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Truths Inside African Tradition

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Joseph A.
Joseph A.
Ancient Africans assumed "Truth" to be God generated natural vibrations or rhythms that showed as laws of nature. They believed rhythms of the God source and nature vibrated at the same speed.  Believing their God given minds similarly emitted vibrations, Africans never doubted the power of their minds to apprehend the ultimate truth about the laws of nature-an early basis for the design of magic. By arising from the Universal energy springing out of God's infinite mind meant that truth was always present and merely awaits discovery or the deciphering of "what is so". To learn more about nature, they studied the stars. This necessitated the development of mathematics and geometrical symbolism for devising laws-laws when put into words became "seed" philosophies about the Truth. This seed gives rise to a "Tree of Truth." Out of these "seeds" sprouted root, trunk, branch, leaf, and fruit truths-each part being called a principle. Example: from the "seed" of love sprouts the root principles of Ma'at and from the roots sprout sub-principle branches like basic goodness, beauty, and truth. In turn, these branches respectively give rise to sub-sub-principles like morals, aesthetics, and logic/rational thinking-each an essential of the seed of love and each possessing the "genes" of love. This "Tree of Truth" contains the tools for attaining mysticism (i.e. achieving the union of the human soul with God's soul) and how to live.

African Tradition deals with Absolute, Societal, and Individual Truths in each of three realms-immaterial, intangible, and material. Immaterial Truth relates to "the heavens"-the timeless, eternal, and unchanging reality-which Ancient Africans called "the Way" (a concept borrowed by ancient Eastern cultures--e.g. Buddhist).  Intangible Truths operate in the Sublime. Situated between the Material and the Immaterial, Sublime truths are perfect and finite and yet are so far above the human mind's ablility to grasp as to seem infinite. Material Truths are characterized by change-- the only known cosmic constant-the only earth world reality. Ancient Africans said nature instituted change to direct humans into seeking changelessness-to cause humans to seek out the imperishable reality. Greater awareness of this comes when Ancient African myth is understood as a system which promotes the union of the human soul with God's soul. At that point, one gains insight into one's own divine and unchanging nature (Ashby, African Origins p88 and Egyptian Yoga, p 60). By manipulating the components of the "Tree of Truth", one learns to quickly perceive connections between differences in real things by means of productive imagination and life experiences. In this manner, deeper truths hidden in the recesses of one's being can be more easily spot-lighted.

Furthermore, inside African Tradition the Truth is everywhere-like raindrops during rainy season. All who open their mouths can allow in the raindrops to quince the thirst generated by ignorance of the truth. By not believing there to be a faucet of Truth controlled by some religious or philosophical leader, Ancient Africans had no intermediate human to act as a "go-between" for the individual and the one universal high God. Instead, every individual's duty was to discover and use the truth as a means of relating to God directly. Hence sprang the African concept, which found its way into the Bible (John 8:32): "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free". According to Egyptian proverbs: "The closer you get to the truth, the simpler it is"; "The wise person who acts with Ma'at is free of falsehood and disorder"; "Truth and knowledge produce courage"; "it takes courage to pursue and accept the truth"; and "The laws of God are the first thing the seeker will find on the way to the truth". In short, "Truths" are seeds of love (e.g. harmony, unity, peace, affection) which constructs the universe. 

website: jablifeskills.com

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.

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