Hru (Heru, Horus) Knows that Nonviolence is Predicated on His/Her Opponent Having a Conscience

Hetepu (Peace and Blessings) Family.

You know when most people hear the term “spiritual blindsided” they immediately equate it with being caught off guard by a situation resulting in inappropriate behavior, like losing their temper. While this is one aspect of being spiritually blindsided, from an ancient African perspective when an individual is too spiritual they can be blinded as well resulting in them being imbalanced. Imbalance from the Kamitic perspective is symbolized as having one eye usually the Right Eye of Ra.

Balance in the Kamitic tradition is symbolized as Maa, personified by the spirit (netchar) Maat and it is the most important theme in Kamitic spirituality because it leads to enlightenment.  Most people don’t see this because there is still a lot of confusion about whom and what is Maa and Maat.  This confusion exists because Western archeologists and scholars have interpreted our ancient ancestral writings from their limited perspective but they don’t understand African thought.  As a result, many of us are trying to equate Maa with karma believing that Maa is all about “reaping what you sow” or the belief that some final judgement is to make everything alright. I was guilty of this when I was younger as well thinking that in order to master the Maa I had to commit the 42 Laws of Maat to memory.  I also believed that some great cosmic event was going to overturn the society and people who acted “good” were going to be saved.  It wasn’t until I began working with my ancestors that I began to truly see that Maa is the symbol of Law, Balance, Order, Righteousness and Truth; and on a weekly thanking Maat for bringing “balance and order into my life” that I began to get a holistic perspective. Maa also corresponds to Insight because once you see the truth you know it and it will make you aware, which is why in the Story of Osar (Asar, Ausar, Osiris) it is alluded that the hero Hru had his eye gouged out by the enemy Set. This eye was none other than the Left Eye of Ra.

You see the maa (balance, law, order, truth, etc.) for one person is not going to be the same for another because we are all unique, which means the words, acts, behaviors, things, etc. that create imbalance in my life, most likely are going to differ from yours.  The Maa is the same for all beings on the planet and one of our objectives is to learn how to live in harmony with it. This is the reason we have to have a very clear understanding about the divinity within our being and understand that certain things are not just detrimental to our being, but to families, friends, community and the entire society. Let me explain.

When Charles Darwin wrote the Descent of Man in 1871, where he talks about how after studying nature there seemed to be a survival of the fittest that exist. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” was the individual that advocated and promoted this idea.  Thereby, validating the belief that it was natural for human beings to compete and dominate one another because the same behavior occurs in the wild.

Consequently, the “survival of the fittest” trend has been promoted all over the globe as the natural way we are supposed to live as human beings. It is the philosophical mantra used throughout the Western world on how to do everything from engaging in a relationship with one another to how to conduct business. It is a continual cycle of competition because adult males and females are taught as children that they have to fight with one another (Battle of the Sexes), and since children imitate what they see. They attend school or meet on the playground to compete or dominate their peers in whatever ways they possibly can. Of course, if the child has suitable resources (leadership, economic, etc.) in their community, they are able to act out their competitive and domineering energies in sports or some other extracurricular activities. If they do not, then the child engages in destructive and illicit activities and this where the problem appears to begin.
Once an atrocity or heinous act is committed by a child, young adult, a group of young adults, etc., is when you find people on both sides of aisle playing the blame game. Some will argue that it was due to the lack of resources that created the condition for a heinous act to be committed. While others will argue that the “lack of resources” is an excuse and that the real problem is simply that people won’t take responsibility and get with the program. In other words, the reason so many children are doing poorly is because they have deadbeat fathers, unwedded mothers and a lack of ethics and morals. This cycle of blaming continues to go on and on to it being about language.  All of this occurs while people wait for the next major atrocity to occur to react to.  All while missing that the root cause stems from this limited mindset that we all have about life.

The facts are that Darwin only mentioned “survival of the fittest” a couple of times in his book, which was distorted by Huxley. Darwin mentioned the word “love” over 90 times because he noticed that while nature is competitive. It is also cooperative.  Darwin noted that the reason human beings were able to evolve without the agility, speed and strength that animals have is because we learned how to cooperate with one another for the greater good.

We see examples of these two traits all throughout nature of animals from the smallest to the largest primates. A herd of gazelles work together to protect one another (especially the young) from predators.

Elephants exhibit this same behavior trait.  Animals are only aggressive when they feel threatened.  Ants for instance, are aggressive whenever they need to defend their territory or kill in order to eat, but they build they are very cooperative with the rest of nature in order to live.

In other words, animals only kill when they have to. A lion doesn’t hunt down a whole herd of gazelles. They only kill what they need and it is done to feed their entire pride, pack, streak (or community). The rest of their existence is spent do what is necessary for the pride, pack, streak, etc.

This competitive/cooperative aspect that exists in nature is what the Kamitic sages would call the Maa. It is not The Law per se, but all of nature follows it. It is not The Balance, but since all of nature follows it everything in nature is balanced.  It is not The Truth per se, but is the absolute truth because no matter where we go. We see that everything in nature adheres to this same scheme.

