When each human being is born, he/she is naked until clothed by a parent or caregiver; materially poor until the acquisition of endowments by own effort or through a benefactor; and ignorant of his/her own worth, agency and power of causation until the moment of “light.”
At birth and during infancy, all the five physical senses and the mind are numb and remain stagnant with inertia and indolence; or until one evolves either further away into self-imposed exile from the true self and in the wasteland away from worth, agency and power of causation.
A quote will be made extensively, "Beyond the Frontier of the Mind: Ego - the False Center" by Osho (Chandra Mohan Jain or Acharya Rajneesh, 1931-1990), when he said any human being is not knowledgeable or aware about him/herself at the time of birth and infancy.
"And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.
“That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others…He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.
“This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, the other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, the other, he becomes aware of himself. This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.
“Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.
“A center is born.
“But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
“First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning. Then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected.
“The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real self, no.
“The real can be known only through the false, so the ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the truth. If you know the false as the false, truth will dawn upon you.
“Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society. And everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are. You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society.” - "Ego - The False Center" http://deoxy.org/egofalse.htm (own emphasis).
At its core, the “reflected self” is exclusionary (sexist, racial, ethnic, religious and cultural bigotry) and it arises out of woundedness, victimhood, human insecurity, a sense of vulnerability or helplessness.
In the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, a character called Arjuna personifies "Ego Consciousness." This is the insecurity driven and sustained by lack of knowing agency and power of causation. This can be considered as the driving and motive force behind the Western Christian dehumanising brutalities of racism, slavery, colonialism, apartheid, oppression and military adventures against the “Other” (the non-Western).
"Look at modern (Western logic). Military weapons are modernized every day and are more and more novel every month. Although we call this progress, it’s nothing more than progressive cruelty. (The Western logic) takes human life as an experiment, as child’s play, as it fulfills its desires through force and oppression." - The Venerable Hsuan Hua, a Ch'an and Tripitika Master from China of the Mahayana tradition, quoted by Dr. Martin J. Verhoeven (2001).
The racism by the mainstream Christian Western world towards the external or surface anatomy (skin pigmentation and facial features) of Africans and "Others" (Asians, South Americans, Maoris, Aborigines, etc) began in the 17th century. – Alex Taylor, “The roots of racism,” (November 2002) http://socialistworker.org/2002-2/431/431_08_Racism.shtml
“…the earliest rationale for racial slavery was not differences in physical features, but the identification of Africans as uncivilized heathens…From the early 18th century on, negative characterizations of Africans formed part of a new rationalization for enslavement. These became the stereotypes of races and race differences that we inherited in the 19th and 20th centuries.
What colony leaders were doing was establishing unequal groups and imposing different social meanings on them. As they were creating the institutional and behavioural aspects of slavery, the colonists were simultaneously structuring the ideological components of race. They exaggerated human differences and even invented some that could not be sustained empirically, such as the belief that Negroes had black brains and blood.
By the end of the 18th century, during the (American) Revolutionary era, a great debate over the nature of "the Negro" had developed...Pro-slavery proponents developed an ideology about human group differences that humanized "the Negro" and demoted him to a status closer to the apes. Thomas Jefferson was the first to proclaim that we should leave the question of the Negro's status in nature to science, which was just beginning to emerge as a separate and distinct institution in Western culture. From the last decade of the 18th century on, the writings of learned men appeared to proclaim the natural inferiority of blacks.
In the 1860s, slavery ended, but "race" as social status and the basis of our human identities remained. Race ideology proclaimed the existence of separate, distinct and exclusive groups that were made unequal by (the Divine) or nature...Each race was thought to have distinct physical and behavioural traits that were inherited "in the blood," and passed onto their children. Thus we have the continuing stereotype of (Africans) as lacking in intelligence, lazy, overly-sexed, loud, irrational, musical, emotional and superstitious. Finally, it was believed that these race differences could not be transcended or transformed.” – Prof. Audrey Smedley, “The History of the Idea of Race… And Why it Matters” (2007), www.understandingrace.org/resources/pdf/disease/smedley.pdf
The “reflected self” (how others view Africans) and the surface anatomy consisting of melanin of the skin, texture of hair and facial features then largely framed the relationship with the African and the Western Christians, and a recovery from it has not been fully done.
According to the post-17th century mainstream Western Christian thinking, Africans and "Others" were not full members of human species, not products of the same human genetic formula and lacking the capacity to have human worth, agency, aspiration and responsibility.
The 18th century French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) saw persons of African origin as mere animals without agency, and power of causation, thus he wrote: "Negroes and negress carried in colder countries always produce the animals of their species ... we cannot get into the mind that (the Divine) a very wise being, has put a soul in a body wholly black."
The 18th century British historian and philosopher, David Hume (1711-1776) in an essay entitled ‘Of National Characters’ wrote, "I am apt to suspect the Negroes (Hume wrote) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilised nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences…Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negro slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho’ low (Caucasian) people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession."
Despite such racist claims, Haiti was a flourishing place for persons of African origin from 1790 after a slave revolt led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, while “the Harlem Renaissance, centred on Harlem in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s” inspired Africans further.
With a wounded or “reflected self” of an African, came the term “Pan-African” as a bold response, protest and activism against the melanin inspired cruelties and beastly brutalities. This was solidarity around woundedness, victimhood, helplessness and pain.
Thus, the liberation struggle against the racial brutalities by the West motivated by Christianity was then minimally defined using melanin and in some instances it was framed as class-based due to the influence of some Marxist thinking.
This should therefore not surprise anyone that most of the leading and well-known African nationalists are of a Marxist conviction or orientation, mould or grounding. It arises out of the limiting and narrow view of the Self at a human level and the colonially defined biological and class relationship between the African and conservatist Christianity.
This should therefore not surprise anyone that most of the leading and well-known African nationalists are of a Marxist conviction or orientation, mould or grounding. It arises out of the limiting and narrow view of the Self at a human level and the colonially defined biological and class relationship between the African and conservatist Christianity.
An awareness of a humanist nature underpinned by the actualisation of values and aspirations was given little or no attention as a response to the racially-framed self awareness. Such an awareness was the wounded self who was a victim and suffered pain.
