Distinguishing between the Akashic, Mental and Astral
© 2001
>> In the spirit world ( akasha plane), the spirit, because it is all-knowing, compassionate, full of humility, and an eagerness to learn and evolve, would choice a body/life that would challenge its faults. So what I believe is that in this lifetime, people suffer because they want to evolve, to learn, and to conquer their flaws. <<
It's important to note that the Akasha and the Mental Realm are not the same thing. The mental realm is the first *effect* of the Akashic Causation. The mental *body* is an individualized manifestation of the true Akashic spirit. It is very, very similar in that it too is eternal. The mental body however, is the "doer", the one who picks and chooses just the right incarnation.
The problem faced by the Akashic spirit is the refinement of its incarnate body. It takes repeated incarnations to get it "right". By "right", I mean to craft an incarnate body that clearly and truly expresses the essence of the Akashic spirit. This can be viewed as evolution or as a process of learning. But the Akashic body itself is eternal and is not what evolves -- only its incarnations evolve. Or, to put it more clearly, its ability to incarnate itself with perfect clarity is what matures, ripens, evolves.
Since the we exist in the physical realm, where change is a constant and infinite in its variety, the Akashic spirit must incarnate itself into a very broad spectrum of experiences in order to perfect the process so that the incarnate body reaches the state of clarity under ANY circumstance. The only way to achieve this state is through the *personal* experience of suffering, love, want, exaltation, etc.
But why is it necessary for the Akashic spirit to go through all this? The answer is the ultimate in simplicity and one of the most difficult to accept. Namely, "because that is just the way things work." ;-) In the Akashic realm of Causation, "reasons" are moot, irrelevant. "Reasons" exist only in the realm of sequential Effect.
But we can define the mechanisms of this working even if we can't define a "reason" for its existence. The root causation taking effect here is that for the eternal Akasha to fulfill the temporal, sequential parts of ItSelf, it must plummet the depths of the material realm and express itself through the material realm with perfect clarity. This process, on the whole, takes an infinite amount of time and sequential experience (i.e., eternity).
To get back to your comment about the Akashic spirit "choosing", this is not the case, strictly speaking. The Akashic spirit is not motivated by issues of "choice". An Akashic Spirit merely does what is in its essential nature to do.
Actually, "does" and "do" are the wrong words to use in reference to the Akashic spirit. "Doing" is a sequential action. An Akashic spirit merely IS. Only its incarnations are "doers".
>> Rawn, if you can just clarify the aspects of the astral/soul and mental/spirit body. What I am confused about is that the author refers the soul as the spirit, and I believe that that is what he means as the hermetic definition of the spirit, or the spiritual-I. Where then does the soul comes in, in the manifestation of the spirit. Is it when they are earthbound? There are such big gaps in the book which does not speak much of the astral plane, many a time mixing it up with the mental plane. <<
The "soul" equates with "astral body" in Bardonian Hermetics. The astral body is a temporal consequence of the descent of spirit/mental body into the physical matrix. The astral body is the emotional body. Emotions (and all things astral) are what mediate between Mind and Matter.
When a person dies, the astra-mental body (i.e., conjoined soul and spirit) is released from physicality. Since there is no longer a physical root into which Mind pours itself, the astral mediation is no longer required or even viable. So the astral body begins to die or dis-integrate. This is what those who undergo regressive hypnosis describe -- the process of the release from physicality and the subsequent dis-integration of the emotional body.
The experience of the astral death will be unique for each individual, depending entirely upon the contents of their emotional body at the moment of physical death. Primarily, it is a cathartic release, be it negative or positive.
Since this is the astral realm, our experience of this emotional release assumes symbolic form. Hence, "heaven", "white light at the end of the tunnel", "being met by family, friends, angels, etc.", or even "hell". Beneath each one of these symbols there's an emotional state being released or resolved.
Eventually, the spirit/mental body sheds all of its skins and this is when the experience of "all-knowing, compassion and humility" that you describe earlier, comes into play.
My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
24 Dec 2001