Akasha – the invisible element in the universe

The space in which air, fire, water, and earth come together as creation

Photo by WikiImages from Pixabay

“He (Brahman) who, dwelling in the akasha, is distinct from akasha, whom the akasha knows not, whose body the akasha is, who rules the akasha from within, he is thy soul, the inner guide, the immortal.”

– Brihad Upanishad, III. 7, 12

Even though there are hundred and eighteen elements included in the periodic table, they are all derived from just five. Our bodies as well as the cosmos is made up of the five great elements or “Pancha Mahabhutas” as we have seen. The five elements that go to make up our cosmos are akasha, vayu, agni, apas and prithvi (ether, air, fire, water and earth), in order of increasing grossness. Of these, akasha is the most mysterious and intangible yet the most powerful since in it, is contained all the other four! It is the fundamental element. In our weekly newsletter we started from “prithvi” or the earth element which is the grossest, because it is the easiest for us to see and understand.

The Sanatana Dharma has always declared that creation proceeds from the subtle to the gross and not the other way round as westerners believed for a very long time. The whole cosmos is held in place due to the akasha. We know that if we suck out air, we cannot live for a moment but if we suck out akasha we will not be able to live even for a second!

Akasha is the first and most subtle of the great elements. When we think of space, we often think of it as being empty. However, akasha is the space in which air, fire, water, and earth come together as creation. It existed before anything else came into being and it is that to which everything will return. It is the invisible element in the universe. It cannot be smelt, tasted, seen or felt yet it is the substratum of everything that can be seen, felt, smelt or tasted. Without a substratum nothing can exist. Beginning with the most subtle, each element builds on the one before it. It is the omnipresent, all-penetrating existence. It is almost akin to the Brahman or the Supreme because only God can be omnipresent and all pervasive without which nothing can exist. Even though most of us don’t even know the existence of akasha yet it is the most important of all the five elements. Sometimes it is translated as “space” but this is also not correct since it is the very substratum for space, time and matter. It is not inert and inactive like space but it is the very basic potentiality for all future creation.

All the forms that we see are a result of the permutation/combination of these five elements and the lower four have evolved out of akasha. It is akasha that becomes vayu, agni, apas and prithvi (air, fire, water and earth). These elements do not respect the boundaries of our body. They come and go as they want like air, sun (fire), water and ether. Exposure to the elements is very important to upkeep the health of our body.

We are hardly aware of our breath even though it might be quite noisy then how can we become aware of the akasha which is the subtlest of all subtleties. Because of its very subtlety it has a great impact not merely on our bodies but on our minds as well.

As an element, akasha is associated with the throat chakra (vishuddhi). This is because the throat chakra is connected with sound and communication, and it is through akasha that sound is said to pass. The special organ connected with akasha is the “ear,” the conductor of sound.

The western scientists were never aware of what an important part the five elements play in our physical and mental bodies. It is an unhappy truth that we who have had this knowledge for thousands of years have not brought it into our consciousness because we have been brought up to regard everything that the west tells us to be the sole truth.

The way in which this cosmos as well as our bodies are made, is really magical. The design factor of the cosmos is exactly the same as our own bodies. From the atomic to the cosmic, the fundamental design is the same though complexity keeps increasing. Even with the largest telescopes you cannot really observe the cosmos but we can experience this cosmos within our own life. This is what is called magical. The importance of these elements for the health of our body is something that the Hindu culture has always recognised and inculcated in young people long ago. But this is something the west never realised and even today they don’t fully believe. Unfortunately this colonial outlook has been passed on to us and that is why our generation callously continues to pollute the essences of all that we are made up.

We do not realise that if we pollute the five elements in the world around us, we are at the same time polluting our inner world. We have successfully polluted the earth by piling it with plastics, we have successfully polluted all the water bodies we have – the rivers, the ponds and the sea so that we are killing all marine life. We have successfully polluted the very air we breathe so that we suffer from all sorts of incredible diseases and we are in the process of polluting the akasha or space.

It is through akasha that we are connected with the whole cosmos because, it is akasha that becomes the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the stars, the comets; it is akasha that becomes the human body, the animal body, the plants, every form that we see, everything that can be sensed, everything that exists. At the beginning of creation there was only akasha. It is the pre-natal element from which other elements spring and into which they all ultimately dissolve. It represents the cosmic ocean of energy which contains all possibilities. At the end of one cycle of creation, everything will melt into the akasha again, and exist in a latent state till another creation starts. Thus, akasha is an all-encompassing medium that underlies all things.

In Hinduism, it is recognised that akasha is the essence breathed by gods in the same way humans breathe air. Akasha is a power and force that allows control over elemental, cosmic, spiritual, transcendental and primordial forces.

