Hetepu (Peace & Blessings) Family.
Continuing our conversation from Why are there so many Gods and Goddesses in African Religions (Part I). The question that comes to mind is “How Do You Work with Your Archetypes?”
There are numerous ways to work with your archetypes, gods, goddesses, etc. but I have found that the best way to work with them is by first understanding how your mind works, so as to not fall into the trap of becoming superstitious because working with archetypes is kind of a magical process. Therefore, for simplicity purposes, our mind is composed of three parts and they are the conscious, subconscious and Superconscious.
So as to not make this post too incredibly long, the conscious is the part of our being that we use to make decisions.
The conscious is the part of our being that we use to make choices and decisions.
The subconscious is the part of the mind responsible for governing all of our processes that occur outside of conscious awareness, like the storing and governing of our personal experiences, memories, emotions, and beliefs, along with maintaining our autonomous body functions.
While the Superconscious, on the other hand, is different from the subconscious in the sense that it is basically an unlimited storehouse of every living being on the planet. Since the Superconscious is the storehouse for everything it is omnipresent (everywhere), omnipresent and all-knowing, and functions according to the law of synchronicity.
We can think of the Superconscious as being like the Sun. Sidebar: Some of the older Kemetic traditions equated Ra and the Sun with the Superconscious., which was incorporated into other traditions, which is the reason all of the Kemetic creation theories pay homage in-one-way or another to Ra/Amun Ra.)
As you know the Sun is full of raw and untapped power, which can be used to power anything. But, if you plugged a television set directly to the Sun. You and the television set would burn up because the intensity of the Sun’s heat and power is too great. You would need a converter or some kind of tool to streamline the power of the Sun so that you can use it safely without harming yourself or anyone else, and this is what the subconscious does for us.
Our subconscious basically reflects whatever we believe to the Superconscious, which if held in our awareness for a period of time will become our reality.
Now, the reason most spiritual work places emphasis on the subconscious is because the subconscious acts as a gateway to the Superconscious since its primary objective is to help us to physically survive. What this means is that our subconscious basically determines what we want from the Superconscious. To put it plainly, since our subconscious governs our emotions we basically determine the type of life we want based upon how we believe and feel, and it is our Superconscious that indiscriminately makes what we believe and feel a reality.
The purpose of the subconscious is to help us to survive by protecting us from danger. It accomplishes this by indiscriminately learning and memorizing everything that is in its environment, so that we are not hurt physically, mentally or emotionally. One of the most familiar ways the subconscious protects us is by reminding us how it feels to be burned by fire or something hot. So every time we see fire, it is our subconscious that is reminding us to be careful. We respect the element fire and are cautious dealing with it because we all have a memory of either being burned or seeing someone burned that is stored away in our subconscious. Our subconscious uses this memory to remind us of the consequences of not being careful when handling fire.
But sometimes our subconscious can become too overbearing and will store memories or life lessons that are detrimental to our wellbeing even though it thinks it is doing the right thing. Typically these are traumatic memories that have made such a deep impression on our psyche that they have formulated beliefs and actually influence our actions and behaviors. Most of the time these beliefs created by these traumatic memories cannot be erased and replaced by simply saying so because they are deeply embedded into our subconscious. When a traumatic event has been embedded into our subconscious whereas it shapes our beliefs. Our subconscious dictates and even enslaves our conscious with these memories, thus preventing us from achieving the life that we want out of fear, guilt, and other inhibitions. Right now, part of the reason you are reading this post is that there is something you want or wanted to accomplish or do but it was your fear, guilt, and inhibitions that prevented you from doing so. Now, you walk around with a heavy heart full of regret because your subconscious beliefs and emotions are holding you back.
This is what is called a crossed condition because the subconscious is not supposed to make choices and decisions for us. This is the responsibility of our conscious. The reason the subconscious has hijacked our life is that we have been led to trust our emotions over reasoning. So we believe that everything that is good for us should feel good and everything that feels bad should feel bad. This simple system of classifying works for touching fire but not for more complex matters such as choosing a career, mate, etc., hence the term crossed.
