hello everyone. i'm doing an essay/research paper for my Comp 1 class. we were told we get to pick whatever topic we wanted to. i decided that i'm going to do one on Rastafari. i found a bunch of things on the net under this topic. but i was also wondering if maybe i could get some peoples opinions on it as well. i found this forum quite helpful as far as some things to cover in my essay. like the assumptions that rastafarians are "rasicst" against white people. me being of the european decent, wondered that topic as will before being educated on this topic. allot of my friends are rasta, or know some information about the belief. so that is quite helpful as well.. but if there's another resources that anyone knows about to help me on this topic, i would appricate it as well.. Thank you very much
rasta used to be racist but consider the situation of slavery and colonialism and land ownership in jamaica i think they had to reinvent themselves after selassie died and stayed dead and the two sevens clashed and babylon stood [you might want to read 'when prophecies fail' on non-armageddons] fortunately there was the bob marley 'one love' message was in place to replace the old 'blood and fire' line
i understand the reasoning behind thier ill feelings due to facts in history.. i'm not disagreeing right or wrong with that.. i understand why they think the way they do. but also, jah sees no color.. we are all his children regardless of our skin pigment. but also, i had a discussion last night about this topic. that some believe that being "white" is a curse from jah? i believe it was something like that..
i would add that the disprophetic {is that a word?] elements of rastafari went wrong at the same time first some hippies and then some punks and second generation mods were tuning in to reggae a racial unity message is helpful when all the money of babylon is finally starting to flow your way [despite being siphoned off at the source by the vampire blackwell] plenty of black jamaicans are anti-rasta, duke reid [treasure isle] being a prime example, so the white friendliness had to soften a few hearts it might be helpful to read the works of marcus garvey [with whom i disagree on many things] to get an idea of the underlying racial feelings but when some jamaicans went to ethiopia in the early 60s, they were shocked [trenchtown must've been looking pretty good] selassie wound up discouraging repatriation, telling them to fix things at home first [something like that] rasta without racism is vastly preferable [duh] but it is the choice of ja rastas to make, not ours we are merely pale imitators [sorry for the pun]
Might i suggest studying the kebra nagast, its actually seen by some as a rasta bible, its about the story of king solomon and the queen of sheba and how the ark of the covenant was given to solomon to look after as he was the wisest king of all time, but then solomon did something to anger god i believe, so god moved the light of the covenant to ethiopia and under the protection of solomons son menelik. The ark of the covenant has remained in ethiopia until present day where it sits in the st mary of zion church in Axum, ethiopia. Jah rastafari, emperor haile selassie, can trace his roots back to solomons bloodline and the kebra nagast is held quite close to all rasta. Also try and find any of the works of marcus garvey who actually started the 'back to africa' movement in the early 1900's that said that many black slaves should actually return home to their rightful place. Then There is also a point that is often said but never understood fully and that is that you should study bob marley and his children. Watch bob marley interviews on youtube, watch his sons interviews or something. Rasta is not about rules n regulations, its about a way of life, a way of thinking, and a freedom of the peoples of the world. In the kebra negast (glory of the kings) it says 'he who feels it, knows it, and he who does not feel it does not know it' and that is pretty much the best mantra to have when searching jah, if you feel its right, it normally is. jah bless.
Yumyum, do you mind if i use this line in my paper? "Rasta is not about rules n regulations, its about a way of life, a way of thinking, and a freedom of the peoples of the world. "
not at all my love, i hope it helps you in any way, feel free to add me to yumyum2k5@hotmail.co.uk if you have any questions you'd like to ask me 1 on 1. obviously i dont speak for all rasta because rasta is personal to each person and different for each person, but as such, you really need to speak to one rasta about what he believes in himself, rather then what he believes 'is rasta'. do you understand? When your rasta, nobody tells you your rasta, your not suddenly baptised as a rasta ya know? you have to just....feel it in your heart that your a rasta. i myself as a rasta believe that everyone has a right to decisions, that right is non-negotiable, and as a rasta i must accept everyones decisions and the reasons they choose as such, and if asked, i must give my opinions on what i feel is right. not to throw my beliefs down their throat, because that if someone believes in rasta purely on you smacking them in the face with it, then they arent believing in rasta at all, they are just believing what YOU believe to be rasta. obviously there are generalisations that are central to the rastafari faith such as jah being christ reborn and that nobody truelly dies, rather their soul just leaves this body. i hope this helps in some way. one love. jah bless. and i speak only for my own rasta faith, not for the faith of a whole movement. ross
rastafari i feel like is a truly shamanic religion, on many crossroads because it is so current, also one of the most confusion because its not as established as others, bless it all, and one love, *smokes herb* there is much for us all to learn, no? where is the music of the prophets?
The general term for power or energy in Sanskrit is shakti. There are many specific aspects of this power. For example there can be differentiated the power of consciousness (cit-shakti), prana-shakti (life force power), kundalini-shakti (power of mother nature or evolutionary power), etc. Kundalini is the mother energy which upholds, sustains, purifies, nourishes, and guides man's evolution and life energy when given a chance. It is the sustainer of the entire universe. That is who the ego should surrender to, but in most cases because of the ego dominance (fear of the kundalini), this energy remains dormant, latent, and unacknowledged. The entire universe as such is our mother if we allow for it. There are two broad meanings of the word, prana which broadly translated means energy or chi. The vital energy running in the body is called prana vayu or vital wind. It is associated with the other winds of the body that run through the nadis (psychic pathways/channels). When the psychic channels are cleared/purified and the latent circuits activated/connected and placed in synergistic harmony, then the evolutionary energy (which is *activated* prana) then runs through the central nadi (called sushumna) which carries with it the non-dual transconceptual wisdom. This is the kundalini awakened in the awakened bodymind and represents the union of Ha and Tha (sun and Moon) or Ida and Pingala nadis. This union of kundalini in the wisdom channel corresponds to the union of Shiva/shakti of the evolutionary power with primordial awareness. When Cit (cit-shakti) and Kundalini are united in harmony then there is pure bliss in Sat-Cit-Ananda. Why, because all neurotic displacements are dissolved, there are no blockages or obfuscation – pure love and consciousness are united and activated as one.
