worth mentioning again:

Be patient . . . Don't jump to conclusions
Always find a positive meaning . . . Look for a silver lining

Not jumping to conclusions is the easier of the two. It requires that we look at meaningful coincidences carefully and then patiently test our interpretations before firmly assigning a meaning. Often we have to presume a certain meaning for a while and again patiently wait to see if that course of action is confirmed. I believe if we are on the right track then other synchronicities will occur to validate what we are doing. The way you know if you 're on the correct path is that your life WORKS.

Of course, saying that it works is not to say that it is easy.

Sometimes, as we all know, each of us runs into problems or events that seem horrific and traumatic. Here's where the second factor comes in. To stay on the right path one must always find a positive interpretation for the events happening around us. This does not mean that we should agree with the events, or think that they were necessary for our growth, or that we should not wish that they hadn't happened. In fact, most events that one might ordinarily think of as negative represent a failure either by ourselves or someone else. If we were all functioning at the level of our higher potential then these problems could have been headed off. Look at any such event and this fact can be seen.

I'm talking about finding a message that speaks to us and helps us to move forward like any other synchronicity, a message that connects our souls with a higher source and vision, keeps our personal energies up and buoyant, and moves us past trauma.

Needless to say, what I'm talking about with all this is finding a higher message in the horror of what occurred in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC. Certainly the terrorism was an event that stunned and destroyed something in every one of us, and threatens to erode the very optimism and peacefulness that is at the heart of any spiritual path. For this reason we have to come to grips with where it has left us and the message that can allow our synchronistic work to move forward. For some, the message is to be more alert to dangers and find the ones capable of such murder. For others, the message is to seek atonement for our own personal isolationism, the willingness to let people around the world be homeless and in hunger and illness and susceptible to fanatics.

And while both are in part true, I believe a higher message is to see this abhorrence as a wake up call to inner/outer action. Saving the world cannot be thought of in the abstract any longer. And the way we must save the world is by acting on what we know about the inner life, especially the power of prayer. No event has evoked a larger call for all kinds of spiritual intercession. We seem to now know that we must fully begin a conscious and intentional intervention into the problems of the world with prayerful communion and visualization. Theorizing about it isn't enough any longer.

While no doubt in the days to come there will be many different groups initiating prayer, here is one way I believe we can proceed. What if we raised a spiritual force devoted to peaceful intervention, not just in the general way most of us already do, but specifically, with each of us at the same time using the same precise visualization aimed at uplifting specific people and groups that world events suggest could be key players in the drama against terrorism unfolding in the world? What might happen if we find thousands who would commit to this kind of intensive prayer, all at the same time, aimed at a specific target each week? Research suggests that the number of people and the intensity of participation matters.

Toward this end, we have begun such a prayer project, including any research that we can design to give us feedback on effectiveness. The key, of course, is the commitment and precise intention of the practitioners, so if your intuition leads you to become part of this, we invite you to join us!

Let us create the largest, ongoing prayer group in the world....

-James Redfield