The entry of the word "Negro" in Encyclopaedia Britannica first published in 1798 read as follows, "A name given to a variety of the human species, who are entirely black, and are found in the torrid zone, especially in that part of Africa which lies within the tropics . . .Vices the most notorious seem to be the portion of this unhappy race: idleness, treachery, revenge, cruelty, impudence, stealing, lying, profanity, debauchery, nastiness and intemperance, are said to have extinguished the principles of natural law, and to have silenced the reproof of conscience. They are strangers to every sentiment of compassion, and are an awful example of the corruption of man when left to himself."
The 17th century racist theory defined Africans’ humanness as a distorted humanity to justify the inhuman cruelties and brutalities by Westerners, most of whom were Christians.
Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912), an intellectual force in both Liberia and Sierra Leone educator, writer, diplomat, and politician in Liberia and Sierra Leone, is the first recorded person to have called for "the African personality," in which he referred to the common destiny and the distinctive mentality of Africans. This though is a false characterisation because all human beings are of the same evolutionary origins, biological organ systems and human needs as defined by Abraham Maslow.
Blyden used the term "the African personality" for very first time in a lecture to the Young Men’s Literary Association (YMLA) of Sierra Leone, entitled “Study and Race”, delivered in Freetown on 19 May 1893 and published in the ‘Sierra Leone Times,’ 27 May 1893.
In the lecture, Blyden called for race integrity and individuality by developing its special qualities for the ultimate benefit of humanity. He reminded people that the African was of great vitality, great powers of endurance and great in its prospect of perpetuity.
According to Blyden, the ‘African Personality’ was characterised by what I would term a very racist narrative: cheerfulness, love of nature and willingness to serve, by “simple and cordial manliness and sympathy with every interest of actual life and every effort for freedom.”
He also said the African is "the supple, yielding, concilliatory, obedient, gentle, patient, musical spirit that is not full of offensive resistance how sadly the white man needs it" – Viera Pawliková-Vilhanová, ‘The African Personality or the Dilemma of the Other and the Self in the Philosophy of Edward W. Blyden, 1832-1912’ (Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia, www.aepress.sk/aas/full/aas298d.pdfRetrieved in June 2011)
Evidently, this ordinary and simple-minded meaning of the ‘African Personality’ is the elementary and mere biological definition of an African still prevalent to this day.
Blyden, who was the mentor of George Padmore, a Trinidad writer and another doyen for the emancipation of the African, called for the regeneration of Africa by using and solving riddles manifested in architectural landmarks like the Sphinx of ancient Egypt and the use of Western skills, standards and instruments. He also lamented the fact that Africa is distinguished as having 'served' and 'suffered.' – ibid.
‘Personality’ is literally defined as the visible aspect of one’s character as it impresses others and responds to external stimuli. It comes from Latin words, "per" means ‘through,’ ‘sona’ means ‘sound,’ “persona” is the actor’s mask (‘prosopon’ in Greek) that was painted and shaped to correspond to the character, which they were supposed to represent.
A Swiss Jew, Carl Jung describes this as an identity or a “reflected self” we hold and which we present to the outside world. In a drama, actors wore masks.
‘Persona’ means ‘you do not know who is speaking, just the sound.’ Hence ‘Personality’ is the mask through which the deeper and profound part of a human being speaks. We need to search that which is the deep innermost aspect of ourselves not the personality or mask. The search to “recover” the mask diverted Africans to search and re-connect with the deep innermost quality of being a human being, which is the exactly the same as any other human being.
After Blyden, Henry Sylvester Williams (a prominent Trinidadian Canadian-trained lawyer and writer), is said to have conceived the word and concept of “Pan-Africanism.” In 1887, Williams organised the African Association, later renamed the Pan-African Association, holding its first conference in 1900 in London.
Du Bois later wrote that the 1900 Pan-African Association Conference “put the word (Pan African) in dictionaries for the first time.” – Professor Hayford W. Logan, “The Historical Aspects of Pan-Africanism: A Personal Chronicle.”
The “True Self” is the foundational or core ideas about any human worth, agency, aspiration and responsibility. The full realisation of these is the aspirational urge, yearnings and perspectives of any human being.These core ideas about being human took various labels.
Later ‘Pan-Africanism’ motivated and animated the expression through numerous advocates prominently Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), William Edward B. Du Bois (1868-1963) and Henry Sylvester Williams (1869-1911). They also had activists too numerous to mention, sufficient to classify them as what has been called “challengers” and “bargainers.” - Shelby Steele, "A Bound Man" (2008).
The pronounced and deliberative campaigning by persons of African origin to recover and restore themselves as human beings arose as a result of their reduction, depiction and denigration as “homogenous, indolent and a dependent social strata” who can only rely on the benevolence of an external agency, which can be a Caucasian deity or God, colonising Government or the Christian missionary and colonial politician.
The colonial adventures came to be called "The White Man's Burden" (a poem by the British poet, Rudyard Kipling originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899, with the subtitle ‘The United States and the Philippine Islands,’ as a response to the American take over of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War), itself a characterisation of imperialism as a sublime venture. The poem implored upon literalist Christian Caucasians to colonise and brutally rule over other nations benevolently.
Kipling’s "The White Man's Burden" was later to be the words of Cecil John Rhodes when he said, “fighting the world’s fight” (Rhodes’ Letter, 1901), and today the Rhodes Scholarship Trust’s motto.
Related to and probably influenced by "the African personality," came a new term, ‘Negritude’ (French for ‘Blackness’). As a term and concept, it was coined by Aime Cesaire, a poet and politician of Martinique and later to be Mayor of Fort de France and representative of Martinique in France’s Parliament.
The term was later pronounced through the third edition of a journal, “L’Etudiant noire”(“The Black Student”), by a Paris-based group of student friends who were Marxist intellectuals, writers and politicians of African origin from different French colonies developed it in 1934. They wanted to create a socialist society on the basis that socialism is a natural condition of African societies.
The group included Leopold Senghor (later to be first President of independent Senegal), Aime Cesaire and Leon Damas (poet and politician of French Guiana and later member of the National Assembly).