Ancient mystics understood that energy and space have consciousness. The “Sea of Consciousness,” as it is called in the Hindu Vedic scriptures, is not random. Akasha has innate intelligence. It is aware of itself. The creations it gives birth to likewise has the potential for independent intelligence. Every molecule in the universe carries the possibility for self-awareness.

We are all very well aware of how we are polluting the earth, water and air. Now let us see how we are polluting akasha.

The creator has a perfect plan for our planet that is capable of protecting it from all external intrusions. The planet is blanketed by something called the Van Allen Belt, which is a zone of energy-charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured and held around us by our magnetic field. The earth has two such belts and sometimes others that may also be temporarily created. Radio waves and frequencies interfere with this electromagnetic field that covers the earth.

Akasha is the most subtle of the elements. Even though we cannot see it, the fact is that it is an essential ingredient of our lives. It supports both our physical and spiritual side. We have meddled insufferably with this element.

In our mad effort to make ourselves more comfortable and aid instant communication, we have put satellites into this etheric blanket that interfere with this field. This interference has a direct effect on our cells which become poisoned. When cells get poisoned, they excrete viruses and throw them out to make themselves clean. This virus is what we call the flu! Thus, viruses are toxic excretions from poisoned cells. Pieces of DNA break out of the cells when they are poisoned and this is what causes a virus endemic!

Electromagnetic waves are transmitted through ether or akasha. More and more electrification of this element causes more and more viruses. This might seem a strange remark but let us go back and look at all the virus epidemics the world has gone through. In 1918 we had the Spanish Flu. Just before that we had a quantum leap in the electrification of the world with radio waves. In World War II there was a huge increase of these waves when radar was introduced. In 1968 there was the Hong Kong flu. After this we have been constantly putting out radioactive satellites in the air in larger and larger amounts when smartphones were introduced. We had 2G then 3G, 4G and now 5G. We can send messages to any part of the world in seconds. But we should remember that this technological “improvement” is at the cost of our health. In the recent past, in order to bring 5G into force, one hundred thousand radiation satellites have been projected into the ether. We have never had such a thing before. The freedom of communication that we have today is at the cost of our mental and physical health.

There is another sinister way in which we are tampering with this element of ether which is so essential for our health even though we cannot see it. The method of making aeroplanes was known to our ancients but they did not make it public because Vyasa said that these machines would interfere with the etheric mantle and cause distress to humanity and therefore it would be better not to use them! We can make our own conclusions about the state of our planet in which every major airport has hundreds of planes taking off and landing, every minute!

We live in a fast-paced society where busyness for the sake of being busy is considered admirable and time spent doing nothing in particular is seen as wasted. This discourages us from the very things that help to increase the element of akasha in us: stillness, emptiness, meditation and time to simply “be.” As a result, we are all in a confused state. If we want to live a stress-free life, we should consciously insert more space into our day!

Now let us go to a very interesting aspect of akasha which has suddenly been brought to the focus of the human mind. These are known as the “Akashic Records.”

The Akashic Records are the mystical “energy records” of all the events that have ever happened, are happening and will happen in the cosmos. They are stored in the hiranyagarbha – “The Cosmic Womb” in a coded form.

The Akashic Records are like an immense photographic film, registering all the desires and earthly experiences of our planet. Those who perceive it will be able to read the life experiences of every human being since the beginning of time, the reactions to the experiences of the entire animal kingdom, and the aggregation of the thought-forms of a karmic nature (based on desire) of every human unit throughout time.

The Akashic Records are understood to have existed from eternity. Just as we have various specialty libraries (e.g. medical, law), so also there are various Akashic Records (e.g. human, animal, plant, mineral, etc.) encoding Universal Lore. Most writings refer to the Akashic Records only in the realm of human experience but the fact is that all phenomenal experiences as well as transcendental knowledge is encoded in these records.

Vedic spirituality was founded on practical scientific truths which were discovered by the west only after the 19th century. The incredible feats of engineering and architecture which are still to be seen in our country make us understand that the knowledge the rishis had of the phenomenal world was indeed staggering. They were able to transport gigantic stones across great distances and build structures with mathematical precision, some in open contradiction to what we believe even today to be impossible, even with the aid of all modern technology. They have given us the knowledge of highly sophisticated discoveries in almost all sciences like astronomy, astrology, mathematics, medicine, architecture and agriculture.

The first portion of the Vedas are known as “mantras” and in them are contained these records that are now labelled as “Akashic.” The rishis who gave these mantras to us did not claim authorship over them. They said that they had “heard” these mantras while they were in a state of super consciousness. Hence, this portion of the Vedas is also called “shruti” or “that which is heard.”