I have found that there are a lot of people who think they are cursed or that “God has forsaken them.” In truth, they have simply crossed themselves up with their beliefs. For instance, the other day I happened to turn on the tv and there was this lady complaining about how she could not find a man. So she moped around all depressed and unhappy because she wanted a man and when one of her friends mentioned in disbelief that her boyfriend was cheating on her. The lady commented that there were only two types of men and they are, “The ones that cheat and the ones that have not got caught.”
The audience laughed but the reality is that this lady created her own limited paradigm. She has crossed herself up and the reason she will not find a good man is that she believes that there are only two types of men and they are both unfaithful. So, since she believes this, her subconscious will make sure that she will never meet any good men.
The sad thing is that this lady could run smack dab into the man of her dreams but her subconscious beliefs and feelings will sabotage all of her chances of having a good and prosperous relationship because she believes that there are two types of men and they all are unfaithful. This lady’s subconscious may also only ensure that she only meets bad men just to validate her beliefs that there are no good men.
It is important to understand that the reason our subconscious makes gross errors in our judgment in choosing a mate, a career choice, trusting people, etc. is that it has a limited perspective, which is solely based upon our personal experience. The subconscious is like a child in the sense that it overgeneralizes solely based upon what it has experienced, which is our personal experience.
Don’t get me wrong, when the subconscious generalizes over things like fire it is great because all over the world fire is hot and if not used correctly will cause harm. But, the subconscious cannot generalize that all men are bad because human beings as a species are too dynamic. There are some aspects of men that can be generalized but not all of them because we have a unique home life, unique family and friends, unique cultural and historical backgrounds, etc. , and all of these factors are what makes each man on the planet uniquely different. Saying that there are no good men is like saying all men are the same or all women are the same, etc.
Now, if this lady is serious about getting a good man she has to uncross herself, which means change her beliefs by impressing upon her subconscious a new belief. Since most negative beliefs are impressed upon our subconscious through some emotional traumatic experience. The new belief has to be impressed upon the subconscious with a greater emotional force to overcome the old thinking and generate a new experience. Basically, she needs to create and/or develop her own personal truth or personal maa.
Establishing Your Personal Maa
Maa is the Kemetic word for balance, order, law, righteousness and truth but truth is relative and subjective. For instance, if I do not like brussel sprouts (which I am trying to but I don’t) and when I eat them they make me gag, My personal maa is that brussel sprouts are not for me. This does not mean that this vegetable is good or evil. It simply means that for me this vegetable is not good. Therefore, your personal maa is knowing what works for you based upon your Spirit. In the previous example with the lady experiencing relationship troubles, She is basically living her life based upon someone else’s experiences. When we our spiritually ignorant, we all do this by asking our family and friends their opinions on what we should do or the individuals we should choose to come into our circle. We forget that we are dynamic beings so although one person may look good in a particular relationship does not mean he/she will be a suitable mate for you. This is the reason we have to let our Superconscious take a more active role instead of relying on the whims of our subconscious. And, one of the most effective ways I have found to do this is by creating/developing your own personal maa by: 1) Adopting a story as a mental guide and. 2) Using the character in the story to symbolize aspects of the mind.
So that we are clear, the reason for creating/developing your own personal maa is because our subconscious mind, which you will recall is the part of our being that governs all of our personal memories, beliefs, emotions, and indiscriminately mimics whatever it is exposed to. Communicates to us through symbols and is programmable but it cannot make decisions so it needs a model as a frame of reference. Part of the reason our subconscious has led us astray so far is because it did not have anyone to model in regards to the things we want out of life. As a result, our subconscious usually motivates us to foolishly model athletes, actors, entertainers, etc. When you adopt a legend as a mental guide, it trains the subconscious to understand that it has a limited experience and must align itself with the Superconscious.
1) Choose a Legend
Choose a legend or story that you are fond with as a map of your mind. The more intricate the story the greater impact and insight the story will play in your life.
2) Using the character in the story to symbolize aspects of the mind.
Label the character in the story based upon the aspects of your mind.
You can choose any legend that you desire and radiates with you. For instance, if you like the Wizard of Oz or The Wiz you can choose this legend and allow Dorothy symbolizes your conscious. The good witch is your Superconscious and the evil witch if your subconscious. (This theme can be used for all fairy tales where there are two opposing witches.). If you are familiar with the Hindu chakra system you can include this in your subconscious programming as the “yellow brick road.” There are numerous ways you can play with this and you do not even need to stick with this story line. You can weave other stories into your mythology as was done with the film series Shrek.
