White Lion Sage

THIS is the Original Love Affair, Love of Self from when everything was united and called God and Darkness. I am who you naturally are, and you are closer to flawless than you ever knew, cuz evolution is the only form of perfection I've ever encountered.

[purplebuddhaquotes]

“I have a habit of falling in love with souls who have yet to be at peace with their bodies, their minds, their weaknesses. I try to build them, to find the parts of them that are missing in me. I end up with holes in my chest.”

— Farah Gabdon 

[thesoultherapyblog]

[sattickate]

I am not a straight people.

Reblog if you are also not a straight people.

[badbuddhism]

A problem with materialist realism

Within the reductionist sects of science, where things are nothing more than the sums of their parts, consciousness is considered an interesting side effect of the evolution of complex brains, and that’s that. Yet how can you fail to see the problem this causes? If conscious awareness is what drove humans to scientific inquiry and discovery in the first place, to then consign consciousness to the bottom of the heap as merely a happy accident of evolution is to end up with a difficult feedback loop where the cause of human curiosity and imagination is said to play no inherent part in the greater workings of what it then discovers. Conscious awareness becomes just another “lucky outcome”, like the almost-probabilistically-impossible perfection of the singularity during the Big Bang which allowed any of us to be conscious, here, right now in the first place. This is seen as the “logical and intelligent” perspective; though one can’t help but feel it at best lacks imagination or trust in the workings of reality, and at worst is really rather lazy.

To deny the existence of consciousness as an inherent feature of nature or reality, is to consign the totality of not only your existence but also that of everyone you love, to nothing more than a pointless penumbra to the shadow of physical form.

[18-15n-77-30w]

[weavemama]

[itslikesleepwalking]

[kushandwizdom]

[with-practice]

[reverseracism]

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH.

[whitelionsage]

Their faces though... “But how did WE get in trouble? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? I had no idea what I was doing had an effect on anyone but me!” This is not a normal human function. Then again, neither is prison.

[purplebuddhaproject]

[wordsnquotes]

Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.

Deborah Reber, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul (via wordsnquotes)

[whitelionsage]

Definitions from Yurugu

Definitions to key terms Ani creates in her work Yurugu: An Afrikan Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior. Her terms from the Glossary are key to understanding the depth of her discussion. I’ve added a bit of context in the parentheses after Ani’s definition. 

-Asili : The logos of a culture, within which its various aspects cohere. It is the developmental germ/seed of a culture. It is the cultural essence, the ideological core, the matrix of a cultural entity which must be identified in order to make sense of the collective creations of its members. (Asili is a Swahili word, meaning beginning, origin, source, nucleus, so the reference to a seed is quite literal, in that Ani’s analysis views the creation of culture and it’s origin as a living organism.) 

-Utamawazo: Culturally structured thought. It is the way in which cognition is determined by a cultural Asili. It is the way in which the thought of members of a culture must be patterned if the Asili is to be fulfilled. (If the Asili is a seed, then the Utamawazo is the plant that grows from it. The Utamawazo is any thing that has been created from its foundational Asili, meaning the dominant mode of a culture. Ani is referring to structures here both physical and nonphyical. A certain thought structure and process will create a certain type of cultural expression. As such, a building’s architecture, planning, materials, purpose, resources, and all other aspects that would go into creating a building, would be done in a way that expresses the Asili through its creations, both the building itself, and the reasoning behind it.)

-Utamaroho: The vital force of a culture, set in motion by the Asili. It is the thrust or energy source of a culture; that which gives its emotional tone and motivates the collective behavior of its members. Both the Utamawazo and the Utamaroho are born out of the Asili and, in turn, affirm it. They should not be though of as distinct from the Asili but as its manifestations. (If the Utamawazo is the plant that grows from the Asili seed, the Utamaroho is the chlorophyll, the fluids that feed and further the plant. If we used an animal as an example, the Utamawazo would be the body, and the Utamaroho would be the blood, lymph, and other fluids we live and depend on, especially hormones that control our biological functions. The point is that the process that goes on between the two: the body grows, and the sources of energy, our drives, our vital essences fuel our bodies, which helps them grow, according the the Asili seed of our DNA.)

[whitelionsage]

Dichotomization and The Notion of Harmony

Section 2 in Chapter 1 of Marimba Ani’s Yurugu. The work speaks for itself, and through us after. 

