Awakening Wisdom

Today I had the opportunity to reflect upon my life.

I was thinking about the passages that every man goes through in the colonial world. Mine has been a very fortunate destiny. For this I thank my ancestors.

We all seem to go through a pattern in our lives. As a Man, I think about this pattern in a particular way.

We are born into this world helpless. We have to reorient ourselves to this new existence and turn our consciousness away from the land of the dead to the land of the living. What memories we have of our previous existence begin to fade soon after, and if we are given a fortunate destiny, our time of purity within the incarnate world is not defiled.

Everything that we will become in this life is set during our time of purity. We absorb so much in this time. From the perspective of an adult, these learning capabilities seem almost magical.

Soon we pass into our time of childhood where what we have absorbed is refined. We begin to actualize the personality that was only a possibility during our time of purity. Our destiny begins to display itself in the games that we play and in the way that we interact with others. With proper guidance, we can begin the life-long task of integrating ourselves with our family, our community and our society as a whole.

With all things, there is a time and a place. Our innocence has come to the fullness of its becoming. Though we still will hold it to the end of our days, it will never guide us as it once did. Like all things that no longer have purpose, our innocence is directed toward destruction. This is the time of adolescence. When girls become women and boys realize the possibility of becoming a man.

Many are those who never see life beyond these days. Though we still draw breath, we are dead to adulthood. Those who survive, dive, headlong into the pool of life and swim deep into her warm waters to settle in the depths of living, loving, working, giving and taking. If destiny were kind, we would all rest peacefully at the bottom of our comfortable lives.

So it might have been for me, but I cannot hold my breath forever. I must finally kick my way from the bottom of this pool before it becomes stagnant and cold, before I loose that last ounce of breath and my heart beats no more.

The urge to breath is a painful taskmaster. I must claw my way back to the surface of my destiny, or drown in my misconceptions and lies. So it is that I have come to this place, treading water with the last strength within me, breathing the air of truth.

Each breath is bitter and cold, burning the last remnants of water from my throat and lungs, but I cling to life like a child to his Mother’s breast. I suckle on it and feel its fire flow into me and I am enlivened with the joy of it.

There is still so much to learn.

Thursday was a good day.

It was a Divine Holy Day and I got up at 4:00 AM to make sure that I had time to make it into the City and the Earth Center. It takes a while for me to do my morning internal cleansing and such. We do group Zem-Zem every Divine Holy Day promptly at 8:00 AM.

On this day, I made it on time. I got out of the house at about 7:00. The traffic was heavy as usual, but I got to the Earth Center at about 7:50. When I arrived, none of the other students were there as yet. I walked into the common room and the lights were off. Master Naba was asleep on his sleeping mat in the far corner just outside of the healing room. His snores were not particularly irritating. They were more like a soft periodic buzzing, loud enough to be heard, but not so loud as to be disturbing.

Bouneith was preparing the urn and candle that we use for our sacrifices. Since I had already done my ablutions before arriving, I did not speak or touch anyone. It seemed that Bikdeni was in the bathroom performing his ablutions. I saw his car parked outside the building when I arrived. Soon the other students began to enter. Bikdeni came out of the bathroom. Nehez and Hefira walked in. I found a spot facing the urn with my back to the door and thought about the fact that I had not brought anything to pad the hard wooden floor beneath my knees. I was anticipating a significant amount of pain in the next half hour or so.

I really like Baheru.

As I kneeled on the floor and began to calm myself, he appeared on my left and offered me a mat to place under me. He then went to retrieve another one for himself. I recognized that others had also joined us; Zemonita had brought her baby. I think Marhu and Ma-Awa were there as well.

We began our Zem-Zem and soon the common room was filling with the smoke from the incense that we all had placed in the urn as our sacrifices to the Neteru.

Zem-Zem is something that we do at least twice a day every day except for the days of rest. On the Divine holy days we do something special in that we make offerings to the Neteru. On ancestor holy days we make offerings to our ancestors.

