The mental plane cannot be fully described without discussing the Akashic Records. These records are considered the most dependable historical accounts of the world and are often referred to as the Memory of Nature, the true Karmic Records, or the Book of the Lipika.
The term “akashic” is a bit misleading because even though the records are accessed from the akasha, or the substance of the mental plane, they actually don’t belong to that plane. A less accurate term that was used in earlier literature on the subject is “records of the astral light,” but these records extend far beyond the emotional plane. Only fragmented glimpses of them can be found on the emotional plane, as we will see shortly.
The term “akashic” is only suitable because it is on the mental plane that we first definitively come into contact with the records and find it possible to do reliable work with them. The student is already familiar with the fact that as a person develops, their causal body, which determines the limit of their aura, increases in size as well as in luminosity and purity of colour. Taking this concept to a much higher level, we arrive at the idea that the Solar Logos comprehends within Himself the entirety of our solar system. Therefore, anything that happens within our system is within the consciousness of the Logos. Thus, we see that the true record is His memory.
Furthermore, it is equally clear that no matter where memory exists, it must be far superior to anything we know. Therefore, any records we are able to read must only be a reflection of the original, reflected in the denser media of the lower planes.
We are familiar with these records on the emotional, mental, and unity planes, and we will describe them in reverse order.
On the emotional plane, the reflection is extremely imperfect. The records that can be seen there are very fragmented and often seriously distorted. The analogy of water, often used as a symbol of the Emotional World, is very fitting in this case. A clear reflection in still water is, at best, only a representation, showing objects in two dimensions that are actually three-dimensional. It only reflects the shape and colour of the objects, and they appear reversed.
If the surface of the water is disturbed, the reflection becomes so fragmented and distorted that it is nearly useless and can even mislead as a guide to the true shape and appearance of the reflected objects.
Now, on the emotional plane, we can never have anything approaching what corresponds to a still surface. On the contrary, we have to deal with rapid and bewildering motion. Hence, we cannot depend on getting a clear and definite reflection. Thus, a clairvoyant who possesses only the faculty of emotional sight can never rely upon any picture of the past that comes before them as being accurate and perfect. Here and there, some part of it may be so, but they have no means of knowing which it is. By long and careful training, they may learn to distinguish between reliable and unreliable impressions and to construct from broken reflections some kind of image of the object reflected. But usually, long before they have mastered these difficulties, they will have developed mental sight, which renders such labours unnecessary.
On the mental plane, conditions are very different. The record is full and accurate, and it is impossible to make any mistake in reading it. In other words, any number of clairvoyants using mental sight and examining a certain record would see precisely the same reflection, and each would acquire a correct impression from reading it.
To read the records with the faculties of the causal body, it is easier when the monad is fully awakened and able to use the atomic matter of the mental plane for reading perfection (as far as that is possible on the mental plane).
Many people have different accounts of the same event because of faulty observation. Each person may only notice certain aspects of the event that appealed to them the most.
The personal bias would not significantly impact the perceptions when observing something on a mental level. Each observer would fully understand the entire subject, making it impossible for them to have a skewed view of its individual parts.
Errors can easily occur when trying to transfer the impressions received to lower planes. We can roughly group the reasons for this as those due to the observer and those due to the inherent difficulty, or rather impossibility, of performing the task perfectly.
The nature of things dictates that only a small portion of mental experiences can be expressed in the physical world. As a result, since all expressions must be incomplete, there is a possibility of choosing which part to express. Therefore, clairvoyant investigations conducted by prominent Theosophists in the past were consistently reviewed and confirmed by multiple investigators before being published.
Apart from personal feelings, there are difficulties in capturing impressions accurately. An analogy to the art of painting helps to explain this. A painter aims to depict a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface, which is inherently challenging. Even the most perfect picture is far from being an exact reproduction of the scene it represents: almost no line or angle in it will be the same as those in the actual object. It is essentially a clever attempt to create, through lines and colours on a flat surface, an impression similar to what the actual scene would evoke. It can communicate to us only through suggestions based on our own previous experiences, such as the sound of the sea, the smell of flowers, the taste of fruit, or the texture of surfaces.
Far greater are the challenges faced by a clairvoyant when trying to articulate mental phenomena in physical language, as the mental world is described as five-dimensional, as mentioned in a previous presentation.
The way the records appear varies to some extent depending on the conditions under which they are viewed. On the emotional plane, the reflection is usually a simple picture, although occasionally, the figure seen may be endowed with motion. In this case, instead of a mere snapshot, a longer and more detailed reflection has occurred.
The records on the mental plane have two widely different aspects. If the observer is not specifically thinking about them, the records simply serve as a background to whatever is happening. In this state, they are essentially reflections of the continuous activity of higher consciousness and look much like moving pictures. The actions of the reflected figures continue as if one were watching actors on a distant stage.
Secondly, if the trained observer focuses on a specific scene, it will instantly appear before them. For example, if they wanted to witness Julius Caesar’s landing in Britain, they would find themself standing on the shore among the legionaries, experiencing the entire scene as if they were truly there in 55 BCE. The people in the scene are unaware of their presence, as they are simply reflections, and the viewer cannot influence their actions in any way.
The viewer has the power to control the speed at which the events unfold around them. This means they could make a year’s worth of events happen in just one hour. The viewer could also pause at any moment and focus on a specific scene for as long as they want.
Not only does the viewer perceive all that they would have seen in person during the events, but they also hear and comprehend the conversations of the people, and they are aware of their thoughts and intentions. This last piece of information confuses me. If you are unable to communicate with someone in the Emotional World unless you speak their language, how is the viewer suddenly able to view a scene and comprehend their speech? The logical answer is that on the mental plane, thoughts are impressions, and so the viewer understands the impression of the speech without having to understand the language. An alternative logic would be that to know their thoughts would require the viewer to be in unity with them, which implies you are dealing with at least an arhat, a 46-self. How many of them are masquerading as clairvoyants? If you have an answer to this conundrum, put it in the comment section below this video.
If an investigator is observing a scene in which they were involved in a previous life, there are two ways they can approach it. First, they can observe it as a spectator with perfect insight and sympathy. Second, they can identify themself once more with their long-dead personality and relive the thoughts and emotions of that time, recovering that portion of universal consciousness with which they have been associated.
The student will readily perceive the wonderful possibilities that open up before the person who is in full possession of the power to read the Akashic records at will. This individual can review all of history at leisure, correcting the many errors and misconceptions that have crept into historical accounts. They can also observe geological changes and cataclysms that have altered the face of the earth many times. It is usually possible to determine the date of any record that may be examined, although it may require considerable effort and ingenuity. There are several ways of doing this: (1) The observer may look into the mind of an intelligent person present in the picture and see what date they suppose it to be; (2) they may observe the date written in a letter or document. As soon as the date according to the Roman or Grecian system of chronology, for example, is determined, it is merely a matter of calculation to convert it to the present accepted system. This would be more challenging if you were examining the Akashic Records relating to Atlantian or Lemurian times. (3) The viewer may consult some contemporary records, the date of which can easily be ascertained from ordinary historical sources.
We will continue our examination of how the Akashic records can be examined in the following presentation.