The Platonic view sacrifices the wholeness of personhood in order to set the stage on which the epistemological foundations of the European view will be played out. Cognitive styles were being molded or at least anticipated. This codification suited an utamawazo that was the realization of the cultural asili. Plato had layed an elaborate trap. Once the 'person' was artificially split into conflicting faculties or tendencies, it made sense to think in terms of one faculty 'winning' or controlling the other(s). And here begins a pattern that runs with frighteningly predictable consistency through European thought, continually gathering momentum for ages to come. The mind is trained from birth to think in terms of dichotomies or 'splits.' The splits become irreconcilable, antagonistic opposites. Holistic concepts become almost impossible given this mindset. First the dichotomy is presented, then the process of valuation occurs in which one term is valued and the other is devalued. One is considered 'good,' positive, superior; the other is considered 'bad,' negative, inferior. And, unlike the Eastern (Zen) conception of the Yin and the Yang, or the African principle of 'twinness' (Carruthers refers to this as 'appositional complementarity') these contrasting terms are not conceived as complementary and necessary parts of a whole. They are, instead, conflicting and 'threatening' to one another.    

The process of dichotomization in the European utamawazo is of great significance, for it is this dichotomized perception of reality on which the controlling presence (imperialistic behavior) of the cultural myth (mythoform). Realities are split, then evaluated, so that one part is 'better', which mandates its controlling function. This, we will see, is a pattern throughout Platonic thought. Moreover, it is a pattern that develops consistently as a continuing characteristic of the European utamawazo grounded in the nature of the originating asili.  Robert Armstrong said it this way,

Dualities abound, constituting our civilization. Our religion is premised upon good and evil, and indeed could not exist were it not for the presence of evil which endows it with meaning and efficacy. We analyze the unitive work of art into form and content; and we construct a logic based upon right and wrong. Our languages are of subject and object... Our science is one of the probable versus the improbable, the workable as opposed to the unworkable, matter and anti-matter... all revealing more of the nature of the scientist's mind than of the actual nature of the physical universe. (From The Ideology of Blackness, edited by Raymond Betts in 1971)

    He continues,

We see the world as delicately consistuted of both terms in an infinite system of contrasting pairs, and bound together by the tension that exists between them. To be sure one term in each case is, by definition, of greater value than its opposite... In large measure then, the myth of the consciousness of western Europe is the myth of bi-polar oppositions.

Armstrong foreshadows a basic premise of this study a he relates this polarizing tendency to the structure of the Euro-American state, its religious ideas, and its international posture.

It is not inevitable that there should inexorably be a division of the world into friend and foe with the result that the history of foreign policy in recent years at least is more accurately to be characterized in terms of our determination to identify and to perpetuate enemies than to create friends.

    We have already completed the circle, for it is possible to trace this tendency of conceptualization and behavior from classical Greece. The theme is confrontation. The mode is control. Page duBois refers to this as the 'polarizing vision' based on 'confrontation between opposites,' which she identifies as being adumbrated in the art and architectural style of the 'metropes' of Athens. In duBois' analysis, Greek thought about 'difference' (barbarian/Greek, female/male) was analogical and became heirarchical as a response to political crisis following the Peloponnesian War.     

 The thrust of her study (Centaurs and Amazons) is significant in this discussion for two reasons: 1) because of its recognition of the ideological significance of the style of Greek speculative thought and 2) because it affirms our recognition of those cognitive characteristics that distinguish the developing European utamawazo from previously established traditions.     

When is it, in Greek thought, that 'appositional' relationships became 'opposites'? When does it become necessary to perceive pairs as being in polar opposition and exclusive, rather than as complementary and diunital? This may be the point of origin of the European consciousness. I suspect taht the need occurs at a much earlier point in the archaic 'European' experience. Classical Greece was merely an important phase of standardization. It had inhered a particular asili, already carrying the cultural genes.     

DuBois believes that the shift from polarity to hierarchy corresponds to 'the shift from democratic city of the fifth century to a period in the fourth century of questioning the polis as a form. The origins of the initial splitting tendency itself are important in this study, however, because it may be neither 'natural' nor universal to perceive the universe in terms of the 'self' as opposed to 'other', and the ideological significance of tat distinction and the implied relationship between those two beings is the point at issue.     

