There is a place within each consciousness that houses the history of the soul, a place that cannot be penetrated by the conscious mind but that can sometimes be felt or sensed as an intuition from the soul.  This history is written in a layer of soul-consciousness called the akashic layer.  The akashic layer is the storehouse of soul memory, the recorder of past events both large and small that reside within it in different layers.  There is an akashic record for each individual soul and there is also an akashic record for the soul of humanity.  While this record traces individual and collective history, in reality it contains no 'past' or 'future', for it is like a book that we hold in our hands that we are traveling through or reading in a sequential way. Past and future are the pages of the book and these are being turned by us as we move through it.  Both are simultaneously present, even while we experience ourselves as being only upon one page.  When we are aware of reading this book, we can remember forward and we can remember backward.  

 

The akashic record of each soul exists in several layers.  One of these carries the imprint of moral memory, the remembrance of the heart and of the soul of things that have wounded and things that have created grace and blessing.  Other layers carry the memory of less significant events.  Within the layer of moral memory are both the history of events that have taken place during our many lifetimes, as well as the nature of our participation in these events.  Prior to each incarnation, our individual record is 'weighed' in terms of understanding our need for healing and learning at a particular moment in our evolutionary journey.  It is reviewed so that the preponderant weight of what needs correction within us can be balanced against potential experiences that will bring us into equilibrium. Such weighing of our soul's history is the basis for choosing circumstances that are conducive to the healing that will take place within the next embodied lifetime. 

The record of the soul is an energetic record, similar in some ways to that of a photographic album.  However, within a photographic album the images are two-dimensional, while within the akashic record the images are multidimensional, corresponding to all levels of our individual being.

 

Access to the chronicle of our soul's history is given to us, in part, after disincarnating from the physical body, for if it were transmitted during a physical lifetime it not only could be greatly disturbing, but could also prevent us from fully immersing ourselves in the experiences of that lifetime so that maximum healing and growth can take place.  This is why a 'curtain of forgetfulness' is drawn over the other pages of our soul's history - so that each period of embodiment can be experienced with the fullest degree of presence and the fullest degree of benefit. In cases where knowledge of the 'before' or 'after' of our history is needed for a particular mission that our soul undertakes on the earth, then that knowledge is made known to us either from the soul level of our being in conjunction with a decision made prior to incarnating, or, it can also be made know by guides from the realms of Light.  However, when a mission or path of service does not require such knowledge, it is generally deemed better for an individual to remain embedded in present experience in order to benefit fully from it.

 

The beauty of the akashic record is that it plays like a symphony in the higher spheres of light when it is positive, and acts like a darkened cloud that has threatening overtones when it is weighed down on the negative side.  This record is 'read' by those who guide and guard humanity as well as by those who guard and guide individual souls.  It is known, for example, when the weight of misdirected energy has taken the collective consciousness of humanity in a direction for which a remedy must be sought in order to avoid dire consequences.  When such is the case, individual souls are sent and also choose to come to the earth in order to help rectify a situation in which darkness has come to overbalance light within the consciousness and the deeds of humanity.  These souls are seeded into the earth's collective body in order to benefit the wellbeing of the whole and to bring light to certain necessary areas.  What holds true for humanity's consciousness is also true at an individual level.  When the path of darkness has been engaged with for a long time by an individual soul, then extraordinary measures are sometimes deemed necessary in order to create an abrupt shift back toward the light in order to avoid a path of destruction.

 

Movement Toward the Light

The path of movement toward the light for an individual soul is progressive, with souls learning more and more of what light means and how to recognize it.  It is not a path that has outer markers.  Rather, the inner markers are stages of awareness that convey to us when we have moved away from what we know to be true and right.  This knowledge grows over time and as time passes, we become better able to  distinguish light and darkness, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.  Out of this learning comes a strengthening of a moral center which allows us to stabilize ourselves in light.  Though such stability does not guarantee that we will not return to actions or thoughts that are compromised by darkness, it does prevent these from gaining the upper hand to the extent that we are aware of what is happening.

 

Overall, the path of our soul's history is shaped by the needs of the soul to explore the boundaries of its own experience while living within physical reality.  This exploration becomes the shape of a lifetime, and each lifetime brings with it new experiences and new levels of self-exploration.  For one soul the path of exploration may have to do with the role of creativity in life.  For another it may have to do with the subjectivity of relationships and discovering how relationships work.  For a third it may have to do with the pursuit of particular spheres of knowledge that relate to the construction of physical reality.  For still another, it may have to do with a relationship with God and with the realms of light.  All the varieties of experience that distinguish each one of us from every other occur as we  explore the territory of our own inner being, and as we try to give it maximum expression in all that we do.

 

When it happens that we no longer wish to continue this exploration due either to  fatigue or to a sense of completion of a portion of our understanding, then our soul disincarnates from the body to rest and to integrate its various experiences that occurred during the past embodiment.  This time of integration is very precious to the soul's learning.  It is a time of synthesizing whatever knowledge of self has been gained during a physical lifetime.

 

For things to be written within the record of our soul does not mean that the path of our destiny is laid out before us in a way that is immutable.  If it were, there would truly be no free choice in life for we would merely be actors playing out parts according to a predetermined script.  This is not the case.  Though reality is 'written' it is not predetermined.  It can be changed in the way that an author changes the portions of a book that he is working on, revising what happens to characters and to the outcomes of choices that are made.  Our choices are truly in our own hands, and both the beginning and end of our 'book' can be altered by each new choice that we make.  The akashic record, therefore, may be seen as a 'living document' – one that adapts itself to the actual decisions we make in life even as we make them.  For this reason, we can always alter both the past and future of our history since we are the authors of our own experience and can shape what came before and what comes after by our conduct in the present.  In this sense our influence is both pro-active and retro-active.  We can change the conditions of the past and we can change the conditions of the future.  This does not mean that we can change the events of our history, for these are part of a physical reality that we share with others, but it does mean that we can change the meaning of these events for us and consequently the sequence of inner changes that they gave rise to.

 

Looking backwards and looking forwards from the place in the akashic record that we are presently at, we view the landscape of our soul's expression upon the physical plane.  This landscape is formed by our desire for experience and the experiences that we have are all teachers for us regarding the nature of our own reality.  In the end, what we learn the most about are the things we pay the most attention to.  Therefore,  if we wish to participate in a different course of learning than the one we presently have, we can make the shift at any time by changing the things we pay attention to and focusing on others.  Then the portion of the akashic record that we are traveling through changes to reflect this and we develop a new perspective on life and on the nature of our passage through it.

 

Article - from "The Calendar of Light"