“Being colonial subjects meant that they all belonged to people considered uncivilized, naturally in need of education and guidance from Europe… (They) had individual lived experiences of their feeling of revolt against a world of racism and colonial domination… (Through) the Harlem Renaissance movement, they found an expression of black pride, a consciousness of a culture, an affirmation of a distinct identity that was in sharp contrast to French assimilationism.” - Souleymane Bachir Diagne, "Négritude", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
‘Negritude’ became a solidarity, acceptance and appreciation of persons of African origin who identified each other using skin pigmentation, facial features and texture of hair as a separate and exclusive race. Humanly, this is very minimalistic, shallow and narrow.
‘Negritude’ is derived from Spanish or Portuguese, 'negro,' a 1550s term for 'black-skinnedrace of Africa' and Latin, 'nigrum.'
The sentiment of ‘Negritude’ can be said to have arose as following the publication of the 1885 “De l'Égalité des Races Humaines” (On the Equality of Human Races) by Haitian anthropologist, journalist and politician, Joseph Auguste Anténor Firmin (1850-1911), which was a rebuttal of racialist theory of the Caucasian race in ‘Essay on the Inequality of Human Races’ by French aristocrat and author Arthur de Gobineau.
Gobineau had argued about the superiority of Caucasians over persons of African origin and other peoples but Firmin responded, “All men are endowed with the same qualities and same faults, without distinction of colour or anatomical form. The races are equal.”
The term ‘Pan-Africanism’ was later adopted in the 1960s and 1970s to become an intellectual movement during the civil rights movement in the USA. It became a political rallying point for those political activitists of of African origin in an effort to have the movement attach itself with the condition of and minimize the differences with continental Africans.
As a political rallying point, ‘Pan-Africanism’ arose out of the yearnings, quest and struggles for liberation and freedom. Unfortunately, it was carved and framed itself using a reactive or retributive response to racial wounds and pain.
The African intellectual and political class inadequately defined “being African” as something “against” or “about difference” as a result of the brutal, violent and traumatic dehumanisation of the person of African origin. This approach in defining “being African” was and is negative, very limited and narrow because it is the essence of a wounded and reflected self.
Defining "being African" using skin pigmentation, facial features and texture of hair, and then focusing on the painful experiences of deprivation, limitation and brutalities suffered is a basis for individual alienation and social paralysis.
It is very inadequate to define “being African” as “a feeling of kinship or affinity shared by people of African descent…based on shared cultural norms, traditional institutions, racial heritage and a common historical experience.” – V.B. Khapoya, “African Nationalism and the Struggle for Freedom” Chapter 5.
Nigerian poet and novelist, Woye Soyinka, aptly expressed this by saying, “A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces on its prey. In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: "I am a tiger". When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there.”
This means, instead of boasting or being prideful about easily identifiable external features of skin pigmentation, facial features and texture of hair, the “tiger” should know itself and do what is expected of it as an animal of prey and a member of the cat family.
Likewise, instead of boasting about easily identifiable external human descriptions, the person of African origin should know and do what is expected of him/her as an active citizen of his/her community and a self-responsible and self-actualised member of the human family with agency and power of causation.
The protracted and long drawn out struggles for liberation and freedom by persons of African origin were a yearning and the physical projection of the enduring human urge to live in dignity, without which life is empty and meaningless.
Any human being has the same human urge for liberation and freedom. The human urge for freedom is intrinsic and natural. Activating agency and power of causation means that the inherent ingenuity, causative effort and productiveness can make it possible to overcome adversity, transcending limitations and nurturing a more positive, innovative and creative approach to life and relationships to achieve incredible results and improve living conditions.
“‘Self-preservation is the first law of Nature,’ the basis of physical evolution--that automatically acting principle--which causes plants to turn towards the sun, animals to seek their proper food, and both animals and men to try instantly to escape from immediate danger. It is what we call instinct which does not reason.” – Justice Thomas Troward, ‘The Law and the Word.’ At different levels of our lives, we experience and witness this self-preservation and the individual effort and productiveness to overcome adversity.
"When obstacles confront us, or when doubts consume us, we are often tempted to give up, to throw in the towel, to say "I cannot go on!" The act of persisting onward, when all looks bleaks, is where true greatness is found. This imbues us with the emotional strength to stand after we stumble, to endure when the path is unendurable.
“We are endowed with: The power to finish everything we begin, Persistence, to always follow-through; Determination, to go the distance; Tenacity, to complete the most difficult of tasks.
“Personal chaos strikes us because we fail to perceive hidden truths. We do not see the bigger picture. The scope of our thinking is limited by our rational, logical minds. We need to ignite our sixth sense. That way we heighten our intuition, we expand our awareness, and we develop deeper insight and evolve clairvoyance." - www.jorgebastosgarcia.com/42.swf
There are natural and human-made spider webs limiting and stifling us physically and psychologically. Although they make us hostages to adversity, this is what causes the human urge to activate agency, power of causation and responsibility.
Human worth, causation and responsibility is the moral imperative and justification of the liberation struggles waged by any person individually or collectively!
We need to locate, celebrate and learn from the experiences and efforts of both the “challengers” and “bargainers” for the cause of human worth, causation and responsibility in an accountable, pluralistic and republican society.
Therefore, it may be considered misleading to narrate the African nationalist yearnings and liberation struggles using the reactive or retributive narrative of pain. This kind of narrative is a manifestation of a “dense pain body” or collective woundedness as defined by Eckhart Tolle in his book, ‘A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose' (Dutton Adult, 2005).
Tolle defined a “pain body” or woundedness as the collective manifestation or expression of all the pain, misery, and sorrow an individual has ever gone through an entire life, and all the things inherited from his/her family and community history as well.
An individual's pain-body or wounded self is fed and strengthened by making itself and others miserable.
One's pain body or wounded self is what was called by Carl Jung the "shadow complex" of energies. These are the qualities that one would rather not see in oneself and the unrealized potentials. They consist of painful experiences, repression and frustration and if they are unrecognised and uncountered, they lead to self-destructive expression, despair and fatalism.
