Meditations on the great Akashic shrug (the razor's edge)

I joked with a friend the other day, who was complementing me on doing good in the world - "it doesn't really matter, in the ten-billion-year picture - it's all irrelevant anyway." I was making the point that really we don't do good things to be good, but just to satisfy ourselves. I then joked that on the other hand - it's all recorded in the Akashic record, forever and ever..
Is it?

I think all real truths have an equal opposite. It doesn't matter. Every moment, breath, thought - a million Universes hang in the balance. This is to be a warrior. Shrug.

It reminds me of what has become my favorite quote from the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (OSHO), on what happens when someone learns deep meditation at a young age:

"He will do all the actions of the world but remain deep down unmoved."

There is a fundamental truth which is both funny and terrible, that underlies Carlos Castenada's words:

"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly."

And another friend asked me recently, if I thought, as many online skeptics do, that Carlos Castaneda was just a liar and fakir. Yes. No. Does it matter? His work was an expression of his work - he took chances, he created a legacy that has shaped modern thought - he acted with power, as if every moment were his last. Shrug.

Irrelevant by the time the Universe has imploded and exploded a few more times, really. And also - the most important things in existence.

What is the Akashic Record? Edgar Cayce, in a psychic reading for someone, described it as:

Upon time and space is written the thoughts, the deeds, the activities of an entity – as in relationships to its environs, its hereditary influence; as directed – or judgment drawn by or according to what the entity's ideal is. Hence, as it has been oft called, the record is God's book of remembrance; and each entity, each soul – as the activities of a single day of an entity in the material world – either makes same good or bad or indifferent, depending upon the entity's application of self towards that which is the ideal manner for the use of time, opportunity and the expression of that for which each soul enters a material manifestation. The interpretation then as drawn here is with the desire and hope that, in opening this for the entity, the experience may be one of helpfulness and hopefulness.

Interesting how he stresses not what is good or bad, but how our actions are in accord, or not, with our own ideals. Our Ideal.

One of my favorite books, the Razor's Edge, is about a young guy in the 20's who kind of chucks it all and goes and wanders around, doing his own thing. He spends years in Greece and Italy and learns ancient Greek and reads Homer etc in their originals texts. He has a pension, so never has to worry about paying basic rent etc, although he's not rich. He ends up in India and when he first gets there he is on a ferry boat which gets held up (stalled) for the night. He notices a man on it who, despite the heat, discomfort, of standing on a boat all night, seems as bright and alert the next morning as he did the night before, while everyone else is disheveled and grumpy. He asks the man how this can be , and he says - yoga.

The young man learns meditation and sort of becomes 'enlightened' for lack of a better term. More importantly, he becomes happy. He goes back to America and becomes a truck driver; he always liked being in motion.

I tried to track the quote down I'm looking for, I will append it in the footnotes when I do. His parents died and some old dude friend of theirs raised him. There's a scene the guy who raised him describes the young man as a boy and how he pretty much did what he wanted - he wasn't a bad kid, he didn't do 'bad' things, but when directed to do anything he didn't want to do, etc, he'd just smile and shrug and do what he wanted to anyway.

Reality Sandwhich describes the Akashic Record as, ".. a dimension of consciousness that contains a vibrational record of every soul and its journey. This vibrational body of consciousness exists everywhere in its entirety and is completely available at all times and in all places. As such, the Records are an experiential body of knowledge that contains everything that every soul has ever thought, said, and done over the course of its existence, as well as all its future possibilities."

I'm not sure about the future possibilities thing, but I'll let it go for now.. Carlos Castaneda, whether a faker or real Sorcerer-Warrior, got this essential truth: everything's important; nothing's important.

I see this entry is a summation of a lot of what I've written so far, Stars - the Ideal we aim for - shape our lives. Shoot for the Stars, live every moment as if it's your last, but remain deep down unmoved. Speaking of stars - it's the Persied Meteor Shower tonight..

In attending to the absolute importance of every breathless breath of our existence, in an essentially meaningless universe, where everything we do is recorded for ever and ever (and ever) in our permanent akashic record, I will again invoke one of my favorite quotes in literature, from The Stand, by Stephen King - "You can't be careful on a skateboard, Mister."