Akasha

Below, deep down, underneath the relentless pace of modern society and our endless activities, there is a quiet invitation to notice an infinite expanse, an inward universe of unimaginable vastness, extending farther than the inner eye can see, in a direction of thought, and in another direction of feeling, as well as sensation, imagery, inner voices, and also in a direction of mystery that resists metrics, analytics, the shackles of semantics, and the limits of language. It is strange this immersive interiority is so very close yet so often ignored. The inner world plays a vital role in any real pedagogy; essential education is never only learning from without but from within. Paulo Freire, the great liberation educator of South American cultures, criticized what he termed the banking model of education, that is, viewing us, the learners, as little more than empty vessels, reliant on the giving (or withholding) of knowledge from external sources, to be “deposited” into us, as if the individual has no other source or recourse for learning, other than this outer transactional affair. Education, etymologically, involves overt instruction to be sure, from the Latin educare meaning “molding” that happens from without. But equally, and perhaps more importantly in terms of personal wisdom—which is what most of us, if not all, are truly after at the end of the day—education involves arousal of the inner, from the Latin educere meaning “to draw from within,” sourcing that comes from inside, and deeper down, learning not only outwardly from say a leaf or a laptop but intimately, individually, and with great particularity, by inward expedition.

This notion of inner education has been largely lost in Western culture. But many ancient people in Hindu, Buddhist, and Mesopotamian traditions embraced a belief in an unbounded compendium of knowledge, an Akashic Record of all insight and data from across the entire span of space and time, derived from the Sanskrit word akasha meaning “atmosphere,” a nonphysical aether, everywhere, and that anyone could access, inwardly. The belief is actually not as far-fetched as it might sound to some of our modern ears, given what we know today from basic physics, the law of conservation of matter, and the law of conservation of energy, both of which show nothing in all the cosmos is ever created or lost, only transformed, and, always there. Beyond both physics and mystics, however, there is no better proof for the depths of what lies within than your own experience. Our subjectivity is intrinsically subterranean, and it never takes much to look inside for yourself, to see what you discover, an infinity barely below the surface of all our external activities, inner currents and movements and a beautiful abyss worthy of wonder and fear and trembling and beholding, bequeathed to each from ancestors and energies dating back to the very origins of existence. A great way to gift yourself the next time you are alone, perhaps at the end of the day, simply sitting, or laying down in the quiet, undistracted by a digital device, the noise of the news, or a thousand other outer enticements, would be to notice the internal atmosphere of your own life, at this particular juncture of your life, inner sensations and images that arise, voices and thoughts and feelings, swirling and speaking and sharing some of the most precious and personal insights you will ever glean anywhere.