According to Jung, a complex is a node in the unconscious; it may be imagined as a knot of unconscious feelings and beliefs, detectable indirectly, through behaviour that is puzzling or hard to account for. What is unconscious tends to be projected onto others, attributed to other people or external situations. The projection may lead to an erroneous perception.
This is further explained by Dr. Roya R. Rad when she said, “Recognize your own shadow (a denied or repressed part of the self): One way to do this is to see what it is that you project onto others. When you deny or repress something in yourself, you tend to become more aware of that trend in others. If this becomes a pattern, then pay attention to it, since it may be a part of your shadow calling out for some attention. When this happens, that trait in the other person may annoy you too much, or you may tend to overreact to it. If you do that too much, you may want to look and see if you have disowned that quality in yourself and are thirsty to experience it. Many times we judge people to put them at an inferior level so that we can cover our own insecurities. People who spend less time hating, blaming, judging unfairly, resenting and being angry usually have more energy doing something good and positive -- for themselves or for others.” - ‘Do You Know Your Shadow (Dark) Side?’ (www.huffingtonpost.com/roya-r-rad-ma-psyd/shadow-dark-side_b_945001.html)
Like any place in the world, Africans lived under a brutal and dehumanising racially-induced colonial rule that was designed to deny them full dignity as human beings.
The convergence around external features and cultural expressions was the easy road for the powerful solidarity to fight racially-induced social pains and dehumanising brutalities. The racially-induced slavery, colonialism, discrimination, oppression and exploitation system reduced persons of African origin into children, servants and even semi-humans. Through engaging liberation struggles of various intensities, African countries gained national independence at various times.
The nationalist political class focused on the socially wounded and reflected self i.e. an immediate and instinctual primal sense of identity limited to race (skin pigmentation, facial features, cultural expressions and social constructs) based on the physical senses instead of a transcendental sense of being.
As a result, the lives of persons of African origin have been of frequent disfigured human dignity and deformed freedom at the deepest levels of self-actualisation. While enjoying the pretense of human freedom and dignity, they have remained “hewers of wood and drawers of water” in the world of economics.
The majority of Africans simply adopted and adapted the Western model of conspicuous consumption "in the context of addictive or narcissistic behaviors induced by consumerism, the desire for immediate gratification, and hedonic expectations" while not backed by solid and sustainable economic fundamentals of financial prudence, savings, technological innovation and commercial creativity. Majority of educated persons of African origin are highly sophisticated or Westernized in terms of consumptive style and gadgetry and lifestyle tastes but reluctant “architects.”
There is need to restore the ideas about manifesting human agency and power of causation of the persons of African origin by focusing beyond skin pigmentation, facial features, hair texture and relative cultural expressions. These later are limiting and narrow while the former allows us to heal that which is in the deep innermost of our being.
“To ancient Egyptians, man’s destiny is often represented by his own fatal instincts; instincts which mislead him on every possible occasion. Guided by them the drowning man throws up his hands; the angry man clenches his fists, tightens up his muscles, and becomes inarticulate; the young gather the fruits of life before they are ripe; the old shut themselves away from the flow of life and die of stagnation. Perverted instinct is the curse of the human race…
“The cultivation of discernment was the aim of life, the want of it was a deadly sin in their eyes, and ended in the annihilation of the individuality. To gain perception of Truth, and so guide these fatal instincts, was the object of initiation. From the first step even, the Aspirant was taught to look upon himself as the centre of a universe of instinctive force, formed in a microscopic pattern. Over him brooded the wings of the invisible – his pleroma filled with the attributes of his divinity, as the universe is filled with the rays of the light-givers.
"The first necessity of the study … among the Egyptians was the cultivation of the faculties dormant in human nature. For they considered human power was only limited by weakness of will, and poverty of imagination. The Will-Energy, and Imaginative thought are often symbolized by fire and water, and the power of the spirit by air… These are the divine trinity of Father, Mother and Son…” - “Book of the Grand Words of Each Mystery,” a Coptic scroll found in Egypt in the 1800’s, and interpreted by the Adept and Egyptologist, Florence Farr (own emphasis).
Africans’ wounded and reflected self is of very deep seated colonial injuries, tragedies and a painful racial past with far-reaching implications in the contemporary political, economic and social systems. This part of the world is still struggling to delicately deal with the structural and psychological legacy of such woundedness. That past has conditioned people to live a life of unconscious assumptions of negativity consisting of "anger, fears, anxiety, excuses, hatred or intense dislike, sadness, hostility, regrets, aggressive outbursts, insecurities, blaming, complaining, accusing, etc."
This burdening past is the "collective grievances" or “wounded consciousness” in the here and now. For us to develop, we need to move out of the social framing and narrative of the “collective grievances," just like we need to outgrow the agonies, miseries, deprivations, pains and tragedies of our individual and collective lives to focus on doing better.
"Fear prepares us to flee. Anger prepares us for conflict. Compassion prepares us to support others. If you accept the view that emotions function to increase adaptive responding, then it makes great sense that humans have a suite of emotional responses that impel them to build social capital. We’re a social species at heart. We depend on others to flourish. Consequently, we have to possess emotional responses that enhance prosocial actions and not just ones that are aimed at selfish pleasure or competition and aggression." - Professor David DeSteno, author of the book, “Out Of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us” and the director of the Social Emotions Lab at Northeastern University.
“Collective grievances" or the wounded and reflected-self deny Africans the opportunity to accept individual and shared responsibilities in the very thoughts, words and actions that they seek to blame others for. Africans should concentrate on what has to be done here and now i.e. their own responsibility to expand and create new opportunities and possibilities in the here and now.
This should not be misconstrued as an attempt to minimize and undermine the painful experiences and deprivations that Africans have individually and collectively gone through and suffered. An unlimited and unending focus on the “wounded consciousness” or false “reflected self” give Africans a very debilitating, weakening and limiting identity that risk "grave emotional and psychological harm” to themselves.
The fatal and terminal danger of a form of being human based on "collective grievances" or the “wounded consciousness” is that it traps Africans as a people in a shared perpetual anger, negativity, insecurity and retributive dysfunctionality. It is a conceptual frozen humanness of "us" as perennial victims against the eternal evil "others" and a fueled and unfulfilled infinite reactivity.
