Starting Simple: Namaste
Posted: 18 Jun 2020, 19:59
I do not think that it is unfair to argue that in today's America, the words Hello and Hi are used more often than the number of times an adult gets a meal daily.
Humanity was able to make eating a culture a long time ago and we continue to live by that culture.
Humanity was also able to make greeting a culture a long time ago and we continue to live by that culture. Eating and greeting are simple words but reflect profound practices over the ages.
I would also argue that the patterns of eating and greeting have changed over the ages across geographic regions of the world.
I am certain that there are many experts of culture who can say a whole lot more than I about it and its pattern of changes over the ages across geographic regions of the world.
As a layperson with no training or expertise about culture, I can only reflect my intuition about the culture that I grew up in and that I observe today.
I grew up in a rural community that not only did not have police institutions but also did not have a deep understanding of the idea of policing as part of its culture. The word police itself did not exist and appeared to have been introduced in a new dialect called Bolisi.
However, the community lived in peace most often than not. Just as the words Hello and Hi are used more often in America today than an adult gets a meal daily, the word Naga is used, at least used to be, more often by any adult than he or she gets a meal daily. Naga means peace.
I later learned that the word Selam is also used among other communities with a similar level of frequency.
Years later, I also learned that the word Shalom means the same as Selam.
I heard for the first time the Hindu word Namaste very recently. If I am not mistaken, it means "I bow to the divinity in you."
The culture that I grew up in makes me connect easily with the cultures reflected by Selam and Shalom and makes me appreciate the depth of the greeting word Namaste even more.
Now, I ask myself how the community that did not have police lived happily in peace.
To be sure, the community knows war and its members could be fierce warriors when it sees peace compromised. As a matter of fact, there is a real possibility that the English word war evolved from local words ዌረረ and ወረራ.
In trying to get an answer for the question about a community living happily in peace without having police, my intuition suggests that war is an ancient thing, that it learned about its cost in ancient times, most probably the hard way, when it willingly chose to put down spears in favor of making laws and started to practice living in peace. I am unsure if there is anyone out there who would argue that this practice did not become part of its culture.
Granted that is the case, in my view, that kind of reckoning was the genesis of civility and hence civilization.
Even though it is hard to understand precisely what quests made the great ancient philosopher Aristotle to characterize man as a rational animal, I don't think that it would be far fetched to contemplate that the philosophers of his time had the quest to reckon the superiority of law and order over lawlessness and anarchy.
Even a layperson like me about the history of ancient Greece can also contemplate that its quest for equality back then is likely to be part of the quest for civility and civilization. Because that quest became successful, it gave rise to its Classical Civilization.
Some aged wise Americans that I have had the chance to interact with about it appear to be well informed about that civilization and much of the history of humanity since then.
Based on my anecdotal observation, where they are lacking is the ability to make observations beyond that benchmark that they have established in their faculties. When you tell them that Pharaoh Akhenaten lived centuries before Goddess Athena, some appear to listen to it as a fairy tale.
When you tell them the very word God printed on the US Bills that says "In God We Trust" may have its origin in African languages and may be used as we speak in its most authentic and organic sense, some of them appear to listen to it as a fairy tale.
However, when today's cameras bring to their eyes some of the most unbelievable actions by human beings against other human beings, many of them quickly subscribe to the consciousness in the cultures reflected in Naga, Selam, Shalom, Namaste, Peace, and so on.
Some of the unbelievable moments recorded in recent weeks include a police officer kneeling on the neck of another man, the late George Floyd, and other police officers knocking down an elderly man, Martin Gugino, onto a concrete pavement.
Whether it was done consciously or unconsciously, the kneeling down by a police officer on the neck of another man for that long was not really kneeling down on his neck. It was rather kneeling down on in the divinity in him. When the divinities in other men and women across the globe saw it, they started to roar. Perhaps, only in clowns that live without it did it not roar.
I stand to be corrected by those who know about the essence of Namaste much better than I but when I watch the divinities in other men and women across the globe roar, I see a Namaste moment to that in the late George Floyd and others.
The current Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, reflected very well about seeing Mr. Gugino knocked down by police officers just like that by saying the following recently: "You see that video and it disturbs your basic sense of decency and humanity. Why, why, why was that necessary? Where was the threat? Older gentleman, where was the threat? And you just walk by the person while you see blood coming from his head. And police officers walk by. It is just fundamentally offensive and frightening."
Perhaps, that moment could be a moment of reflection for Governor Cuomo about what ancient philosophers like Aristotle had to struggle with in defining the boundary between rationality and irrationality.
Imagine the idea of Namaste being in the deep consciousness of the police officers who knocked down the elderly man who walked up to them just like that and leaving him there just like that within seconds.
Imagine police officers had an age old training of saying Namaste for any law enforcement encounter with any other human being. Imagine that becoming a code of conduct even in the case of law enforcement more often than reading Miranda rights.
