It has been over a year since I came out of entwasweni (sangoma training) and began a journey which started when I was born. This is a spiritual journey during which I have visited many shores, including Christianity and atheism. It is a journey during which I spent a lot of time thinking, thinking that the intellect was the only way to the Truth. This was so until I accepted what and who I am. This was so until I embraced my calling and destiny.
The journey is eternal and I am at a point in my eternal life where I have finally accepted that my essence is not human. My essence is the spirit and this has added a new dimension to my reading of our human state of being, geopolitics and South African politics. One of the voices I have been listening to is that of Albert Einstein who says: “A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space.
We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”
Einstein said these words in 1954 but what he said then about the state of humanity is as true today as it was then. As was the case then, humanity is not listening. In the turbulence that we see, and hear, in global and domestic affairs, God and the spirits of our ancestors are calling on us to stop, listen, reflect and act.
If we listen with our individual and collective spirit, we shall, in the turbulence, hear the sound of a great calamity moving towards humanity if we fail to truly listen and, therefore, fail to seize the opportunity that is being made available to us to save the whole of humanity from itself and self-destruction.
In the domestic sphere, if those who govern this country fail to hear, theirs will be the last supper. As we approach the national conference of the African National Congress (ANC), it seems the ANC will be handed over to women in a rotten state and this will be seen by many as further evidence that nothing important should be left in the hands of women. If this comes to pass, it will be for a very good reason. Women are blessed with the gift of giving birth to life. Maybe the ANC will die in the hands of those who have been tainted by male power but may, one day, be resurrected in the hands of women who are pure.
Whether we are talking about global or domestic politics, the old must die so that the new can be born. The ultimate solution, however, is for us human beings to reconnect with our essence – the Spirit.
As it is argued in the book, Illumination; The Shaman’s Way of Healing, we “must take part in dreaming the world into being as a participant in creation, or else continue repeating the nightmare of history and have to settle for a world that is being dreamed by others”.
Aubrey Matshiqi is an Independent Political Analyst. Opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in this article are that of the author and NOT of the SABC
