Continuity of Identity

I realized the other night that whenever people ask me “What are the Akashic Records?” I answer in a way that presupposes an agreement about continuity of identity. Which made me realize, I should probably write about this so that there is some sort of reference for the reflections I have gone through, and where I am at now. At least then, even if you don’t agree, we can begin co-creating your journey from a place of understanding. Whether we agree or not is a different conversation, and it is okay if we don’t - Challenge everything to reaffirm what you believe. That’s what I do.

Like any good philosopher (I say somewhat jokingly as a way to segue to mention that my formal post-secondary studies specialized in Philosophy) we must first define our terms. P.S. If you want to read the full-on philosophical study on this, I highly recommend checking out this link on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

What do I mean by “continuity” and “identity”? Well, you are here on earth in embodied form. You have a physical vessel that moves, feels and acts, and carries through the day and interacts with the world around you. That physical vessel regenerates fully every 10 years or so. Every single cell regenerates. So here’s the question, what makes that body you if it has fully changed over that 10 year period?

Step it back further, and think about a ship (This is a popular thought experiment which I reference often, known as the “Ship of Theseus”). As the ship decays, the boards that comprise it are replaced one by one, over time. At a certain point, every single board has been replaced. What makes the ship that stands today the same ship that stood say, seven years ago? How do we recognize the ship as being the same?

Maybe it looks the same? True. But so do identical twins and we still know they are not the same person. It cannot then be based on perception alone.

On the same vein, people don’t look the same at age 10 as they do at age 20, but we still do know they are the same person.

So, it’s not the body.

It has the same name? This one could get a little bit trickier if we dive into the nuance of how meaning is given through labels we attribute to things (You can dive into that here if you like) but, to simplify let’s think of a case where the opposite rings true:

You have a friend Toby. Toby has a sibling who likes to joke around and refers to Toby as “Toby-tron” (don’t even ask, I haven’t had coffee yet). Toby responds to this name, while you and Toby are having a conversation. Sure, Toby may act differently when engaging with Toby’s sibling (We put on masks for different people . . . again, a topic for another day), but you likely agree that there is some sort of continuity that allows you to know the Toby you’re friends with is still standing in front of you even when Toby responds to a different name. So, by showing this contradiction, we can conclude that it is not a name that provides continuity.

Naming does speak to a personal relationship with something, and the nuance of that relationship. I would say it is an identifier for a unique connection. It’s relational and often the given name at birth is one that someone identifies more closely with in terms of their identity but it is not the thing that gives continuity to that identity.

We’ve eliminated Body and Name from the possible answers to our question, and now we’re going to move in a bit more of a Phenomenological direction: The study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience. If this is curious to you, I highly recommend reading anything by Evan Thompson. He was one of my professors in University, and has done some incredible research and theorizing around this. I’ve for long time referred to consciousness - the sort of in-between space from the physical brain to the physical world around us as the “mind”. It’s a thing given meaning by its mode of being; It’s not a concrete object you can point to or name, but instead an act that is happening over and over and morphs over space and time.

I think we’re getting closer.

A long time ago, this is where I would have stopped. If I look solely at a current incarnation, it makes sense. If the mind is a separate entity - so to speak - from our physical body, but necessary for that body to engage within the world in a meaningful way then if the mind goes away (the brain shuts down, or all objects to be perceived disappear - think every single sense being taken away from that human) then what is existence? Can of worms . . . exploded.

It also allows for a change in experience as new neural pathways are created, new world beliefs formed, our perception of the world around us changes. But it is still us perceiving it.

For the person who steps into who they truly are, perhaps reaffirming their gender with changes to their physical body and a new name, there is still a oneness there - The person they always were, exists, and is now being affirmed outwardly. The mind.

I started to wonder though as I explored dreamland and an understanding of multiple dimensions and parallel universes entered my life, how does this theory hold up?

For the mind to exist, there is a physical brain and when this physical body turns to dust that connection and therefore the mind is gone. Poof. Eek.

How then do I explain seeing someone in my dream who I have a deep sense of knowing but do not recall having met in this lifetime?

Or perhaps it is someone I know, but they look entirely different in the dream and yet I still know it is them?

Or what about interacting with other dimensions, such as entities in the home or energies on the astral plane, or the Akasha?

Granted, for some of these (the third point mainly) you have to first acknowledge these things exist. But if you’re here reading this or following my work, chances are you have had one too many unexplainable experiences and you are at least open to believing there is more beyond this dimension, or interwoven with it.

Humor me and be open to it for the rest of this reflection? Then you can take it away and process and do what you will.

I’d been thinking about all of this, and contemplating for a while when I came across a book. It was recommended to me by my hair stylist when someone very important to me made the choice to leave this physical world. The book does cover the topic of suicide and what it means on a soul-level, and it also covers this topic: The continuity of identity. It’s called Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. It’s one of a series of books channeled from a personality that calls itself “Seth”.

It was absolutely wild as I read through this book and similar to a lot of the Tantric literature I have dabbled in, I came across notions I had theorized myself but had never heard someone else speak or had never seen written in the books I had studied, until now. Until I picked up a book channeled from a personality not of this physical world.

The answer was in the title: The soul.

The mind was one key factor but it brought only how this physical body related to the external world into the picture; It did not account for the aspect of consciousness that connects over lifetimes. That level of consciousness is soul consciousness.

Let’s go back to those questions I posed a second ago and see how the Soul could explain these if it is taken to be the thread that connects identity over different incarnations and dimensions.

The dream world is not a place for physical beings. It is a place where an aspect of self goes, we process here, we learn, we explore — some of us more lucidly than others. We meet other personalities here (I don’t want to say “people” because that may sway the view to the physical and we are not talking about a physical earth experience anymore. The dream world is experienced separate from the body, though the brain does play a part). We may create relationships, fight monsters as a team, or even engage in thought experiments like this one as we sit by an ocean with an infinite beach.

So when we meet someone and have a sense of familiarity but don’t know them (name or appearance), how do we explain where that familiarity comes from? If the soul spans over multiple lifetimes but the body and brain have not, then this emotional response could be explained by the soul consciousness remembering; An echo that this physical body has not yet connected to and it will take time to create into a firm memory. It’s a remembering of another lifetime, another soul-experience.

When we meet someone we know truly but do not recognize, it is a soul-level-recognition. In the book I mentioned, there is a description of us showing up in dreams as the truest representation of our physical selves - Perhaps an incarnation we most identify with. The soul’s connection to that physical vessel and experiences we had in that lifetime brings it forward to this level of experience and consciousness. And the soul recognizes truth. It recognizes this other even if your physical self does not. That is where this knowing comes from.

And when spirits or ghosts come out to play? The soul lives on past the physical body and those echoes I spoke of above (perhaps another topic to be explored - maybe in a live in The Chrysalis) keep attachments to the physical or energies that remain in the physical and engagement across the plains may happen: The soul.

So when we connect to the Akasha, we connect to the history of your soul not just in this lifetime but across all of them. It is the source of your Universal Truth. The continuity of your identity.