The Zem-Zem is the only place where I can consistently find inner peace.

Today I stayed afterwards to spend some time talking with Bouneith. Bouneith is master Naba’s wife and one of his oldest students here in the US. She has known him for more than seven years. She is also the mother of four of his seventeen children, B’Dal, Ineza, Zemira and baby Ramez.

I have spoken to Bouneith on several occasions. If many see Master Naba as a Father Figure, many also see her as a Mother figure. As for me, I have always been more comfortable around women. I have a close relationship with my own Mother and was always able to talk to her, so it was easy for me to feel comfortable with Bouneith.

We went to the back of the loft where the Earth Center is located and sat in the area near her computer workstation. This space is divided off from the rest of the center by filing cabinets toward the common room and book cases and a couch toward the very back of the space. Towards the healing room and sleeping quarters there is a table and a divider that makes a hallway.

“How are you Bouneith?” I asked.

“I’m fine.” She said as she sat in her chair in front of her workstation and turned toward me. Baby Ramez was in his chair on the floor between us. B’Dal had on his Ray Mysterio mask and was playing with his toy championship belt. Ineza had on a mask too and was following around behind him.

I looked over and smiled at them. I always tease Ineza by calling him Flava Flave, since his front teeth are filled and he has a shiny rack. Both he and his brother are going to grow up to be a couple of handsome young men some day. The ladies are going to fall all over them.

Bouneith shooed them away but warned them not to go up front and wake their father. Cute little Zamira came up to me and demanded “Milk!” I just looked at her calmly. She then turned to her mother and did the same.

“Is that how you ask?” Said Bouneith in a slightly scolding voice.

“You all go and play, I’ll fix your breakfast shortly, Ray and I are talking. Now go.

So how are you?” she asked.

“Well… not to good actually. I don’t like feeling this way. How do I deal with these feelings?”

“How are you feeling exactly?”

“Kind of depressed, and a bit ashamed of myself.”

“You know, in the healing class, we teach that the cause of depression is the destruction of the illusions that we hold on to in life. This is why depression is a common thing for people in middle age. Have you had any medicine for the depression?”

“Yes, Master Naba gave me some but it is all gone now.”

“Good, how did it work?”

“I couldn’t really tell if it was working,” I said. “Until I stopped using it. Then I realized that it was making a big difference.”

“OK, so then you do not have to worry about any spiritual depression issues.” She said.

I had not realized at the time that this medicine had spiritual characteristics. I thought that it was just a natural form of anti-depressant.

“So now you are just dealing with the reality issues, but you have to be careful. You don’t have to be ashamed of something that you didn’t have any control over. It is very easy to get caught up in the feeling itself.”

“Yea, I don’t want to just wallow in the pain. I want it to end. I want it to go away. How do I keep the wisdom of my mistakes while leaving the pain behind?

In the past I used to pick up a good fantasy or science fiction book. It would distract me from the pain, but I don’t think that is something I should be doing now.

Sometimes, I would think about technical things or physics to take my mind off of it.”

“Yes, you should stay away from the fantasy for now. Working is a good way to cope. That is always good.” She said.

I did not comment on this. I really don’t work when I think about technical stuff. It’s just another form of escapism. I’m just trying to think my way into the magical world when I do this. I have come to realize that thinking is not the way to get there.

“You should really be careful here though. Remember, a monkey should not be ashamed because he cannot fly.” She said.

This didn’t make much sense at all to me. I began to wonder if I should be insulted, but seeing as how she had no real reason to insult me, I let it slide.

We wrapped up the conversation and I went off to work.

Later that evening I returned to the EC for Ka-at Ibi class (Kemetic meditation). We had been spending the last couple of sessions concentrating on a couple of riddles.

My classmates Mark and Matt were there before me. I joined the class and sat down on a mat between the two of them.

Mark, on my left, is of European decent. He is about six foot two or so, and thin, with relatively short dark blond, almost reddish hair and a full beard. He seems a quiet guy. I always feel comfortable around him.

