Choices

To Be or Not to Be Rasta

I Ching! This is the name given to the ancient divining oracle still used by the Chinese until this day. These days it can also be found in the West and until recently, also within the Ausar Auset Society’s curriculum of spiritual discipline and initiation.

Just as my knowledge obliges I to pronounce the name Melchizedek as ‘Mel-key-tzadek’ , I also found out that the I Ching should be rightly pronounced as ‘I King’. The reason that I begin like this is due to the simple fact that as a person who strongly believes in the power of words I became a Rasta-man not only through faith in Yehoshuah Ha Maschiack, the one they now call Jesus Christ, but also through the interactions that I had with both Christians, Muslims and eventually other Rasta’s who rose before I.

What I mean to say is, I still hold words very closely, I know that the difference between a true statement and a false one depends on the action that follows it, but I still think that words either make us or break us.

I have been proven right many times, but I also have stumbled upon my own words sometimes, yet I have always meant to be a master of words, written, spoken and chanted.

The Rasta way of refusing to pronounce the names of Jesus, and to some even the word god was my motivation and we have had many conversations on this subject, including the letters that I have written to the I.

Before I met the I at the Dance on Saturday, it had been a long time since the accident that the I survived, I had meant to come and visit the I at home but time, chance and circumstance caused I to stay away even though we spoke on the phone a few times…

But as usual, the brethren were talking about how the I had become a Sangoma or going through some form of initiation. I must admit that at first I was shocked, but when Reuben said, usuyiNyanga, I said to myself but that is okay, we are Black people with I n I own culture and traditional healing is the right way, but when I heard that the I was wearing iiphandla, I was even more disturbed.

But this journey of life takes us through so much, so I said to I self what can one say or do about another man’s destiny, because surely JAH knows the heart and mind of each one?

I am now writing this letter as an expression of my support for how the I has chosen to express divinity through the Nguni way. This way the I has chosen by himself or through some forces outside of oneself, I cannot tell.

But as Sizzla sings ‘u can’t be looking out of yourself…’ I truly believe that statement, so I hope that the decision my elder has taken is a quality one and not one manipulated by outside forces that the I could not control. I wish the I prosperity and peace, love and joy in the trod and in the home too so that the destiny of divinity is fulfilled in this lifetime and the Name of Rastafari be praised.

As I told the I, I also am in the early stages of Kamitic initiation, I have my guide and books to refer to, but the whole process is one of personal growth and self discipline. This is the personal growth that is key to the prosperity of all life, personal, spiritual and governmental.

This has been lacking in the Rastafari community and as I have always said, Love is the missing peace of the puzzle, the next peace is organised spiritual guidance that is not ‘controlled’ by what the honourable Jamaican brethren have given to I n I. in the end they need to learn from We how to run this livity, but We have to be so disciplined and also not forget our past and our future. Here are some inspirational words from Mazisi Kunene:

The Ancestors and the Sacred Mountain

“Before us, a mountain heaves and sighs

It is as if it shall touch the bending sky

And proclaim the eternal bonds with the milky-way,

For the ultimate order of life is the cycle

Life begins but does not end.

People must move without fear

Nor should they raise their voices to the hurricanes

But must with their power command them to silence

It is us, the descendants of the lions

Who must rule, without us the earth itself would end.”

I copied these words into my diary as early as 2007, but even then I had been seeking and finding many positive affirmations about Egypt, the connections with Kush and the many other links between Christianity and other so called pagan ways of life and worship.

The presence of Sun worship and star observance in Sudan, Ghana, the Khoi San and many other peoples including the pre-Christian Ethiopia is well documented.

The trouble with Rasta’s is that there’s no library being kept in order to educate I n I about real history, the meaning of linking Kush to all the faiths of the world.

I n I are quick to say ‘fire burn this or that’, but there is no analyses and proper ways to solving present problems.

This is one of the reasons I have always been reluctant to take Rastafari  too seriously. I have always needed a disciplined order to observe, just like the Muslims and others do.

But I also am aware that all these orders are not complete when they do away with the original man’s ways of doing things and true knowledge of God.

I also wrote an essay about the similarities between Ausar/Osiris and HIM Haile Selassie I.

I am now learning more and more about what KMT ( Kamit ) was and is about, the more I learn the less I believe that the Rasta community is ready for any kind of Theocratic order, there needs to be some real impactful learning about basic reasoning skills, the proper use of herbs and many other personal and spiritual laws.

But what can one teach to people who think that they already KNOW as most Rasta’s claim?

Last night there was an unnecessary argument about politics, the ANC and peoples personal choices and being unwelcomed in the Rasta community. It seems there are some of I n I who think that they are the true guardians of the livity, but it all seems like more hypocrisy and I ask I self, how can one share a ‘cup of peace’ with people who are not peaceful within themselves, that peace is a lie and I cannot continue to take part in a lie because it is corrupting.

The Kamitic spirituality deals with achieving Maat, the principle of Truth, Righteousness and balance of Justice. In the Bible, people are told that the just shall live by faith, but the problem is that most of these people end up thinking that they do not need to observe natural laws, and the laws of nature are really the basic fundamental book of life.

I do not mean to preach to the I, all I am saying is that all that God is already exists within the I, the kingdom as Yehoshua reminded those who can hear and understand/over-stand, is with man. I and I must find a way to share this knowledge with the youth who Love Selassie I, show the Idren that there is an unbroken link between our ancestors and our King and We.

The moment we break that link is the moment we allow other peoples philosophies to disarm and cause I n I to be indoctrinated and paranoid fools who think they know.

Erykah Badu sings: “The man that knows something knows that he knows nothing at all…” she is just repeating what priests of the ancient Black race of Kamites/Kamau have always said, if people could over what this means, then I n I can share the peace pipe and move on.

Ngiovalelisa ngamazwi ka ‘mfundisi’ ogama lakhe lingu Ra Un Nefer Amen, incwadi ibizwa ngelithi Metu Neter Volume 2 - Anuk Ausar – The Kamitic Initiation System”

“As long as the faculty governing morality is slumbering, reliance on moral teachings can only produce the bizarre contradictions, and seeming hypocrisy so prevalent in the moral sphere of the western world. The procedure for awakening the higher dormant faculties and altering ones lifestyle to harmonise with the new inputs from these faculties is what is known as initiation. It is a system, not of only professing belief in God, or seeking divine assistance while remaining in a lowly state of ignorance, egoism and impotence, but of growing and changing into our divine essence.”