“Mary Poppins” is probably my favorite movie of all time.  The music is beautiful and catchy, the dancing delightful, the mood uplifting and inspiring.  Julie Andrews sings masterfully.  Her tough yet endearing persona, her sparkling deep blue eyes make it impossible not to be totally mesmerized.  Dick Van Dyke is also pretty great, profound and likable.  I find myself using expressions from the movie without even thinking about it, like “spit spot” to hurry up my girls in the morning.

When my older daughter was a toddler, we watched Mary Poppins pretty regularly on Sunday mornings in its full 2.5 hour glory.  For me, it’s not just an aesthetic pleasure.  It actually causes intense emotional reactions.  Touches a fiber in me.

Ervin Laszlo is a pretty interesting author.  A classically trained pianist who became a well respected thinker.  Not an easy read.  He embodies a philosophy that might just give us an out, a path towards the end of the tunnel, in trying to understand the nature of our existence.

His main construct is the “Akashic Field”.  In new age, we hear the term “Akashic Records” quite a bit.  Well, the Akashic Field contains the Akashic Records and more.

I am absolutely convinced by my own experience and plenty of reading that no matter how scientific we want to be, there is a reality out there that we cannot perceive with our 5 senses.  We are integral part of that reality.  We are interconnected.  Do I believe in God?  In a sense I do, but not in any shape or form, definitely not anthropomorphic.  I find myself referring more to “the Universe” than any other term.  My fellow shamans use “pacha mama”, literally “Mother Earth”.

The Akashic Field is the all encompassing informational and energetic content of the universe.  Everything that has ever happened and that will ever happen is recorded in it.  Every thought, deed, word, perception, feeling, interaction, we have in our lives is recorded up there and it’s available for anyone to tune in and “see”.  Mathematically, life is a series of “functions” (f(t), g(t), etc.) where t is time and each function represents an aspect of our state of being, our location, our position, our words, our thoughts, our feelings.  It’s all up there.  Can never be erased.  Can never be “taken back”.

But so is everyone else’s.  And so is the experience of every sentient being to ever inhabit the universe.  And so is every concept ever to appear in the universe.  We did not invent 1+1=2.  We just “downloaded” it from the Akashic Field.  Likewise, “love” is all over the Akashic Field in the experience of all the sentient beings that have preceded us, like fear, anger bliss and any other “energy” that we may have ever experienced.  We didn’t invent it.  It’s all up there and we just “tune into” it.

I grew up with a very mechanistic mind.  Always loved physics, particularly classical mechanics.  It all seemed so neat, organized, tangible.  The last 50+ years of physics have actually screwed it all up because there’s a lot more we don’t understand and that doesn’t fall within a comprehensive beautiful pattern.  But many believe that the pattern exists and we get closer and closer to it with every spin of particles inside the Large Hadron Collider.  Are we really searching for the Akashic Field?

One of the gems of modern physics is “quantum entanglement”.  One of the gems of modern psychology are “mirror neurons”.  They’re in essence  the same thing: we are instantaneously interconnected with related particles, beings, people, with whom we relate.  Water changes its crystalline structure depending on how we think and feel about it.  It becomes beautiful, original, symmetrical if we love it.  We sense and follow the moods of those who surround us.

So clearly there’s a lot more to the universe than what we see.  How does this relate to immortality?  And what about Mary Poppins?

I have come to believe that our experience as unique identifiable human individuals spans our life on Earth and that’s it.  Our soul is created by and within the Akashic Field when we are conceived, we acquire individuality, we acquire free will (and so does everyone else), we experience life and express ourselves with creativity while our bodies are alive.  Our legacy is every instant of our life.  The purpose of life is to live every instant the best way possible.  But the day we die, we cease to have individuality.  Our “energy” is already uploaded into the Akashic Field.  We reunite.

So what about reincarnation?  Clearly there are people who carry energy from specific people in the past.  Even the child Dalai Lama may very well be in tune with the dear departed incumbent.  But isn’t it possible that rather than acquiring the identity and individuality of the old Dalai Lama, the child just “tuned into” and “downloaded” the energetic imprints of his personality?  Likewise, we can carry the energy imprints from all our ancestors, from our entire race, and from any other sentient being that every lived, because with the right antennae we can download it, maybe even without noticing.

The perspective of non-immortality is actually quite liberating.  When it’s over, it’s over.  It makes every moment worthwhile.  It makes being “present” critical.  But it also makes it very transparent.  It’s all up there.  There’s no hiding.  There’s no lying.  That’s why this blog of transparency hasn’t been that huge leap into the precipice: my story is already up there.  Writing it is just putting into words.

The character in Mary Poppins that touches me most is Mr. George Banks.  The scene that touches me most is the exit of the chimney sweeps: Bert approaches Mr. Banks and says it the way it is: “you take care of everybody; and who takes care of you?”  Isn’t that the story of our adult life?  Aren’t we all trying to take care of ourselves?

The fact that we live an individual experience while we’re alive on Earth makes us feel isolated and separated.  We crave recognition, nurturing, love.  We crave connection.  Which we can never get unconditionally from anyone in particular.  The only way to connect with that loving nurturing energy is by literally downloading it from the Akashic Field, either in the form of instantaneous connection with another, or by accessing all the love that is already stored up there.  Our own energy patterns are magnets for the energy stored up there.  If we want love, we need to start with love inside ourselves.  If we want recognition, we need to start with recognition inside ourselves.  The image I now like to use is that of the flame of life burning inside my heart.  The flame that can connect me with all the love that’s every been lived on Earth if I let it come through.

I know I’ve been to many places in this post.  It’s come from the heart.  If I am to summarize and bring it home, here’s the core of my spiritual beliefs, my articles of unproven faith:

• We exist as the individuals we know ourselves to be only during this one life on Earth.  We come from and are part of the Akashic Field.
• Every moment counts.  It’s all up there.  Can never change.  What’s already happened is a sunk cost.
• Life is not fair and there is no grand plan.  We are surrounded by beings who have exactly the same free will and creativity we have.  So shit happens just like beauty happens.
• Our energy is a magnet for similar energies.  That is the real karma and dharma.

Blessings of light and love.