Although you are encouraged to pick any legend you want, I personally would avoid choosing the Christian lore because of notable contradictions. For instance, according to Christian teachings which is influenced by astrological theology, Jesus is the source of everything which is equivalent to the Superconscious. However, religious dogma also portrays Jesus as the hero/savior of humanity thus indicating that the messiah is outside of our being, but the true hero/heroine in mythology around the world always corresponds to the conscious mind. This means that Jesus is both the Superconscious and the conscious, which does not make sense to the subconscious part of our being because, the subconscious is very logical like a computer and needs clear instructions. This combined with the racist and sexist perversion of the Christian message makes the Christian lore a poor model for our mind.
This is the reason most Christians (including Jehovah Witness and Muslims who follow this similar path) have no individuality, feel as if they have no rights to question God/Jehovah/Allah (or messengers), and are borderline (if not) religious fanatics because, they have surrendered everything to the Superconscious part of their being. Unfortunately, what a lot of people are realizing-particularly those that leave these religions of “least resistance” -is that while it may bring solace to give your burden to someone else (Jesus, God, etc.). It does not excuse you from your destiny and the lessons you must learn. For instance, if you have trouble managing your anger, it does not matter how many times you pray to Jesus or how many attributes of Allah you recite. You are still going to have this problem because you cannot just give it to something. You have to learn how to control your anger, which involves you working face-to-face with your neglected subconscious. In this case you may be able to use the good angel/bad angel model but you have to remind yourself that this is an internal dialogue occurring within your mind and not outside of you.
There are a lot of problems that arise when using the Christian lore as a model mainly because the early Christian writers decided at the Council of Nicaea to interpret the stories attributed to Jesus literally. Instead of getting boggled down with trying to sort out what is good and what can be discarded, I just prefer to start afresh with another mythology such as the Story of Osar.
I personally am fond of the Kemetic Story of Osar (Asar, Ausar, Osiris) because it is ancient, it effectively helped the Kemetic people build a 3,000+ year civilization and it is full of metaphorical language. I symbolize my conscious as Hru (Horus), the Superconscious as Osar and the overgeneralizing and childish nature of my subconscious as Set.
Once you commit your legend to memory and assign who your Superconscious, subconscious and conscious is going to be.
Hru (left/Conscious), Osar (center/Superconscious) and Set (right/subconscious)
All of the other characters becoming supporting cast members that will help you align to yourself with your Superconscious. The magick occurs when you start to trust your intuition and simply talk to these archetypes and tell them what is on your mind because the archetypes are linked to the Superconscious, which uses synchronicity as a form of delivery. For instance, I have asked my Set why a particular behavior exists and he has shown or rather reminded me where I picked the negative behavior from. I have called upon my Djahuti (Thoth, see About Rau Khu) to explain to me how to solve a problem, and after a few minutes of thinking or worrying about the issue. I receive a response that just pops into my head and as soon as I do I issue my Djahuti words of gratitude. I have talked to Hru (Horus) and receive a sign in the form of a hawk. I have been traveling and been given signs from Npu (Anubis). In other words for me, when I connect to my archetypes I also forge a bond with the spirit guides and animal totems associated with them. I have written about all of this in my books just to prove that it works and explain from a scientific perspective why.
We can have as many archetypes as we like because they exist to help us to make a better life. The thing is we all have archetypes because generally speaking, we all have to deal with unpleasant events. We all encounter issues when dealing with people, and so on because these are universal. So, we all have archetypes speaking to us all the time. The problem that most of us had is that: 1) We have been told that all of the gods and goddesses are false gods and thereby powerless (useless) because we were listening to people who were literally worshiping a deity outside of themselves, And, 2) We did not have a map of the human mind, so we did not know which of the voices (archetypes) to listen to.
Now that we understand truly what archetypes are, and we see that Africans (and other people of color) never worshiped false gods and idols. It becomes quite clear that our ancestors simply understood how to work the Divine’s greatest creation, which is the human mind.
Hopefully, with this understanding, we can now make some drastic moves in our lives.
Hetepu.
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