"A grievance is a strong negative emotion connected to an event in the sometimes distant past that is being kept alive by compulsive thinking, by retelling the story in the head or out loud of "what someone did to me" or "what someone did to us." A grievance will also contaminate other areas of your life. For example, while you think about and feel your grievance, its negative emotional energy can distort your perception of an event that is happening in the present or influence the way in which you speak or behave toward someone in the present. On strong grievance is enough to contaminate large areas of your life and keep you in the grip of the ego...The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion...Complaining as well as faultfinding and reactivity strengthen the ego's sense of boundary and separateness on which its survival depends." - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life (2005).
A social and political environment littered with perennialised collective grievances or victimhood and perpetual guilt is highly intoxicated with anger, bitterness and coarse language. Such an environment does not remind us of the people’s own responsibilities to provide well-thought out, sober and sustainable solutions to the present problems.
A bitter and angry view of the world around us creates a people sometimes seething with antagonism, bitterness, a high level sense of insecurity and a feeling of hopeless vulnerability.
The unhealed wounds of “collective grievances" have "somehow simplified our condition, that it could sometimes disguise or suppress the very real conflicts amongst us" to the extent of overlooking the shocking and savage treatment of each other as persons of African origin.
Despite such “collective grievances" or “wounded consciousness,” the political objectives to achieve freedom and justice cannot be devoid of the power of Honour, Truth and Virtue so that there is still respect for the dignity and liberties of others, the security of justly acquired private property rights and the sacrosanct of legal contracts amongst Africans and their friends or partners.
"Our (sense of) victimisation acts as an emotional and moral claim to special considerations. We end up nursing our suffering so as to claim that we should enjoy greater rights, privileges, perks or access than others….Entitlement is the haven of mediocrity, the place where innovation and ingenuity go to lie down. That’s the problem with an entitled mindset. It does not spur thoughtful or challenging responses to one’s circumstances, but relinquishes problem-solving to the State. It makes us passive and brittle, when we should be pro-active and open to new opportunities.
“…our woundedness can make us brittle about failure. Rather than own up to the fact that we are not living up to our potential, we call for lower standards so that poor results end up being hailed as successes...A key indicator of our maturity as masters – not victims – of our fate is that we can acknowledge our failures and make a plan for moving forward. We do not want to forget the past, but we want to learn from it for the sake of the future. We do not want to deny that we have been damaged by (racial injuries), but that experience by no means defines the fullness of who we are." – Professor Wilmot James, "Let’s move forward, from victims to victors." (City Press, 18 March 2012).
"In political and ideological discussions, the issue is usually whether there is some social injustice. Even if we can agree that there is some injustice, what makes it social?
“Surely most of us are repelled by the thought that some people are born into dire poverty, while others are born into extravagant luxury -- each through no fault of their own and no virtue of their own…
“The baby born into dire poverty might belong to a family in Bangladesh, and the one born to extravagant luxury might belong to a family in America. Whose fault is this disparity or injustice? Is there some specific society that caused this? Or is it just one of those things in the world that we wish was very different?
“If it is an injustice, it is unjust from some cosmic perspective, an unjust fate, rather than necessarily an unjust policy, institution or society.
“Making a distinction between cosmic justice and social justice is more than just a semantic fine point. Once we recognize that there are innumerable causes of innumerable disparities, we can no longer blithely assume that either the cause or the cure can be found in the government of a particular society.
“Anyone who studies geography in any depth can see that different peoples and nations never had the same exposure to the progress of the rest of the human race. People living in isolated mountain valleys have for centuries lagged behind the progress of people living in busy ports, where both new products and new ideas constantly arrive from around the world. If you study history in addition to geography, you are almost forced to acknowledge that there was never any realistic chance for all peoples to have the same achievements -- even if they were all born with the same potential and even if there were no social injustices.
"Once I asked a class of black college students what they thought would happen if a black baby were born, in the middle of a ghetto, and entered the world with brain cells the same as those with which Albert Einstein was born.
“There were many different opinions -- but no one in that room thought that such a baby, in such a place, would grow up to become another Einstein. Some blamed discrimination but others saw the social setting as too much to overcome.
“If discrimination is the main reason that such a baby has little or no chance for great intellectual achievements, then that is something caused by society -- a social injustice. But if the main reason is that the surrounding cultural environment provides little incentive to develop great intellectual potential, and many distractions from that goal, that is a cosmic injustice.
“Many years ago, a study of black adults with high IQs found that they described their childhoods as "extremely unhappy" more often than other black adults did. There is little that politicians can do about that -- except stop pretending that all problems in black communities originate in other communities.
“Similar principles apply around the world. Every group trails the long shadow of its cultural heritage -- and no politician or society can change the past. But they can stop leading people into the blind alley of resentments of other people. A better future often requires internal changes that pay off better than mysticism about one's own group or about "social justice." - Thomas Sowell, The Mysticism of "Social Justice" 28 June 2012, www.nationalreview.com/articles/304176/mysticism-social-justice-thomas-sowell.
In Plato's dialogue, ‘Cratylus,’ the mythical cosmic power Pan is portrayed as the personification of the entire cosmos to be related to the meaning as “all.” “Pan is the anthropomorphic or archetypal image of the evolution of the Spirit of Man. The waters of Pan are therefore an agent of evolution or regeneration.” - Stuart Nettleton, “The Alchemy Key: The Mystical Provenance of the Philosophers' Stone” (1998).
The word “Pan-” is thus a Greek word for “all” or “of everything.” Therefore, the word ‘Pan-African’ simply means, “All-African” or “of everything African.” As a concept, it is very narrow and does not demand of Africans the highest common denominator, values and principles as human beings. It is simply a call based on skin pigmentation, facial features and hair texture for conformity and submission, to fight against a skin pigmentation-based disadvantage, or to seek a skin pigmentation-based advantage.