The Kamitic people understood that Maa should exist between fire and water, earth and sky, male and female, aggressive and passive, etc. When Maa doesn’t exist within an individual, community or society, there is imbalance or chaos. The Kamitic rulers and sages understood this concept so well that when they went to war (competitive), they didn’t totally annihilate their adversaries like the Americans did when they decided to drop the A –bomb on the already defeated Japanese during WWII to demonstrate their might. No, the Kamitians simply fought enough in order to eliminate the threat.  The defeated region was brought into the Kamitic fold if they chose to do so, but it was all done for the greater of the whole. This is the reason when the Kamitians defeated their enemies (like the Hyskos) they didn’t annihilate them. They simply beat them into submission.

An analysis of Kamitic history will reveal that they like other traditional Africans and non – Westerners (like the Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Indigenous of Australia, etc.) basically lived their lives based upon a consensus. That is by doing what is best for the whole by sacrificing the wants of the few for the many.  This is the same behavior that we see in nature and this cooperative energy is what the Kamitic people personified as the spirit (netchar) Osar (Asar, Ausar or Osiris in Greek).  Which legend tells us that Osar was the inventor of agriculture (through the help of his wife), the legendary ruler that united the people and brought civilization all through cooperation. Osar is attached to the superconscious mind or the Ba part of our being (the unlimited part of our mind symbolized as KAMTA), which functions out of love.

Clearly you see that this is not the same type of society that we live in today. The American society sacrifices the wants and needs of the many for the selfish desires of the individual or selected few.  We can see this same competitive and selfish behavior throughout the Western world. You can call it democracy, capitalism, socialism, communism, etc. but it is all the same because it is not based upon the true nature of the human being, which is to love or cooperate with one another. It is based upon competition and conquest.  An analysis of Western thought throughout history will show this which is the reason Christopher Columbus is still celebrated as a national hero despite the fact that he initiated the decimation of the Amerindian people throughout the Americas. He is clearly a symbol used to advocate and promote the interests of the selected few over the many. Understand. Christopher Columbus is celebrated as a national hero because he symbolizes competition and conquest. This is the reason American history books continue to promote the idea that Columbus brought civilization to the “New World” or Americas as if the Amerindians weren’t civilized. This arrogant, egotistical, limited and selfish energy is what the Kamitic people called the spirit Set, which is attached to the subconscious mind or the sahu part of our being (the limited part of our mind symbolized as TASETT), which manifests itself out of fear.

Osar is the energy of cooperative love and Set is energy of competitive fear. Westerners will tell you that Set is the devil and we are taught to be afraid of him again because they don’t understand African thinking. Both love and fear are energies with positive and negative aspects like any other energy. It is natural to fear because it prompts you to take protective measures, but too much fear or uncontrolled fear will result in you destroying your life or the lives of others. Love is the same way. If one is too cooperative they end up being abused and misused by predators.  This is the reason Kamitic sages kept stressing that people live a life of Maa.

Our ancestors lived in a similar society like the Kamitic people did but when the Europeans abducted, enslaved and brought them to the Americas, this way of life was interrupted. (I say interrupted because many of our families after slavery was abolished continued to live their lives based upon a consensus of the whole). Slowly but surely many of them were assimilated into the American society, and in time we lost this philosophical perspective about life. Again, many people want to claim that it was because of Christianity but I found that this is not totally true.

We have to accept and understand contrary to popular belief that all of our ancestors weren’t forced into Christianity. Many of our ancestors from the Kongo – Angolan region were Christians or at least familiar with the Christian faith prior to being brought to the Americas. When these Africans were brought to North America, they already had in their minds a working syncretized model of their indigenous beliefs and Christianity. In other words, the Africans from the Kongo – Angolan region had a spiritual system of resistance in their mind, which I strongly believe they taught to the other Africans brought to North America.
History shows that when the England commissioned the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) to Christianize Native Americans and Africans in the New World to protect English interest, so that the colonies wouldn’t be taken over by France and Spain. The Anglican missionaries had a difficult time completing their tasks for a number of reasons.  It was difficult for them to convert the Amerindians because the Native Americans being familiar with the land could easily flee back to their villages. Many enslaved Africans were able to resist the conversion because they didn’t make a distinction between spiritual and secular, so they had already conceptualized that “salvation” meant “freedom” from slavery. When Euro – American slaveholders witnessed this change in attitude and behavior, they strongly objected to the conversion to Christianity.