Matt, on my right is about the same height as Mark but seems a lot younger. He is of mixed decent and very light. He is in his early twenties and also quite thin. He has long light brown dreds about shoulder length. He’s a kind of happy-go-lucky type, though sometimes he seems quite sad. I like him. The kid has potential.

The class went well. I figured out the riddle that had been posed to us the week before.

Nehez, who was teaching the class along with Baheru, reminded us that we should not let our heads get too big. That kind of attitude is a good invitation for evil to enter our lives. I felt taken down a notch in any case when we began to do our breathing exercises. I still have trouble kneeling in first position. It was particularly difficult this evening.

After the class I questioned Bouneith about a comment she had left on my previous blog about shame. She said that I should be careful
that I do not get caught up in “Illegitimate shame”.

So I asked her “What do you mean by illegitimate shame? I don’t understand.”

“A monkey should not be ashamed because it cannot fly.” She said with a broad smile.

Obviously, I needed to meditate on this for a while.

So, over the past couple of days I have been thinking about this. “What could I possibly get out of being ashamed of something that I
am not responsible for?” I asked myself.

It finally came to me that the benefit is safety.

If I take responsibility for everything that happens to me, even the things that I could not possibly have had any control over, then that means that I have power over them. It becomes my fault because I did not use my power effectively, hence the shame. If however, I acknowledge that I am not responsible, I must also accept my own powerlessness in the face of my troubles.

This is obviously not something that I have wanted to face. I really don’t like feeling vulnerable and weak. In fact, the most shameful moments in my memory all have to do with physical weakness. I can’t stand the idea of being helpless; it leaves me paralyzed with self-disgust.

Kind of a weird situation for a guy six foot five and 400 pounds, I’m pretty strong too. Still, I have often felt weak and helpless. Instead of becoming a bully like some might have, I retreated into my fantasies. I really can’t stand the idea of hurting anyone, yet I know that I have lost control before. We all have our moments, but for me, I realize that I could really hurt someone unintentionally.

But I digress…

Our initiation teaches that, as human beings, we are born weak in the same way that Heru was born weak. Due to the circumstances of his conception, he was born immature and helpless. We are also born this way. We are the product of our upbringing and the destiny that was chosen for us. We have no power over the evil within the world; we can only contain the evil within ourselves.

It is by virtue of following the divine code of conduct and doing our spiritual practices that we can contain the evil and advance the development of our souls for the brief time that we have in any incarnation.

The time we spend in the afterlife is vast in comparison to incarnate life. Incarnate life is like a dream in the night, brief and ephemeral in the context of the night itself, let alone in the context of a whole day.

The first real illusion that we must face is the significance of our life in the context of true reality. Though our lives have significance to us, we must realize that our purpose here is to take actions that will affect us in the after life. Our lives do not belong to us; our lives belong to the after life.

How can a single man, born so vulnerable and weak, be responsible for all of the evil that he has come across in his life? How can I be responsible?

Surely, this is the height of arrogance.

For this arrogance, I feel shame, and perhaps that is legitimate.

We all must live for the purpose of perfecting our own lives. The divine code of conduct sets the pattern for this. Now that I am aware of the code, I have the responsibility to understand it and to keep it, not for the world, but for myself, for my own soul.

This is my responsibility.

I can no longer feel shame for my ignorance. I can no longer feel shame for my weakness. For those times that I acted with malice or stupidity, I can legitimately feel shame. For those times that I acted from the basis of my self-created illusions, I can feel shame. For those times that I practiced self-delusion solely for the purpose of hiding from realities that I could not face, I can feel shame.

I pray that I can capture the wisdom of these actions and avoid the shame of them in the future.

I pray that I can learn and recognize shameful situations before they come upon me, and act accordingly.

I pray that I have the courage and the determination to do what I must to become a complete human being.

“It takes a fool to learn that Love don’t Love nobody.”