If the prefix ‘pan’ is considered to have been adopted to make ‘Pan African’ to mean ‘pro-African,’ then it is about the preference of persons of African origin over non-Africans. When one prefers someone over another, he/she has to be against that another. When such an effort is devoid of transcendental values and principles as human beings, it is a means to disadvantage or harm another of a different skin pigmentation.
Ordinarily, a racial preference is not value and merit-based. Many times it is about being fixated with a racial and ethnic "devotional fervour or a sentimental piety."
Based on the defining content of "devotional fervour or a sentimental piety" of race, a better substitute word for ‘Pan African’ is ‘Afrophile.’
'-phile' comes from 'philia,' an ancient Greek word for love and refers to brotherly love, including friendship and affection.An ‘Afrophile’ is a person who is sentimentally and physically fond of, admires, or even loves anything African at a skin pigmentation and culturally relative level without being "skeptical" i.e. curious, questioning or doubting anything. Concerns and drives for advantages based on skin pigmentation and facial features motivate ‘Afrophiles’ not the content or essence of being human at a transcendental level.
In relation to other races and the needful, these ‘Afrophiles’ tend to be highly sectarian and exclusivist. The xenophobia in South Africa, the religious strife as in Nigeria and Uganda, the ethnic conflicts in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and Sudan are all tendencies of ‘Afrophiles.’
‘Afrophiles’ have a limited view to human nature as it provides an unsound distraction away from critical responsibilities required to create impactful and sustainable positive change and growth in families, communities and countries.
‘Afrophiles’ are therefore found to be socially conservative and economically Statist i.e. whose basic conviction is in the centrality and undue influence of a State and see things using the prism of relativity (world of particulars) of immutability of authority (traditional roles, customs, doctrines and dogma).
When the State/political class is too much involved in people’s lives, it leaves the people too dependent, disempowered and passive while active citizenship suffers from the consequent apathy.
"Just because (something has been) part of my culture does not mean it should lie before me unexamined. Culture becomes stronger, more meaningful when it is examined and interrogated. It is an insult to logic, to intellectual progress, to say that a practice must remain a part of society simply because we have been doing it for centuries. This argument is inherently anti-education…Just because it exists and is accepted, does not necessarily make it correct." - Justice Malala (The Times, June 4, 2012).
Politically, an ‘Afrophile’ as a Statist, he/she wants the State or political class to be an intrusive nanny and benevolent by whose actions undermine a focus on opportunities and civic responsibilities and duties.
Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel Kant would say: “A government might be established on the principle of benevolence towards the people, like that of a father towards his children. Under such a paternal government, the subjects, as immature children who cannot distinguish what is truly useful or harmful to themselves, would be obliged to behave purely passively and to rely upon the judgment of the head of state as to how they ought to be happy, and upon his kindness in willing their happiness at all. Such a government is the greatest conceivable despotism…”
‘Afrophiles’ seek "government-imposed and government-enforced equality" by allowing it to be unrestrainedly get involved in the market of ideas, resources and goods; and being highly commandist or heavy-handed in economic issues; and interventionist in personal and social issues.
This whole approach creates a sense of entitlement to those who benefit by such an extensive paternalism and expansive interventionism leading to an imprudent political system because ‘Afrophiles’ are merchants of the ‘tax, borrow and spend’ worldview.
Consequently, an overbearing State leads to a breakdown or an undermining of human worth, agency, aspiration and responsibility, resulting in citizens not being able to be accountable for their own choices, decisions and actions, and then fail to take voluntary social responsibility on behalf of those in genuine need.
Consequently, an overbearing State leads to a breakdown or an undermining of human worth, agency, aspiration and responsibility, resulting in citizens not being able to be accountable for their own choices, decisions and actions, and then fail to take voluntary social responsibility on behalf of those in genuine need.
In contrast, those who can be referred to as ‘Afrosceptics’ live above the level of the euphoric sentimentality of ‘Afrophiles.’ This does not mean they are cold-blooded animals without a sense of care, generosity and warmth towards others and those in need.
“Permit each man to think according to his light -- and help him by offering to share with him the best that you possess -- but do not attempt to force upon him your own views as absolute truth to be swallowed by him under threat of damnation or eternal punishment.” - Yogi Ramacharaka, The Yoga of Wisdom: A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga (YOGeBooks, 1907),
Sceptics, by attitude and approach to life, may be described as follows: "Yes, Kalamas, it is proper that you have doubt, that you have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful. Now, look you Kalamas, do not be led by reports, or tradition, or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, not by mere logic or inference, nor by considering appearances, nor by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, nor by the idea: 'this is our teacher'. But O Kalamas, when you know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome (akusala), and wrong, and bad, then give them up...And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome (kusala) and good, then accept them and follow them." - Kalama Sutta (the Buddha's "Charter of Free Inquiry"). Quoted from Wapola Rahula and Paul Demieville, "What the Buddha taught" (1974) pp. 2-3.
Politically, an ‘Afrosceptic’ may best be considered as:
1. Civic awareness (active citizenship as compared to spectator and passive citizenship) through the duties and bonds of caring, compassion and kindness around families, communities and public responsibilities;
2. Fiscally prudent ("being particular about how and where a state and public agencies can efficiently spend funds") so that public policies and application of funds are focused on investments that spur sustainable economic growth, market (of ideas, resources and goods) and opportunities underpinned by individual responsibility, competition and informed choices; and
3. Socially liberating ("the legitimate role of the State is to address the economic and social issues such as health care, infrastructure and education while simultaneously expanding civic rights and responsibilities") under an accountable and efficiently run political system.
‘Afrosceptics’ are free enterprise-friendly and Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "free enterprise" as "freedom of private business to organize and operate for profit in a competitive system without interference by government beyond regulation necessary to protect public interest and keep the national economy in balance."
For example, the government issues "guidelines for "non-discriminatory" lending which warned lenders against "unreasonable measures of creditworthiness." Lenders should have standards "appropriate to the economic culture of urban lower-income and nontraditional consumers" and consider "extenuating circumstances." In other words, when some people don't come up to the lending standards, then the lending standards should be brought down to them…But lenders don't make money by lending to individuals who don't pay them back." - Thomas Sowell, The Brass Standard, 11 September 2012 (Creators Syndicate Inc).