As duBois points out, the 'Greek male human' defined himself very much in terms of opposition to what he was 'not'- 'barbarian female animal.' This brings us closer to the origin of a nascent 'European' consciousness. She asserts that, 'The Greek male struggles against imaginary barbarism, bestiality and effeminization.' In her view the opposition between self and other did not always imply superior/inferior relationship. But certainly the Greek/male/human thought that it was better to be that (superior, i.e., Greek/male/human). And this perceived separation gave Plato, then Aristotle, the polarizing mechanism with which to work. It was already present in the Greek consciousness, a consciousness resting on an utamaroho that had a predilection for postures of superiority and dominance. Polarity was necessary for the hierarchy that followed. DuBois refers to the heirarchical structures as a 'new ordering' based on a 'new logic,' one that establishes the 'Great Chain of Being' based on 'relationships of superiority and subordination.' But Platonic conceptions represent a formalized ideological statement of heirarchical thought, the terms of which were already present in the Greek mind. We agree on the significance of these formulations, however. 'Heirarchical ideas of difference formulated by Plato and Aristotle continue to define relations of dominance and submission in Western culture and in philosophical discourse today'.      

This brings us to yet another related and salient feature of the European utamawazo. It does not generate a genuine conception of harmony. An authentic idea of harmony cannot be explained or understood in this world-view. 'Harmony' is mistakenly projected as rational order, an order based on the mechanism of control. What Plato recognizes as 'harmony' is achieved when the 'positive' term of the dichotomy controls (or destroys) the 'negative' term/phenomenon/entity: when reasons control emotion, both in the person and in the state. (In the African and Eastern conceptions, harmony is achieved through the balance of complementary forces, and it is indeed impossible to have a functioning whole without harmonious interaction and the existence of balancing pairs.)     

A theory of the universe, a theory of the state, and a theory of human nature are implied in Platonic epistemology. Justice, or the Good, is achieved when the 'best' controls the 'worst'. The universe is ordered through such control. In the State, the 'highest' controls the 'lowest'. The person is constantly at war within himself and is not properly human until his reason controls his emotion, i.e., men were to control women. The political implications of this consistent and unified theory are not difficult to extrapolate. Plato has already described what for Europe becomes the 'Ideal State,' on in which the human being who has gained control of himself in turn controls those who haven't (women, of course, were perceived as not having the necessary control). It would follow that the universe is then put in order by the nation of people who are 'higher' (controlled by reason). It is also significant that Plato indicates that the 'higher' tendencies will always be 'less' in number and the 'lower' of greater mass. This rationalizes an ideology of control by the few within the State and world dominance by a small racial minority. If indeed this splitting of the person is artificial, inaccurate, and undesirable- if indeed emotion is an inseparable part of the intellect and of human consciousness- then this new epistemology ('mental habit') can be interpreted as a justification of what was to be manifested as European racism, nationalism, and imperialism. The group that has the power to enforce its definition of 'reason' so that it becomes the most 'reasonable,' consequently has a mandate to control those whose reasoning abilities are judged to be less (and so there is a need to 'measure' intellectual ability: enter I.Q. methodology). 

On the level of epistemology we have seen that this splitting of the human being facilitates the achievement of that supreme mental state (of being) that in European culture has come to be identified with the ability to think, at least to think rationally. Unless the intellect is separated from the emotions, it is not possible to talk about them distinctly, to concentrate on gaining knowledge by controlling or eliminating the emotional relationship to a given situation, thing, or person.

[vanish]

[whitelionsage]