Mantras are sound vibrations and always exist in the akasha. The rishis or seers of the Vedas always knew about them. The extraordinary amount of scientific knowledge that has been encoded in the Vedas can be considered to be super human if it was all the product of the brains of the rishis. But as mentioned before, the rishis never laid any claims to them nor did they declare that they were the ones who had discovered these truths. They only said that they were the “seers” or the ones who had heard these vibrations and who decoded them for us! These vibrations have always existed and will continue to exist till the end of this cycle of creation.

In this century, all of a sudden the modern world seems to have discovered this common storehouse of all knowledge and called it “Akashic Records”!

Actually Quantum Physics gave the most needed touch of credibility to all the knowledge embedded in the Vedas, to a world that had so far scoffed at Hinduism as being “superstitious nonsense.” Quantum Physics admitted the existence of a state known as “The Field” or the “Zero point state of existence.” Matter which had hitherto been thought to be “solid” was suddenly discovered to be nothing but “energy in motion.” Of course this is exactly what our rishis had always claimed that this phenomenal world is only “maya.” The rishis reached this state through a highly disciplined spiritual way of life.

They knew that “Reality” is a hologram made up of pure consciousness. It contains all the information of the entire cosmos from the beginning to the end of Time. Those who are in a state of heightened consciousness have the ability to access this information. In fact, Time can be compared to a rolled up parchment which keeps unrolling as we go forward. Those who have the ability to read this parchment can look back and read the past. This is what most astrologers are capable of doing. They are all capable of giving a very good reading of the past.

In both North Bharat and South Bharat, we have something called “palm leaf” readings which can be compared to the reading of the Akashic Records except for the fact that they have been written down by ancient masters – Agastya in the south and Bharadwaja in the north. The person who wants to know something about himself can go to these specialised “palm leaf” readers and give his thumb print. From this the reader selects a stack of leaves which pertain to his/her life. In the south it’s written in archaic Tamil and in the north – in Hindi. From this the reader will tell you pretty much everything you want to know about yourself, both in past lives and in the future. He will even record this and give it to you on a disc. Modern science has also discovered that each one of us has a unique finger print as pointed out by the palm-leaf reader who insists on getting your thumb print! In modern times it is also said that the individual Akashic Records are to be found in our DNA.

In the west, the most exhaustive research on this matter has been done by Ervin Laszlo. In his work on the innate nature of cosmic consciousness, he describes an energy field, like the electromagnetic and gravitational fields that records and transmits all information from any event, organism or object. If this were not so, evolution would be most random. Life on this planet is actually supported by a highly narrow set of combinations and conditions that transmit all information generated by any event, organism or object. If not for this field, evolution would be quite random. But the fact is that this amazing universe that runs on perfectly geometrical lines, is supported by a highly narrow combination of conditions which certainly can’t be termed as coincidence. Such a super-efficient universe cannot be operating in a random manner. There has to be some intelligent force behind it. He calls this force the Akashic Field, pointing out that the ancient Vedas describe exactly the qualities and abilities he has observed first-hand.

In his book Science and the Akashic Field, Laszlo states:

“In the Sanskrit and Indian cultures, akasha is an all-encompassing medium that underlies all things and becomes all things. It is real, but so subtle that it cannot be perceived until it becomes the many things that populate the manifest world. Our bodily senses do not register akasha, but we can reach it through spiritual practice. The ancient rishis reached it through a disciplined, spiritual way of life, and through yoga. They described their experiences and made akasha an essential element of the philosophy and mythology of Bharat.”

Ervin Laszlo equates the “vacuum” field or zero-point energy with the akasha – cosmic mind, universal consciousness, and the field that unifies all things. Mr. Laszlo also says, “Although it appears solid, in the last count, matter is energy bound in quantized wave packets and these packets are further bound together to create the vast and harmonious architecture that makes up the world. However, these wave packets, also called the A-Field, don’t only store information occurring in the present moment, they contain all information, every thought, every deed, every development that has ever happened since this universe’s existence.”

Einstein tried to find a scientific explanation for the Akashic Records. He made the discovery that a space exists between the smallest existing particles. He never finished his research but said: “I just want to know God’s thoughts. The rest are details.” Today, scientists know that this space is not empty. It is an interconnecting field of information that interweaves every atom, particle, cell, organism, and thought. It exists everywhere. It is one field of information that connects everything, called the Akashic Field. This field is the memory of the universe and continuously interacts with matter at all levels.

This is indeed bordering on what Hinduism has always postulated. What the new physics describes as the unified vacuum is the fundamental and only real element of the universe. Western physics has always held that the ultimate nature of reality is material whereas Hinduism has postulated that the ultimate nature of the universe is the pure consciousness that is called the Brahman. All the attributes of the physical world merge into that state of the Brahman which is beyond attributes. However, even though it is undifferentiated, pure consciousness, there is something called “Prakriti” which is the dynamo which creates everything and is responsible for the ceaseless play of creation and dissolution. 

