I had a student ask me a question about religion and belief concerning the Akashics. They had been called to minister in a religion and had done so for decades and then, through experiences and events and thought, had found that they no longer believed what they had been teaching and speaking and so felt confused and betrayed and didn’t know what to think about their calling. And they were struggling with feeling like they had been wrong and wasted years of their life and how would they be forgiven and what did this do to their Karma and what did the Akashics have to say about this.
The amount of preconceived notions and assumptions in the entire conversation made my head spin a bit. What about living a spiritual life is a waste? Having a calling and following it? What about that is wrong or a mistake if you ‘harm none’? (Let’s leave aside psychosis and serial killers and psychopaths for a moment, if you don’t mind.) It seems that the assumption is that one path is ‘right’ and others are ‘wrong’ and so are our actions based on that assumption and what path we’re following. Also there seems to be a preconceived notion that the Akashics is a place of judgement and authority, kinda power over, and that some kind of punishment or reckoning was being formulated there. With Karma mixed into this.
So after settling my spinning head I tried to tease all this apart and start laying aside the assumptions and giving a different perspective on things. First, I have found no evidence that there is only one right path to Spirit or that we need to travel a path to Spirit (insert whatever word you wish to use for the numinous or source or deity). In working with the Akashics I have seen that religion and spirituality are just one experience among a multitude that helps us learn and grow and become on our own unique trajectory to becoming the best person/soul that we can be. And that, the process of becoming, is the point, not how we get there, and everything we do is a teachable moment that helps us learn and develop and become. Having a calling in one decade and moving on to something else another isn’t an indication of a mistake or a failure nor is it an indictment of one religion or spirituality over another. It’s like rings in a tree, an indication of growth and change that reflects the environment the tree experienced and how it responded.
Does the Akashics see all this happening? Yep. Does it care? Yes and no. There’s no judgement involved, just love and support for the growth process. Beings working within the Akashics may or may not be involved in helping the soul with this process, but the Akashics itself is not keeping score, not making judgements and not handing out punishments or rewards. As for Karma, again, not a score sheet or a reckoning. It’s about the learning process. If you need to learn about something, you will have an opportunity to do so at some point in your existence. It may be this lifetime, it may be another, and it’s not like putting a puppy’s nose in his pool of pee and saying “No! Bad dog!”. It’s about growing as an individual. Figuring out what you have to learn and doing the easy and hard and in between things to develop into more of your potential. Which may mean suffering and may mean joy and hopefully, at some point means a bit of happiness.
Which has all been brought to mine by a recollection I had recently about some of my more memorable experiences with religious sacred space. Looking back on it now it seems amazingly ironic and yet very symbolic of my life that I had my first experience of embodied sacrality and women’s spirituality in a Catholic church. It was completely round with a round Holy water fount that was the size of a jacuzzi and had a bubbler in the middle so it seemed like a holy well out of Ireland. The stations of the cross were bas relief plaques set into the concrete floor around the outer edge of the sanctuary so you walked them in a circle making the journey of spirituality eternal and unending in a good spiral way, to my experience, not a tormenting Purgatory way. And the reliquary had a 5ft oil painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe with a kneeler and votive candle offerings. Did I come away from my time at this church with the right message? I don’t think there is a ‘right’ message. I didn’t get a Catholic or even a truly Christian one so the message intended by the architect and the Church probably failed. But I did get a message from the experience, one that has informed my life in positive ways. That spirituality is experiential and has room for women in non-subordinate roles and allows for individuality and unique expression. Go figure.
So before you starting trying to figure out the why’s, look to the assumptions and preconceived notions that are informing your perspectives. It’s all right to have one or two or more. Everyone does. But know what they are before you start giving yourself grieve or trying to act. Until you know where you stand, you can’t move forward. And the first question you might want to ask is, “Where do I think I need to be other than here?”