I remember back in the day when this song was popular. The
artist was talking about how much pain and suffering he experienced because of
the love he held for a woman. It is common in Western culture to think of love
in these terms. How is it that a concept that is so pervasive and revered can
be the cause of so much pain and suffering, indeed it can often be the cause of
death and destruction?

If ten people are questioned at length about what love
means, each person will have a different concept. Each of these people may also
have an opinion on whether they are seeking love or avoiding love. Those who
still seek love may do so in the hope that their idea of love actually exists.
Those who avoid love may have recognized it as a source of pain to be avoided.

We have learned in our initiation that love is a concept
that has been used for thousands of years to corrupt every level of society.
The expectations of men and women in their relationships are defined by the
ambiguous definitions that they hold. Nation states and great institutions
perpetrate great evils in the name of the love that they bear for their
victims.

Witness the woman who expects that her lover should call
her every day. If he does not call, she feels unloved and neglected. In the
mean time, the man is looking forward to the weekend when he can spend quality
time, sharing experiences with his love. When they meet, she is surly and angry
as a result of the neglect that she imagined. He is insulted and hurt by her
attitude and takes this to mean that she no longer cares for him.

Witness the nation that creates genetically modified seeds
for an impoverished tribe. The tribe attempts to use the seeds and finds that
they are destructive to the land. They discontinue the use of the seed, but the
damage is done because the genetic material has spread to compatible species in
the environment, irrevocably destroying the natural balance of the region in
which the tribe lives.

In each case, the victims are helpless to defend
themselves. Any rejection of the actions of the lover toward the beloved is
considered ungrateful and even immoral, yet acceptance will lead to destruction.

All will vilify the man who defends himself against the
angst of his lover. Though he himself knows the quality of his love, it will
never be accepted in the context where unknown expectations are unfulfilled.

An indigenous culture that defends itself against the
unwanted solutions of modern society is labeled primitive and backward. The
leaders of these people are sometimes criminalized by the international
community for their actions. The resulting stress can even destroy the
cohesiveness of the tribal community itself.

Should we conclude that the concept of love itself is
flawed?

We can easily criticize the idea of romance. The etymology
of the word quickly points us to the Roman culture. The Roman culture defines
love by the goddess Venus. A study of Greek and Roman mythology shows that
Venus, though beautiful, was an evil and vindictive goddess. Her primary modus
operandi was to curse those who were in possession of those things that she
desired but did not have. If we take this as the proper attitude for love and
lovers, it is easy to see how this will lead to destructive conflict.

We should remember however, that the Greeks and the Romans
had several different words for what we today call Love in the English
language. This type of specificity made communication clearer in the context of
loving relationships. We could still conclude that Venus or, as the Greeks
named her Aphrodite, would be a messenger of love.

The other concept of love in the west is defined by the
religious figure Jesus Christ. The story of his life, death and resurrection is
defined by the love that he bore for all human kind. This love was exemplified
in him sacrificing his life for the sins of humanity.

We can criticize the very name of Jesus by analyzing the
Medu phraseology from which it is most likely derived. In doing so, we would
conclude that either the people who originally shared this story with were
illiterate, or they assume that we are. This, of course, would be true of most
of us.

The greatest indictment of this concept of love is not the
story of the life of Jesus, but the behavior of those who claim to be his
followers. It is unreasonable that a doctrine of love should be used to justify
war, slavery and destruction. Islam, in contrast, is very direct in their behavior.
Accept Allah, or die. Any one who rejects their teaching is simply hated.

The concept of Love is a very personal one for me
individually. I have lived my whole life filled with this emotion. The emotion
that I feel does not place expectations upon my beloved. It is not limited to
any individual and yet any individual that I perceive is its inspiration.

Each breath that I take is an act of love. Time and space
are transcended by its scope. I look around and all that I see is the beauty of
a perfect creation. The only responses that seem appropriate are awe, wonder
and love. These are the only responses that I seem to be able to give.