All the attributes of Prakriti that we see in the manifest world emerge from the akasha and return once again in the same fashion into the undifferentiated state of Brahman.

The Brahman is what quantum physicists call the “quantum vacuum.” In the Hindu Puranas this is described as the cosmic ocean or the ocean of milk on which Lord Vishnu resides. This is capable of yielding anything that we wish. The “Churning of the Milky Ocean” is a story that describes this.

Every quantum or scrap of energy leaves an imprint of its being and becoming and its reverse journey. This information is transmitted wordlessly between energy particles through the entanglement process. This information can be read only by those who are in a high state of consciousness.

Each of us has our own records which is a set of facts about us that have existed during all our births and is being written even now. It is not separate from us. The records are updated as we change.

When we come to the Age of the Puranas we find that all scientific knowledge is encoded in the form of stories and personages which make it more interesting for us.

In the Puranas, the keeper of the Akashic Records is known as Chitragupta. The name as usual gives a clue to the personality. “Chitra” means “photo” and “gupta” means “secret” so now we have a clue to his job. He takes secret photos – something like a CCTV camera which is always on and which misses nothing about our lives. But unlike the CCTV camera that can only shoot the physical phenomena, Chitragupta is aware of our attitudes. Every intention, both good and bad, is carefully recorded on the celestial screen so there is no question of favouritism. Everyone is judged according to his or her actions, both physical and mental! This does not mean that it is totally fixed and unchangeable. As our attitudes change, the records are updated. Hence, however great our sins may have been yet if our attitude changes and we make the needed reparations, our records will also change.

Another person that we see who seems to be able to access these records in the Puranas, is the celestial sage – Narada. He has the ability to read these records in the akasha and he goes round telling people of all the things that have happened and that which is going to happen! He is able to go to all the different realms of existence and gather information that is denied even to the gods!

The fierce form of Kalabhairava is the energy or the very fabric of the cosmic Space-Time dimension. He is the Lord of Time in Hinduism. Shiva took the form of Kalabhairava in order to decapitate the ego of Brahma. His form invokes terror in people who are not free of their egos but he is glorious to those who are willing to drop their selfishness at his gaze. As the lord of time and integrity, he is the keeper of the cosmic archives. He knows the past, present and future and is often sought by those who are brave enough to inquire for these reasons. From time to time, Kalabhairava, through the agency of some enlightened beings, provides access to the Akashic Records which is the infinite cosmic library for the benefit of the entire humanity. In modern times, this process is known as Akashic Readings.

The Ishavasya Upanishad has a beautiful stotra that gives the whole picture of creation in a nutshell.

“Aum, poornamadah poornamidam poornat poornamudacyate poornasya poornamadaya poornameva avashishyate.”

“All is Fullness. From fullness, fullness results. When fullness is removed from fullness, what remains is still fullness.”

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna declares that beyond the Purusha and Prakriti which are the cognisant and active principles of creation, there is the Purushottama, the Supreme Person, who provides and sustains the three worlds. In Chapter 15, verses 17 through 20, Krishna says: “I am transcendent, beyond the perishable and the imperishable. I am declared both in the world and in the Vedas as that Supreme Person – Purushottama.” In modern terminology this can be said to be the “Unified Field of all Possibilities,” as described in Quantum Physics.

Actually the west also has quite a few mystics that were able to read these records. Most famous of them was of course Nostradamus (born Michel de Nostradame, December 1503 - July 1566), French astrologer and physician widely known for his prophecies which he published in a book entitled “The Prophecies,” in 1555, which have become famous worldwide. Nostradamus claimed to have gained access to the Akashic Records, using methods derived from Greek Oracles, Christian and Sufi mysticism.

There was a famous lady mystic in Bulgaria who was blind yet was able to read these records. Many of her predictions are amazingly accurate.

The craze to go to astrologers has now been replaced by going to readers of Akashic Records! There are many in the modern world. This is supposed to enable you to release your past prarabdha karmas and give you a clean slate to carry on! This has to be done by a very competent and evolved person who has been following all the yamas and niyamas in her life. If this is not done by a truly evolved soul, it can lead to drastic consequences both for the reader and the one for whom it is being read!

Hinduism gives many types of yogas, all of which if followed with sincerity and faith will lead a person to higher states of consciousness from which state we ourselves will be able to decipher our own Akashic Records. When someone else does it for you it has every possibility of being coloured with that person’s own traumas and thus can never present a true picture.

The best way is to surrender to your personal deity, guru or saint and ask them to guide you through these frightening combinations that our life consists of. Then we can relax and enjoy this life which is what we are meant to do.

Hari Aum Tat Sat!

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