For those of you who are used to listening to my meditations,
Let me make you aware that this is something a little different.
It's not a short story,
Or one of the mindful conversations or podcasts I post from time to time.
It's more a thought piece and philosophical meandering.
It sits nicely though,
Along with the guided meditations and visualisations in the Soulful Path playlist.
There is also some quiet time towards the end for reflection,
Contemplation and exploration.
I have been blessed with a charmed and lucky life so far.
Becoming a publisher on Insight Timer back in 2005 is an example of one of such strokes of luck.
At the time I thought I was an author with some meditations on the side before Maddie,
The publishing manager from the app,
Found me.
I asked her how she chanced across me and she couldn't recall how.
If you asked me a year ago what I had morphed into I would have said a meditation guide with books on the side.
It's when you think you know your place in the world and your purpose in life,
Quite often a new page can turn.
So this year I find myself as being a novelist with more novels on the way,
And a composer of ambient music,
An example of which you're listening to right now.
Only a foolish person would assume that this latest incarnation is it.
Those of you who know me will be aware that the gifts that come my way come about from the gifts I share freely with the world.
What goes around so comes around.
I want to share something much more insightful and less passe than a glib notion.
I want to share how when we tune into our soul we tap into a deep and rich theme of serendipity which starts as a trickle and leads to a steady flow of good fortune.
Those who attract serendipity are said to have an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.
It is said that the word serendipity was coined by Horace Walpole,
An English art historian and a man of letters who lived from 1717 to 1792 in one of his many correspondences to his friend Horace Mann.
The two men only met once but corresponded with each other for 40 years.
Apparently Horace Walpole was inspired by the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip in which the heroes were always making discoveries of things they were not in quest of.
An example of such serendipity is when I share with you that Serendip is the old name for Ceylon which in turn is the old name for Sri Lanka.
When you elected to listen to this meditation you did not expect particularly to learn that.
So the sharing of serendipities is not a history lesson per se but it does explore the history of our soul guidance over the course of our life.
It's an exploration of how our ability to tune into serendipities is enhanced by our connection to the soul.
So for example the fact you are even listening to these words from an ex-BBC TV engineer is the result of a long chain of serendipity.
My changes of employers,
Formation of new business ventures,
Meeting with my life partner and ending up on the Insight Timer app they all have something in common.
When they all happened I just knew they were right for me.
Not only did my head,
Heart and gut all concur but what I didn't know back then is that they were all nudges from my soul.
Now you may well ask if this is conjecture and postulation and my response is this.
Firstly you may well be right.
Secondly if we assume something is true and it seems to produce excellent results why not go with it and enjoy the many benefits that it brings our way.
So every user of an app like Insight Timer has access to the essential tool we need to access serendipities of the soul.
The practice of regular meditation helps us keep a quiet mind throughout our waking days so we are better placed to spot chance encounters,
Thoughts from the top of our heads and sometimes bizarre coincidences and happenstances.
Bear in mind too that our soul can come to us in our dreams.
So how does our soul communicate with us?
The most important aspect of our soul guiding us with serendipity is its sense of humour.
Expect to be reminded several times and in strange and different ways.
For example when I wrote my sixth book The Zoned I had just been for a meeting with the publisher about the book structure.
We agreed it would have three sections each with six chapters and each chapter would end with six aspects for each zone.
After the meeting when I just arrived back at my home before I turned into the drive a car drove past me with a number plate that had the letters hex H-E-X.
It made me realise zones from the book could be joined together like hexagonal super zones.
This in turn led to me creating a very useful personal development technique all because I noticed the number plate prompting me to think geometrically.
Indeed I have just written a chapter from my forthcoming book entitled Hex 2 further developing these notions.
Now in some other meditations I have mentioned that procrastination could be a fear in silent operation perhaps protecting us from making a mistake or making a fool of ourselves.
Sometimes our soul can lead us to procrastinate or even make things difficult for us.
Computers can crash,
Internet sites be hard to reach or generally we can find we are pushing water uphill.
The soul also likes to use allegories and stories to teach us and point us in the right direction.
We may watch something on TV or hear of somebody overcoming adversity or inventing something in the news.
It then might occur to us that we could use an element of what we have seen or heard to help us along our path.
The soul also uses numbers to communicate with us so when we see 11.
11 on our clocks or get woken at 3.
33am in the morning pay attention to the thoughts or dreams you were having at that time.
So for the next 3 minutes and 33 seconds just reflect on your life so far and all the forks in the road where you have gone one way rather than another so that you have ended up where you are right now.
And of course the soul likes to be asked and consulted with.
The time to the ending bell of this meditation from when I stop speaking is exactly 4 minutes and 44 seconds.
By the way 4.
44am happened to be when I awoke this very morning.
Just imagine that they might be the most serendipitous 4 minutes and 44 seconds of your life.
And indeed it was a nudge from your soul that led you to choose this day of all days to listen to these words.
Replace your soul right now with that nudge.