My only sorrow is in the misunderstanding within myself.
It is this that I am now trying to come to grips with. How am I different from
the perceptions of my beloved? Why should there ever be doubt about what I know
to be true within myself. How could anyone require that proof be shown of the
love that I bear?

It seems that the love within me is both personal and
impersonal. It is possessed by me, yet unlimited by my concept of self. The
idea that my works should be the proof of it seems a corrupting limitation of
what I perceive it to be. This is not to say that I should not follow the
divine code of conduct. It is simply that the divine code of conduct seems the
most natural and obvious way to be.

I am constantly confused by the fact that the perceptions
that I have of my true self do not match the perceptions of others. It is from
this that I derive my shame. It is from this that I derive my anger and my
sorrow. What must I do to show the world the truth that I perceive within
myself?

How can I become Love’s True Messenger?

Western culture uses many concepts to manipulate human behavior. Two of the most prominent concepts are the hero and the egotist. The contrast between these concepts drives us. It clearly delineates the western ideology of good versus evil.

The modern hero takes many forms, yet all of these forms are usually associated with several basic attributes. The western hero is almost always exclusively male. He is usually a man of great physical prowess. In some cases he may also be a political or religious leader. He is characterized by his ability to succeed against great odds and under great adversity.

The hero is represented in our fictional characters as a kind of super hero. The modern mythical super hero always sacrifices himself for the greater good. After great trials and tribulations he always succeeds where others have failed, though often at great personal cost.

It is sacrifice to the greater good that is used to manipulate the masses. Men and boys are manipulated into actions that are unnatural and even evil in any other context. The soldier is portrayed as a hero. Fictional heroes almost always achieve their goals through some form of violent action.

We can see this kind of manipulation in the rhetoric of leaders past and present. Ronald Regan portrayed the U.S.S.R. as an “Evil Empire” while George W. Bush characterized Iraq as a member of the “Axis of Evil”. By demonizing these countries, these leaders took advantage of the corrupt ideology of the hero. Young men and women were motivated to commit great atrocities around the world. The public supported this and hailed them as heroes. These men and women today suffer the psychic wounds of their actions. History however, has proven that the motivation for these wars was the economic benefit of a few select corporations. These corporations have both the political and financial strength to manipulate vast amounts of public resources for their own personal gain. This manipulation is done without regard for either the physical or the spiritual consequences.

The hero and the egotist is a basic carrot and stick ploy. If the desire to be a hero is the carrot, then avoiding the label of egotist is the stick. Where the hero will give his life for the cause, the egotist is selfish and thinks only of his own needs and his own requirements. The egotist is a coward, according to western ideology.

Western society associates shame with egotistical behavior. It is shameful to think of oneself before the good of the nation. It is shameful to think of ones family or health before the good of the company. We are encouraged to give 110% or be labeled the quitter, the weak link that breaks the chain of continuity. In effect, all of the aspects of shame that would normally be reserved for immoral behavior are personified in the egotist.

The idea of the hero and the egotist is like a framework. The manipulation of our concepts of good and evil are built on this framework. We who follow the Divine Code of Conduct recognize that good is defined as the preservation of life. Good is not defined as a reaction to the evil outside of us, but as a preservation of the good within us. There is no battle for the hero to win except within himself. There is no shame in recognizing that by strengthening our personal spiritual power, we strengthen the spiritual power of humanity.

In the Kemetic tradition, we recognize the hero as one who will place the good of society over his own personal concerns. We recognize the egotist as one who will place his spiritual concerns over the good of the society. An egotist would sacrifice his own life before he compromised his spirit. He would give his life before he compromised the blood of his ancestors. A hero would never take these actions.

It may be a selfish act to take the time to perform our spiritual practices instead of hanging out with our friends. It may be a selfish act to refuse to fight for the great causes of western society. It may be a selfish act to place our families and our ancestors above our jobs. Yet it is through these selfish acts that we preserve the good in the world and contain the evil within ourselves.