Most people understand that preference for law and order doesn't mean absence of law enforcement. I am sure that law enforcement is a noble job and there are officers who do their jobs nobly.
However, could it be that when law and order is ingrained deeply in a culture, the need for law enforcement is minimal?
Some have suggested that because of what has been happening in America recently, American policing is on trial. I would argue that if some cultures in America have produced the law enforcement institution that the cameras are bringing to the people's homes today, what is on trial is what some claim to be western civilization.
I still remember that around 1996 or 1997, in a chat with an American friend, I pleasantly brought about the police being there to enforce laws. My friend, not an African American, was quick to put American police in not so good light. I was taken back by the reaction because I was speaking well of them about enforcing law and my American friend was not saying so as well.
Irrespective of how it came to be, the quest for civility in ancient Greece some 2,500 years ago did become a vibrant civilization, a shining city upon a hill of its time and since then in many ways. If it didn't shine in ancient times, Renaissance wouldn't shine in a relatively far more recent times.
Some history writers suggest that other parts of Europe where lawlessness was more prevalent willfully chose to subscribe to that civilization over their own culture that embodied more prevalence of lawlessness. I imagine that Governor Cuomo's recent reflection in New York is a mirror image of what had happened back then in Europe. His reflection comes years after Hillary Clinton wrote, perhaps unwittingly, in her book that was published a few years ago that relishing the inter fighting of others comes to her naturally.
I do not think that the culture that was not preferred disappeared altogether overnight. Perhaps, it might have reemerged during the Medieval Period and has given the world two World wars, including the Holocaust.
I do not think that that subconsciousness wasn't there when some willfully started to abduct others from another continent and meted out almost a genocidal scale destruction on the natives of yet other continents.
Those are now widely acknowledged to be original sins.
A while back, I read somewhere an attempt to answer the question of why a man loves his child that he is willing to die for him or her. The answer went something like the following: Because he loves himself and he sees himself in his child. Arguably, the love of a mother for her child may be even more and goes without saying.
Whether it is viewed from a scientific or spiritual perspective, if divinity existed in the most ancient of man or Adam, divinities will continue to live in mankind for eternity when every man loves himself, which means when he loves his descendant generations according to the above simple logic, and understands well enough the depth of Namaste, which means bowing to the divinities in other men and women. I would imagine that bowing down doesn't mean the absence of fighting altogether. I imagine that it means the first order of business between reciprocating parties.
Our planet may be a small world but I think that it is a big enough home for all of the divinities in it.
Humanity was able to make eating a culture a long time ago and we continue to live by that culture.
Humanity was also able to make greeting a culture a long time ago and we continue to live by that culture. Eating and greeting are simple words but reflect profound practices over the ages.
I would also argue that the patterns of eating and greeting have changed over the ages across geographic regions of the world.
I am certain that there are many experts of culture who can say a whole lot more than I about it and its pattern of changes over the ages across geographic regions of the world.
As a layperson with no training or expertise about culture, I can only reflect my intuition about the culture that I grew up in and that I observe today.
I grew up in a rural community that not only did not have police institutions but also did not have a deep understanding of the idea of policing as part of its culture. The word police itself did not exist and appeared to have been introduced in a new dialect called Bolisi.
However, the community lived in peace most often than not. Just as the words Hello and Hi are used more often in America today than an adult gets a meal daily, the word Naga is used, at least used to be, more often by any adult than he or she gets a meal daily. Naga means peace.
I later learned that the word Selam is also used among other communities with a similar level of frequency.
Years later, I also learned that the word Shalom means the same as Selam.
I heard for the first time the Hindu word Namaste very recently. If I am not mistaken, it means "I bow to the divinity in you."
The culture that I grew up in makes me connect easily with the cultures reflected by Selam and Shalom and makes me appreciate the depth of the greeting word Namaste even more.
Now, I ask myself how the community that did not have police lived happily in peace.
To be sure, the community knows war and its members could be fierce warriors when it sees peace compromised. As a matter of fact, there is a real possibility that the English word war evolved from local words ዌረረ and ወረራ.
In trying to get an answer for the question about a community living happily in peace without having police, my intuition suggests that war is an ancient thing, that it learned about its cost in ancient times, most probably the hard way, when it willingly chose to put down spears in favor of making laws and started to practice living in peace. I am unsure if there is anyone out there who would argue that this practice did not become part of its culture.
Granted that is the case, in my view, that kind of reckoning was the genesis of civility and hence civilization.
Even though it is hard to understand precisely what quests made the great ancient philosopher Aristotle to characterize man as a rational animal, I don't think that it would be far fetched to contemplate that the philosophers of his time had the quest to reckon the superiority of law and order over lawlessness and anarchy.
