What  Southern African and other Indigenous Wisdoms 

have to Offer the West # 2

“The consciousness of the seer is a greater power of knowledge than the consciousness of the thinker. The perceptual power of inner sight is greater and more direct than the perceptual power of thought.”

Sri Aurobindo

 

The primal mind was able to commune intimately with nature as well as obtain non-local information from the Field of spirit. These primal medicine men and women and their shamans were the original seers. Genomic studies have shown that the San Bushmen were the first people. Humans first arose out of Africa. There is rock art in the Apollo cave in Namibia going back 25,000 years showing evidence of shape shifting (therianthropes, human figures - part animal part human) which occurred during trance dancing. We were able to attain advanced states of consciousness millennia ago not easily achieved today. 

"It was only when the white man came that wilderness existed."  

Luther Standing Bear

 

When we go out into wild places we make preparations and use technology for our comfort as well as to make up for our lack of wilderness skills. When we return we are thankful to come back to the comforts of civilization.

The San Bushmen could walk out into the wilderness with all the things in a small skin bag that they needed for survival; a digging stick, a bow, poisoned arrows, a quiver, a fire stick, and a sipping straw to suck water out of the desert sand. Their purity in nature enabled their spiritual expertise. They could not have survived easily without access to non-local information.

 

"Wilderness is an area where earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man; where man himself  is a visitor who does not remain.”

 

Our approach, at best, is well defined by the Wilderness Act of North America which intention was to protect certain wild areas that should remain wild. At the same time the act confirmed the power of this Sacred Space where as "civilized" people - few could or would want to remain. For indigenous peoples it was their home.

The Israelites were also once a nature bound people as were we all.

 

"Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness…” Isaiah

 

”Ask of the wild animals and they shall teach you and the birds of the sky shall tell it to you or speak to the earth for she shall guide you and the fishes of the sea will declare it to you.” Job the Shuhite (related to Esau)

“The Kundalini in the form of latency is coiled like a serpent. One who impels this Shakti to move will attain liberation.” 

Hatha Yoga Pradipika

 

Manipulating this life force which facilitated energy shifts  and advanced stages of consciousness was easy for primal peoples.  We all have this universal, feminine force - Shakti, Kundalini in Yoga - although few of us nurture it. The San Bushmen call it Num, the Zulus, Umbilini. Most tribes in Southern Africa recognize it as feminine and some snake like (Credo Mutwa) and resting dormant in the lower belly as is the Kundalini serpent energy until it is moved by some form of spiritual endeavor. 

For the San who are distinctly different from the Bantu peoples, it is mobilized by clapping, chanting and dancing often with rattles around their ankles around the primal fire. This enables an out of body spirit flight where they glean information from the "Field" - mainly the Ancestors. They call it the Little Death (Richard Katz) since they fall prostate on the earth while their spirit travels into the Astral plane.

For the Bantu it was dancing to the sound of the drum sometimes with rattles around their ankles. When Bantu sangomas go into trance the ego steps aside and the spirit of an ancestor takes over completely. They become voluntarily possessed to access the non-local information required to help the client or the patient. This process is much more dramatic than the trance-channelling we see in the west. 

The sangomas' body language and facial expressions change, they often shake as the spirit enters the body rather than falling like their San neighbors do with Num. They may speak in "tongues or in a Bantu language different to the one they know and even in English. The word sangoma come from the Zulu ngoma which is a drum. It is the sound of the drum that brings forth the spirit possession.

The way the Bantu use the Umbilini  and the San, Num manifests differently as it would in anyone of us. How it manifests in us is all highly individual. It can be subtle or more dramatic as it is in the San and Bantu. Both can access information not localized in time in space through their trance states. 

"Somewhere beyond the walls of our awareness, the Esau side, the hunter side, the seeking side of ourselves is waiting to return." 

L. Van der Post

I wasted a lot of time in earlier years trying to emulate what I had read from yoga texts. When I initiated as a sangoma it manifested in other ways for me as well compared to my mentors and their African initiates. 

When we immerse in nature with as little as possible between us and the Earth Mother we are able to experience some of their profoundness. With the right intention of going inward rather than outward we can attain equanimity, an alfa, relaxed state of consciousness and a feeling of oneness with nature and each other. Moreover, our dreams and our connection with the Field intensify. The longer we are out, the deeper the effect. Nature has multiple polarities to help us find the middle way of the Buddha. It is a room with many doors and windows to spirit.

It is vital that we adopt more of an indigenous consciousness for ourselves. The demise of the primal self in the West has resulted from our upbringing, education, religion, culture, and the allure of materialism, technology and the innumerable commodities that tempt us. We have lost our indigenous, root, core or primeval self and our inherent wholeness because of “civilization.”  Our children are even more at risk as the hypnosis of technology and social media becomes more pervasive. We have paid a huge price for the benefits accrued. For the San it was one for all and all for one - for us not so much. Self-absorption and narcissism seem to be running rampant.