Compartmentalization

Ka’at Ibi: Compartmentalization

In the M’TAM initiation, we learn that compartmentalizing our life is an obstacle to our spiritual growth. When we adapt our behaviors and values, as we assume the roles of family member, co-worker, friend, etc., we risk compromising the values that allow us to raise our qualities as human beings. We know that spirituality is an uphill journey that takes discipline, sacrifice and spiritual honesty, if we are truly going to achieve spiritual growth. When we compartmentalize our lives, as this system has conditioned us to do, we fall victim to the illusion that we can set aside designated time for our spiritual growth. 

Every action we make either advances or degenerates our spiritual growth. We must be honest in understanding that even though we have many responsibilities throughout our lifetime, we only live one life, just like we can only walk one path. If spiritual growth is our goal, our entire life must reflect the same integrity in all of our actions. Without this principle one becomes a dishonest individual, only acknowledging the areas of his/her life that inspire pride, and excusing the rest as not being “the real me”. This hypocrisy only leads to stagnation of the self. 

Compartmentalizing our lives has been conditioned in us from the time one is born into the modern system. It is a political construct presented to fuel the modern system; not our personal development. We are raised with the conditioning that we all must become productive parts of society. However, what fuels the modern system is in direct conflict with the values and traditions of your Ancestors. The system is strengthened when a human is disoriented with no values. Therefore, society has no interest in a human advancing close to the Divine World. Compartmentalizing one’s life then becomes a way to disassociate from this conflict. It gives us the illusion that we can behave one way in one environment, and differently in another without any spiritual consequences. This is extremely dangerous to our spiritual growth! This unconsciously redirects one’s energy to maintaining multiple façades throughout our life, rather than challenging oneself to maintain consistent behavior. 

We can only be one person and we must be honest with oneself and be clear what our goal in life is. If our goal is to live a spiritual life, our behavior must match that in all facets of our lives. As an initiate of M’TAM one follows the Divine Code of Human Behavior, also known as the 77 Commandments, which provide us with our moral code of conduct. These commandments were given to us by the Divine World over 90,000 years ago; they are what allow us to maintain purity of our thoughts and actions to become closer to the Divine World. They give us our taboos and code of ethics. It takes spiritual honesty to avoid the excuses which society permits, and discipline to have self-control in all situations that we face. One of the most important practices that we have as Kemetic people is to judge our day against the 77 Commandments and see in what ways we fall short; see what areas of our lives we still harbor certain corruptions that sabotage our spiritual growth. We know that as Kemetic people there are no excuses for our actions and no room for apologies, one must reflect honestly to learn from mistakes and do better next time. 

A key component to deconstructing these compartments is to surround yourself with others who share your values and are walking on the same path as you. It is important to have others around you to hold you accountable when they see your actions derailing you from your goal. There is strength in community. Others can see aspects of our behaviors that we hide from ourselves. It will take consistency to routinely examine our actions against the 77 Commandments, spiritual honesty to see where we need to improve our qualities and humility to benefit from the support lent by our communities. This is the tried-and-true recipe our Ancestors followed to achieve self-control and the discipline of one authentic life as a quality human being.