Robert Samuelson would say, "Who deserves support and why? How much and under what conditions? Unless we ask these questions and find grounds for trimming some benefits, the budget impasse will continue and risk dangerous outcomes: a future financial crisis; crushing tax increases; or draconian cuts in programs (defense, research, highways) that aren't payments to individuals." - Washington Post, September 20, 2012.
The attitude towards the State can be defined as follows, "The state exists to serve man, to protect (natural) rights, and to allow the greatest amount of political freedom within the bounds of ordered liberty. It’s the idea that people truly own their property and are not merely renting it, and that they are free to use their talents, initiative, and “can do” spirit to make the lives they dream for themselves a reality." - Ned Ryun, The American Spectator (May 2012).
The State should have the capacity to educate indigent children, provide health care services, care for the elderly and finance and maintain public utilities infrastructure.
"There are two main ways to define fairness: fairness in terms of opportunity, and fairness in terms of outcomes. The first means leveling the playing field, and the second means spreading the wealth around. The first means lifting people up on the basis of merit, and the second means bringing successful people down. By focusing on raising taxes on the wealthy rather than pursuing meaningful policies to reduce unemployment or encourage economic growth, (one) is using this second definition of fairness……
“True fairness means rewarding merit, not spreading the wealth…(A better society) is built around the shared values and aspirations of mobility, opportunity, and merit. Even if only, say, half the outcomes in our life are due to merit, that’s still the half within our control. We should focus on increasing the role of merit, not dismiss the idea because it’s imperfect. Without a belief in meritocratic fairness, we have little incentive to work hard, be honest and optimistic, and create value in our lives and the lives of others…
“So how do we become a fairer society? We have to rely more on the institutions that support merit and less on policies that reward naked power. Policies that allow and support free enterprise and entrepreneurship make it more likely that we’ll have a meritocratic society based on hard work, ingenuity, and responsible risk taking…
“We should focus on building a fairer (society) based on opportunity and merit, not envy and anger." - Arthur Brooks, True Fairness Means Rewarding Merit, Not Spreading The Wealth, The Blaze, 20 May 2012 (own emphasis).
“Being human” as an idea, it concerns itself with curiosity, doubting, questioning and speaking truth to power. These are the "motor power of the human mind and the first guide to knowledge." “By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiring we come to perceive the truth......” - Peter Abelard (1079-1142), philosopher and theologian.
Some ‘Afrophiles’ may hatefully and antagonistically refer to ‘Afrosceptics’ as ‘Afropessimists,’ self-haters or not culturally “African enough.” They then tend to assume a self-appointed role for an imaginary “African authenticity certification” process as a way of exhibiting their own insecurities, woundedness and inadequacies. This may be an indication of a lack of grace and the failure to deal and handle a fellow human being’s capacity to reasonably doubt, question and think. Such responses by ‘Afrophiles’ are a way of dehumanising those who see things differently and diversely.
"…our religious organisations are steeped in an intimidating fundamentalism about right and wrong. Schools insist on pedagogical routines that discourage doubt, reflection and uncertainty in a facts-driven curriculum…When Harvard president Drew Faust was recently asked what one book she would recommend to students, she chose Kathryn Schulz's ‘On Being Wrong’ since "it advocates doubt as a skill and praises error as the foundation of wisdom" in line with her encouragement to students "to embrace risk and even failure." ...Teach using questions rather than assertions. Encourage curiosity about everyday problems. Show the complexity in what appears to be simple. Take time to draw out different perspectives on what is taken for granted. Demonstrate uncertainty, even doubt, in your own teaching rather than assume you must know all the answers. Withhold judgment and allow students to draw their own conclusions as you guide them through rival bodies of evidence. And follow that Finnish maxim: less teaching, more learning.” - Jonathan Jansen (Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State), “When Doubt is Good,” The Times, June 7, 2012.
Chargedly self-affirming, any human being should build arguments on valid, well-reasoned and honest explanation focused on individual initiative and responsibility, sustainable positive results or outcomes and infinite possibilities and opportunities.
According to Richard Cooper in a review of Amartya Sen's book, “The Road from Serfdom”(1999), ''Development should be seen as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy. Hence development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states.
''Sen's book expands on elaborates a simple thesis: development isnt merely an economic process but a political one as well. It therefore ultimately requires a democratization of political communities to give a voice in important decisions made for the community. To fail in this regard, Sen argues, is to limit human freedom and by extension, the possibility for human development.'' - Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2000
The racial and colonial structures and systems were constructed with a core of the literalist Western Christian (Aristotlean logic) “reflected or ego self” for the purposes of dehumanising the Other because the Other was not a Christian.
The defining core of the African liberation struggles should be seen in light of the recovery or restoration of the “Idea” or transcendental reality about Africans as human beings with agency and power of causation. This makes it possible to advance and promote
human dignity (Articles 4, 5, 15 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights of 1981),
equality before the law (ACHPR, Articles 3 and 19) and
freedom (ACHPR, Articles 2, 6, 8-12, 14 and 20) in an accountable, pluralistic and republican society (ACHPR, Article 13).
equality before the law (ACHPR, Articles 3 and 19) and
freedom (ACHPR, Articles 2, 6, 8-12, 14 and 20) in an accountable, pluralistic and republican society (ACHPR, Article 13).
The republican deficit and the dehumanising and brutal treatment of citizens by their own governments is remotely an issue at the meetings of African leaders while they reserve the worst descriptions and condemnations against the conduct of Western world’s governments.
Instead of seeking “unity” or "oneness," which smacks of homogeneity, Africans should seek to have well-informed understanding and convergence in the highest common denominator values and principles of human worth, agency, aspiration and responsibility; honour and integrity; dignity and human excellences; and efficient public service and accountability, so that they can nudge each other when they asleep on the wheel or intend to pass the red traffic light.
It is effortful to be human as an African based on “individual development, entrepreneurship, social responsibility and human fellowship,” as instruments and tools of positive change.
What makes one to be human? What makes one to do better in any situation?It is called the unceasing quest for GROWTH, which is to expand existing and create new opportunities and possibilities for a better life.