Even a layperson like me about the history of ancient Greece can also contemplate that its quest for equality back then is likely to be part of the quest for civility and civilization. Because that quest became successful, it gave rise to its Classical Civilization.
Some aged wise Americans that I have had the chance to interact with about it appear to be well informed about that civilization and much of the history of humanity since then.
Based on my anecdotal observation, where they are lacking is the ability to make observations beyond that benchmark that they have established in their faculties. When you tell them that Pharaoh Akhenaten lived centuries before Goddess Athena, some appear to listen to it as a fairy tale.
When you tell them the very word God printed on the US Bills that says "In God We Trust" may have its origin in African languages and may be used as we speak in its most authentic and organic sense, some of them appear to listen to it as a fairy tale.
However, when today's cameras bring to their eyes some of the most unbelievable actions by human beings against other human beings, many of them quickly subscribe to the consciousness in the cultures reflected in Naga, Selam, Shalom, Namaste, Peace, and so on.
Some of the unbelievable moments recorded in recent weeks include a police officer kneeling on the neck of another man, the late George Floyd, and other police officers knocking down an elderly man, Martin Gugino, onto a concrete pavement.
Whether it was done consciously or unconsciously, the kneeling down by a police officer on the neck of another man for that long was not really kneeling down on his neck. It was rather kneeling down on in the divinity in him. When the divinities in other men and women across the globe saw it, they started to roar. Perhaps, only in clowns that live without it did it not roar.
I stand to be corrected by those who know about the essence of Namaste much better than I but when I watch the divinities in other men and women across the globe roar, I see a Namaste moment to that in the late George Floyd and others.
The current Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, reflected very well about seeing Mr. Gugino knocked down by police officers just like that by saying the following recently: "You see that video and it disturbs your basic sense of decency and humanity. Why, why, why was that necessary? Where was the threat? Older gentleman, where was the threat? And you just walk by the person while you see blood coming from his head. And police officers walk by. It is just fundamentally offensive and frightening."
Perhaps, that moment could be a moment of reflection for Governor Cuomo about what ancient philosophers like Aristotle had to struggle with in defining the boundary between rationality and irrationality.
Imagine the idea of Namaste being in the deep consciousness of the police officers who knocked down the elderly man who walked up to them just like that and leaving him there just like that within seconds.
Imagine police officers had an age old training of saying Namaste for any law enforcement encounter with any other human being. Imagine that becoming a code of conduct even in the case of law enforcement more often than reading Miranda rights.
Most people understand that preference for law and order doesn't mean absence of law enforcement. I am sure that law enforcement is a noble job and there are officers who do their jobs nobly.
However, could it be that when law and order is ingrained deeply in a culture, the need for law enforcement is minimal?
Some have suggested that because of what has been happening in America recently, American policing is on trial. I would argue that if some cultures in America have produced the law enforcement institution that the cameras are bringing to the people's homes today, what is on trial is what some claim to be western civilization.
I still remember that around 1996 or 1997, in a chat with an American friend, I pleasantly brought about the police being there to enforce laws. My friend, not an African American, was quick to put American police in not so good light. I was taken back by the reaction because I was speaking well of them about enforcing law and my American friend was not saying so as well.
Irrespective of how it came to be, the quest for civility in ancient Greece some 2,500 years ago did become a vibrant civilization, a shining city upon a hill of its time and since then in many ways. If it didn't shine in ancient times, Renaissance wouldn't shine in a relatively far more recent times.
Some history writers suggest that other parts of Europe where lawlessness was more prevalent willfully chose to subscribe to that civilization over their own culture that embodied more prevalence of lawlessness. I imagine that Governor Cuomo's recent reflection in New York is a mirror image of what had happened back then in Europe. His reflection comes years after Hillary Clinton wrote, perhaps unwittingly, in her book that was published a few years ago that relishing the inter fighting of others comes to her naturally.
I do not think that the culture that was not preferred disappeared altogether overnight. Perhaps, it might have reemerged during the Medieval Period and has given the world two World wars, including the Holocaust.
I do not think that that subconsciousness wasn't there when some willfully started to abduct others from another continent and meted out almost a genocidal scale destruction on the natives of yet other continents.
Those are now widely acknowledged to be original sins.
A while back, I read somewhere an attempt to answer the question of why a man loves his child that he is willing to die for him or her. The answer went something like the following: Because he loves himself and he sees himself in his child. Arguably, the love of a mother for her child may be even more and goes without saying.
Whether it is viewed from a scientific or spiritual perspective, if divinity existed in the most ancient of man or Adam, divinities will continue to live in mankind for eternity when every man loves himself, which means when he loves his descendant generations according to the above simple logic, and understands well enough the depth of Namaste, which means bowing to the divinities in other men and women. I would imagine that bowing down doesn't mean the absence of fighting altogether. I imagine that it means the first order of business between reciprocating parties.
Our planet may be a small world but I think that it is a big enough home for all of the divinities in it.