(1) The African world-view, and the worldview of other people who are not of European origin, all appear to have certain themes in common. The universe to which they relate is sacred in origin, is organic, and is a true 'cosmos'. Human beings are part of the cosmos, and, as such, relate intimately with other cosmic beings. Knowledge of the universe comes through relationship with it and through perception of spirit in matter. The universe is one; spheres are joined because of a single unifying force. These world-views are 'reasonable' but not rationalistic; complex yet lived. They tend to be expressed through a logic of metaphor and complex symbolism. Rob the universe of its richness, deny the significance of the symbolic, simplify phenomena until it becomes mere object, and you have a knowable quantity. Here begins and ends the European epistemological mode. What happened within embryonic Europe that was to eventually generate such a radically different world-view? What part did Platonic thought play in the process? Whether or not all of Western philosophy is 'but a footnote of Plato,' certainly his influence on the European style of speculative thought and ultimately on the utamawazo - the general premises and assumptions of the culture - has been formulative and seminal. Any discussion of the nature and origin of European epistemology must focus on, if not begin, with Plato. This is not to say that he was not influenced by the pre-Socratic African philosophies that preceded him. But what Plato seems to have done is to have laid a rigorously constructed foundation for the repudiation of the symbolic sense - the denial of the cosmic, intuitive knowledge. It is this process that we need to trace, this development in formative European thought which was eventually to have had such a devastating effect on the nontechnical aspects of the culture. It led to the materialization of the universe as conceived by the European mind - a materialization that complemented and supported the intense psycho-cultural need for control of the self and others...  The dialogue the Republic is Plato's ideological justification of the State he wishes to bring into being. What we witness in the dialogue can be viewed epistemologically as the creation of the object. In previous and disparate world-views, we see a knowing subject intimately involved in the surrounding universe until, through sympathetic participation, meaning is revealed, expressed, and understood via complex and multidimensional symbols. But in the 'new' epistemology we exchange symbols for 'objects'. The creation of the object requires a transformation of the universe, no longer experienced but rather 'objectified'. This transformation is achieved through a changed relationship of the knower to the known. In the Republic, Plato performs this feat: a psycho-intellectual maneuver by which the subject is able to separate her/himself from the known. This separation is at once the key that opens the way to 'knowledge' as conceived by the European and the key that locks the door to the possibilities of the apprehension of a spiritual universe.  Two things occur, one effecting the other. First, the psyche undergoes a transformation: slowly the 'self' is perceived differently from before, then, the universe to which that self relates is perceived differently, because the nature of the relationship is changed. The self is no longer a cosmic being, instead it becomes 'the thinking subject'. The greek word psyche indicates an understanding of an autonomous self distinct from everything surrounding the self. The primary function of this self becomes the 'knowing' and 'thinking' of scientific activity, which is no longer connected to 'intuiting'. According to the Platonic view the highest possible endeavor is philosophy, and therefore the most valuable person is the philosopher, the lover/seeker of 'truth', the one who 'thinks' best. Other functions and human activities are devalued. This new self becomes fiercely isolated from its environment. Why autonomous, distinct, and isolated? Because this 'thinking being', if it is to be capable of scientific cognition, must be, most of all, independent... According to the new epistemology, in order to be capable of critical thought, we must be independent from that which we wish to know: uninvolved, detached, remote. Clearly, what this allows for is control. First, we achieve control of the self, the self who is no longer able to be manipulated by its context. In fact, it is a self without context (which in African terms makes it a self without meaning, a 'non-self'). The idea of control is facilitated by first separating the human being into distinct compartments ('principles'). Plato distinguishes the compartments of 'reason' and 'appetite' or 'emotion'. Reason is a higher principle or function of woman/man, while appetite is 'more base'. They are in opposition to one another and help to constitute what has become one of the most problematical dichotomies in European thought and behavior. This opposition results in the splitting of the human being. No longer whole, we later become Descartes' 'mind vs. body'. The superiority of the intellect over the emotional self is established as spirit is separated from matter. Even the term 'spirit' takes on a cerebral, intellectualist interpretation in the Western tradition (Hegel).  As we understand it, Plato's 'reason' is the denial of spirit. Reason functions to control the more 'base appetites' and 'instincts'. The European view of the human beings to take shape here. It is a view that was to grow more dominant through centuries of European development and that was to become more and more oppressive in contemporary Western European society, where there is no alternative view offered. For Plato, self mastery, like justice in the State, is achieved when reason controls: '...in the human soul there is a better and a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise; but when owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse - in this case he is blamed and is called the salve of self and unprincipled... look at our newly created State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the words 'temperance' and 'self mastery' truly express the rule of the better over the worse... the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are the lowest and most numerous class... Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few and those the best born and best educated... These two... have a place in our State; and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few' (Plato, The Republic).

Marimba Ani, Yurugu: An Afrikan Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior. Chapter 1: Utamawazo, The Cultural Structuring of Thought. Archaic European Epistemology: Substitution of Object for Sumbol. Africa World Press, 1994.

[whitelionsage]

AFX - PWSteal.Ldpinch.D

AFX - PWSteal.Ldpinch.D Support the artists! Buy "AFX - Chosen Lords" at your favourite store

Its about to get real eclectic in here

[whitelionsage]

I promise to post all types of weird ancient sacred liberative stuff in the face of cement-faced fascism