A Chance For Survival

"Why don’t you give yourself a chance?" I can easily hear these words, and they repeat themselves, echoing in accompaniment to several different memories, over several different occasions. This was a phrase that my Spiritual Master said many times during the few years that I was in his presence. The first time I heard it, he said it only to me, during my first health consultation with him. I had always thought that I was a healthy person, but I was never aware of the toll stress and depression had taken on my heart and organs. The second time was when he was addressing a group of Initiates, imploring them to take their lives seriously and focus on their quality. The third time came in one of his lectures to the public, "Why don't you just give yourself a chance?" he would say, "It can't hurt to try something different." 

A chance for what? This was the question my mind first asked. I could not see what he could see, and I, like any brand new Initiate of The Earth Center, thought that I had a pretty solid perspective of the world around me. Little did I know that my perception had been carefully built to cater to the world my emotions wanted to see. There is an old saying that goes, "Your elders can see sitting down what you can only see standing up". This saying is a generous understatement for what Master Naba could observe about the paths we were following as individuals, the direction in which we are taking our culture, and the direction in which humanity is walking. And so, he had stood up himself; he had left the bush, his home, where all was in order; where all followed laws of Nature; where many are still sane; where children are still raised to become thinking people. He could have stayed and continued to watch from afar as we bumbled and groped out here in the colonial world; but his compassion would not let him sit and watch. He knew that the disease of colonialism was as rampant here in the United States as it is in the colonial cities of Merita (if not more so). He knew that the struggle of peoples of color in America was a losing battle that had lasted for hundreds of years; and he knew that there was no plan anywhere in the colonial system for to improve it -- to really improve the quality of our lives here. But he knew he could light a fire in our hearts; and he had the proper tools which he had inherited directly from our ancestral cultures. He knew that these tools would teach us what real quality is. 

He wanted to plant the seeds for a new civilization. A civilization that, like its model, is based on quality; a civilisation where each person understands that she or he is responsible for self-governing. He taught us that each will be the one to write his or her own history and to contribute to a harmonious society. He has taught us that it is not what we do, but what we will not do at any cost that defines who we are and how we will be remembered. Through his actions he has shown that this was why he had come to the Earth, to remind humanity of what is important to the life of an individual human being in the scope of all of existence. He has dedicated his life to giving us a chance in this existence, a chance for survival. 

Maakheru, in all his wisdom never said "You should be like me", in fact he often said "You can never do another's dance; just do your own dance".  His was not a dogmatic or a self-interested teaching. Master Naba slept on the ground next to his Initiates; he ate with us, laughed with us, and lamented with us as well. But all that he shared with us never took away nor distracted him from his role in our lives. When it was time for him to relate to us as our teacher and our Spiritual Master, he was not our friend. In those times he was not there to make us smile or laugh; he was not there to enjoy the sweetness of life with us or to comfort us in the face of its struggles. His gift to us then was to shed light on our weaknesses, to show us our own ugliness, our own corruption and dishonesty. 

There were times when this stung deeply. I remember being a new Initiate and experiencing Maakheru's tradition of giving Initates nicknames. Now, these nicknames were often said in a playful way, but they were not what you would call 'affectionate'. The Maakheru was very pointed in giving nicknames and often the nickname would reflect, or more appropriately, mock the weakest part of his student, or whatever characteristic was holding that student back from his or her growth. I myself was very rebellious when I came to the Earth Center; I had even invented a reason to postpone my move from Seattle to Chicago by one month, moving me a month behind my brothers and sisters in my generation. One day soon after I arrived Maakheru walked up to me in the Earth Center and said, "So! You are trouble?!" "I will call you 'Trouble'", and he did just that: amplify my every struggle, whether I was having a challenging time relating to my husband, or refining my personality, or facing the challenges my life was bringing. He was there to call it out; and his calls gave me the chance to see my flaws under his bright and scrutinizing light, one that would not allow me to disregard them or allow my pride to convince me that the light was not true. This was giving my own quality a chance for survival. It was showing me that what I thought was a quality life was not even scratching the surface of its own potential. This was true for most of us Initiates; and when he saw that this battle was difficult for any of us; that we struggled; that we were lazy; or that we were weak, he would say the same thing. "Why don't you give yourself a chance?" 

He has taught us that giving ourselves a chance means cultivating the honesty that we duck away from daily. In our society, most of us are taught by example to brush it off when we are humiliated; in fact, after one our flaws has been called, how often have we heard, "Don't listen to them, just be yourself". This is what we hear instead of encouragement to consider the truth in an observation coming from a different perspective, especially when that perspective is not flattering. But Maakheru always said to us, "No one can insult you; people can only tell you how you look from their side; you should be grateful for this because no one can see how she or he looks from the outside". There were times when I or my fellow Initiates fought back tears while trying to smile and act cool under the ridicule, but in retrospect, even this aspect of humiliation came with great benefit. Maakheru always used to point out to us how weak we were, and he would say, "You see! You think that someone has insulted you; and you are ready to break from that! What will happen the day someone actually tries to hurt you, or the day you are faced with real fear? How will you deal with that??" So we found, gratefully, that there came a day when we did not want to cry under the ridicule; we could laugh at the joke, or see the insight, apply the lesson, and that we had become stronger. For all these things we feel gratitude for Maakheru's insights, for his patience, for his knowing us even better than we knew ourselves. 

In all these ways and more, Master Naba helped us to be ready to carry on, as best we can, the work that he began here on Earth. In these tools that he gave us, we find the lessons that will help us to continue improving our quality, and the strength to share these tools with others, with everyone, so that we can all have a chance at survival.