It wasn’t until the 1800s that most enslaved and free descendants of Africa willingly converted to Christianity.  Many of them fond of the plain – styled preaching of Baptist and Methodist ministers, along with the fact that these denominations initially opposed slavery, while allowing the blacks to practice Christianity according to their African beliefs, which consisted of spirit possession, dancing, singing and shouting, is the reason many willingly converted to the Christian faith.
Later on, Christian missionaries in an effort to placate the growing concern among slaveholders in North America, perverted the Christian teachings and began preaching to the Africans the “good slave” doctrine (instruction), which is, that part of their Christian duty was to be a good slave by obeying their masters, protecting their slave owners property and not destroying it. It was the “good slave” doctrine that eventually led to the creation of the Curse of Ham myth, which was that blacks were inferior to whites because after the biblical Noah’s son Ham witnessed his father drunk and naked.  Noah cursed Ham’s descendants (people of dark skin) to all be slaves.
Slaveholders became aware that religion (or anything for that matter) could be used as a tool of control in the 1800s, but early African Americans like Denmark Vessey (1820) and Nat Turner (1831) also were aware that religion could be used as a tool of liberation because they saw the hypocrisy of Christian slaveholders. This allowed them to get a holistic view as many people of African descent did who rebelled against the institution of slavery.
The problem that many of us have today is that we have been taught to love or be passive and cooperative but not to be aggressive and competitive. As a result, we have a limited or narrow view of life. On the other hand, there are those of us who reject the passive and cooperative aspect and have embraced wholeheartedly the aggressive and competitive aspect thinking that this will solve our problems.  The thing is that we have to understand that both perspectives (the cooperative symbolized by Osar and the competitive symbolized by Set) by themselves will lead to a great imbalance.  We can’t be polarized by one or the other.  We need both because separately they are not Maa.

Maa is symbolized as Hru who is the son of Osar and the nephew of Set, which is why Hru wears the white crown of KAMTA (Osar’s crown) and the red crown of TASETT (Set’s crown), known as the double white and red Pschent crown. It is the Kamitic symbol of self – mastery and self – discipline, which means that Hru can be aggressive and passive whenever he or she needs to be.
This means that Hru can love and cooperate with everyone like Osar, but he ain’t no fool and knows that everyone is not on that same level. He saw examples of this through his uncle Set. This is why Hru is all about forgiving people for their sins and the wrongs they have committed, but understands that through Maa that one has to right their wrong in order for them to be forgiven because the energy is not balanced. Hru believes and works towards a nonviolent society, but understand the physical reality that we must protect ourselves.  Hru understands what Baba Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael) expressed and I paraphrase that “nonviolence is predicated on your opponent having a conscience”1. This is why Hru is situated in the middle of the Maa Aankh cosmogram.

We need to understand this because I have seen people take this limited perspective with them everywhere they go. They will take this narrow view and they may say Osar (Asar, Ausar or Osiris), Obatala or whatever, but they are still approaching it from this limited one – sided perspective of either being all about cooperation or competitive. This is why we hear of so much corruption in organized and diaspora traditions.  Fortunately, it can all be corrected and balance restored by working with our ancestors.

See, the ancestors from the ancient African perspective are the pallbearers of Maa. Since they do not have a physical body they are not limited by time and space, which means that they can see what we can’t see and have the ability to go anywhere. When we include them in our lives, they can provide us with a holistic perspective through our dreams, visions and divination that stretches beyond our physical eyes. You see divination will give you insight on if you need to attend an event or not, or if someone can be trusted or not. If someone is being truthful or selfish and so on.  There are some divination tools (oracles) that give you insight on how to make partnerships works.  In other words, through working with our ancestors we get a holistic view that is not just based upon our beliefs and opinions, which can and are usually wrong.

Could you imagine if before we went to the voting polls we came together, asked our ancestors for guidance and did a reading on the candidate that would be beneficial to us, how much our life would change? Just the thought of it should give you goosebumps!  And, I am going to let you in on a secret. People like the Chinese having been doing it for years and the thing is that we have been doing it as well because this is how Hru was able to defeat his enemy through the intercession of his ancestor.  This is the only way we will be able to defeat our physical and spiritual enemies as well.

We have to realize that the reason the Kamitic civilization became great was because of the rapport they had with their ancestors (aakhu). Proof of this fact can be seen all along the Nile with various structures dedicated to the highest of ancestors. Learning the history of what our ancestors did was great, but the only way to trigger the ancestral consciousness within our being is by incorporating our ancestors into our lives.

Ancestor veneration and divination is a cultural practice that we have been made to be ashamed of only because it is effective and it is not beneficial to the Setian system we find ourselves in today. This is why it is important that you understand that if the idea of honoring your ancestors and communicating with them on a daily or weekly basis spooks you.  It is because the spirit Set has a hold on you. In fact, if you go to a Chinese or Vietnamese restaurant or store, and you aren’t spooked by their shrines greeting you at their place of business, but the image of an African divinity frightens you and makes you cry out “heathen, idolatry, evil, etc.” Then, Set really has a hold on you because you see no problem in honoring (or respecting) the cultural practices and ideology of another culture used to resist selfish Western values, but find fault in your own ancestral practices used for the same exact psychological reasons.

We need to return to our ancestral way, which will help us to see beyond the superficialities that keep us falling for the same poli-tricks or pile of tricks (politics) that keeps us from building the future we want for our children. It is the only way we can restore Maa back into our lives.

Hope that helps.
 
1. “Dr. King’s policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.” – Stokely Carmichael.