The sometimes mean, reckless and negligent political behaviour of some African leaders “invites” undue condemnation, intervention and interference from the hypocritical and militarily predatory Western world under the cover of the “responsibility to protect.” If there was respect for human life and dignity, decent and transformative leadership renewal and the constant reduction of republican deficit in Africa, there wont be any need for the presence of or lessons from the West.
Enduring and sustaining leaders who are imprudent and unaccountable with public funds, and who personalize public institutions by turning them into feeding troughs is the worst of being an African.
Africans need to build strong institutions to recover and protect ideas of “being human” from the narrow and fluid racial, cultural or relative labels of being an African that promote and tolerate mediocrity and incompetence, negligence, imprudence, wastefulness and dereliction of duty.
It is not enough to be an African with "confidence, self-respect and pride." It is critically necessary to be human by going through a healing and transformative process. In Hebrew, this is called "Tikkun Olam" (healing, repairing and transforming the world) and “Tikkun Hanefesh” (healing, repairing and transforming the spirit) through a commitment to goodness, truth and beauty!
“Being human” is best determined, measured and emphasized by three core attributes – human worth, agency, aspiration and responsibility; and pursuing a life of possibilities through imagination, ingenuity, innovation and creativity to shape, fabricate, weave, mould and form in the here and now.
These are underpinned by honour or integrity in individual conduct; dutifulness or responsibility to what is expected of each of us with fervency and strong eagerness; and better and sustainably improving standards of service.
The essentiality of “being human” is not the Physical Body/Objective Plane (the organic mechanism of movement, motor reflexes and generation), neither is it the Subjective Plane (the instrument of thinking, analysis and comprehension) located in the Mind.
The Objective/Mechanical Plane (‘Maya’ in Sanskrit) is like the mask or veil, kernel or husk of a seed, the eggshell and roof of a house. It also the vessel or vehicle of “being human.”
On its own, the Objective Plane seeks self-indulgence and brute gratification. It operates and perceives through the five physical senses. Africans are part of the beastly animal kingdom at this level. This plane or level deals with the impressions and objects of the outward world. “Yahoshua said, "Blessed is the lion (the brute and savage Self) which becomes man (the sublime and honourable Self) when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man." - Gnostic Gospel of Judas 5:18.
The Objective/Mechanical Plane and the Subjective/Mental Plane is the manifest and expressive part of the unmanifested “being human” (True Self).
Reality is thus not the actual change in the nature of the first two planes of the Self, collectively called the "Reflected or Ego Plane," but merely the removal of ignorance and the illusions of our physical senses.
“So that when the individual makes contact with the Self that he holds within, he comes into possession of cosmic power and stands centered beyond all anxiety, strife, and change.” - Heinrich Zimmer, “Philosophies of India” (Princeton University Press, 1989).
Beyond doctrinal differences, there is a common undercurrent for all organised religions, examples:
1. Esoterical or theosophical Hindus (Advaita Vedantins) believe that the cosmic True Self ("Atman") is one with the Absolute or Universal Self (Brahman) through enlightenment and deep knowledge ("jnana") by overcoming ignorance (“avidya”);
2. Buddhists believe that the cosmic True Self ("Tattva") is a state of pure consciousness and ultimate bliss through the Eightfold Noble Path; and
3. Esoteric or theosophical Judaism is of the view that the cosmic True Self (personified as the anthropomorphic image of the primordial or archetypal man, Adam Kadmon) is in the image and likeness of "Ein Sof," the Infinite Absolute, which is manifest in everything as an impersonal life-giving energy. Adam Kadmon is imagined as having been created out of the four "letters" of the a humanoid deity but arranged one on top of the other to be "Yod was the head, Heh, the arms and shoulders, Vau, the spine and sexual organs, and the final Heh, the hips and legs…
“The oral tradition of Adam Kadmon is similar to that of Osiris of ancient Egypt, in that Osiris was dismembered and reconstructed, while Adam “Fell” to pieces, and it is the work of the kabbalist to reconstruct the Original Adam.” - Mark Stavish, Secret Fire: The Relationship Between Kundalini, Kabbalah, and Alchemy (1997).
All humanity shares with the “Ein Sof” both an intrinsic and uncreated spark of agency and power of causation and a complex and organic form as a tool, vessel or vehicle of such a spark. Thus humanity needs to sublimely rise to the sovereign level here and now through healing, transformation and restoration (“tikkun”) creatively, mentally and materially. - Professor Barbara Holdrege, "Parallels in the Philosophies of Madhyamika Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, and Kabbalah" (1999), www.yogiphilosophy.com/docs/ParallelsinBuddhismHinduismKabbalah_web.pdf
Dr. Richard Bucke, enumerated that all human beings experience life through three (five in theosophic Judaism) realms or levels of consciousness:
· Simple consciousness – this is the gross and beastly state (Objective or physical awareness through the physical senses but covered by primeval ignorance);
· Self consciousness – this is the subtle state (Subjective or mental awareness called "Yetzer Hara" in Hebrew). The self is a conditioned product of the past and previous experiences; and
· Cosmic consciousness – this is the “Atman” in Sanskrit for the cosmic True Self awareness. One is the inner controller and source of all as the causative power. It is "an awareness of the cosmos accompanied by feelings of illumination, joyfulness, elevation, and moral exaltation”.
Cosmic consciousness is described as, “He who hates no creature, who is friendly and compassionate to all, who is free from attachment and egoism, balanced in pleasure and pain, and forgiving. Ever content, steady in meditation, possessed of firm conviction, self-controlled, with the mind and intellect dedicated to Me, he, My devotee, is dear to Me. He by whom the world is not agitated and who cannot be agitated by the world, and who is freed from joy, envy, fear and anxiety- he is dear to Me." – Bhagavad Gita 12.13-15 - "Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind" edited by Richard Maurice Bucke (Innes and Sons, 1901),
According to Dr. Bucke, a person should learn to discriminate between the Ego Plane and the lower world so that one can live an effortful life to allow knowledge and purification. Secondly learn to perform the functions of the mind in full as the Subjective Plane. Thirdly, enter into the sublime world and attain union with the Infinite Absolute as the True Self.
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