At the same time, I argue, it is one of the most crucial aspects, at least spiritually.
“I and I consciousness” can be defined as a total oneness between all people and the divine – manifested within one person - , with one of the “I”’s representing the divine (or God, Jah), the other “I” the person. "I-and-I is used instead of "we", while rejecting also the other pronoun "you", as causing only separation and division between humans, while there is spiritual oneness among them.
This also implies that the (shared) divine resides within each individual.
This here ("dis ya" in Jamaican patois) YT video (underneath) explains the concept quite adequately related to what I learned before. While the communal "unity", and "equality" aspect I-and-I implies and stimulates is valuable and true too, and I don't want to downplay it, this post is more about the "divinity within humans" part of it, though these aspects logically interrelate..
This recognized "divinity within humans" within the "I-and-I consciousness" (the video also confirms) is in fact a sharp difference with the distant, external God or Creator – to which people (God’s creations) are submitted – as in Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
This difference can on the one hand be explained through Rastafari’s social history: from a colonial subject to a proud - and divine! - being, connected to Africa. A rebellious response to dehumanization since slavery of Africans, continued in an unequal (neo)colonial order in the West.
Some scholars explain it as such, as a rebellious spirituality. This is as such not untrue.
A social response, yes, but the “I and I” concept did not arise in a cultural vacuum. Of course the Afro-Jamaicans shaping Rastafari since the 1930s, carried an African spiritual legacy with them. I will argue in this post that the deeper origins of “I and I” should be sought within the cultures and beliefs of African ancestors, and their spirit- and ancestor-based faiths, “religions”, and traditions.
This is in some sources more or less acknowledged, but seemingly grudgingly. The (supposed) influence of Hinduism on Rastafari is documented and promoted much more, I noticed. A strange bias, even if in Hinduism there is indeed also an idea of “divinity” within all humans, but that is in fact the case for most older spiritual beliefs or “religions” (older than the Abrahamic ones), including animist and pantheic ones (that see the divine in everything, not just humans), everywhere in the world. Why attention to the Hindu influence, over traditional African ones, more connected to the actual ancestors of most Jamaicans?
AFRICAN ORIGINS
Jamaica’s enslaved African population were forcibly brought from various parts of Africa, but overall relatively many from what is now Ghana, belonging to Akan-speaking people. Historical figures estimate the percentage at about 50% of all Africans ending up in Jamaica (being Akan): substantial yet not overwhelming. Also members of the Igbo people (from SE Nigeria) ended up relatively often in Jamaica, in some parishes (especially in Western Jamaica) representing 20 or 30 % of all slaves. Also slaves and Africans from Central Africa – the Congo region – were quite present in Jamaica, in their case more in Eastern Jamaican parishes like St Thomas.
Many plantations consisted however of mixed populations, with relatively many Akan (called then Coromantee).
All this serves to contextualize what spiritual ideas these Africans brought with them.
Original Ghanaian/Akan, Igbo, and Congo “religious” beliefs all shared certain basic characteristics, This includes an overall structure of a supreme deity: not approachable, distant, neither meddling in human lives. This meddling is left to lesser/lower deities, and to spirits of the ancestors. This makes them perhaps polytheistic, though that term is too simplistic, I think.
What’s interesting is that all these traditional beliefs from different parts of West and Central Africa share as well that that “supreme deity” or “divinity” is represented, - “trickled down” for lack of a better word – within each human being, as an inner divine spark. This divine spark within human beings can take different forms and dimensions, but it all differs from the one abstract or heavenly God, as in Christianity and Islam.
MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
In mainstream Christianity, after all, the holy spirit requires “indwelling” (like a conversion) implying that the divine thus does not reside in all humans by birth. Some alternative thinkers or theologists within Christianity hinted a bit more at an “inner divine spark” in all humans, such as the Spanish mystic Santa Teresa of Avila or the Italian Thomas of Aquino, and among the Gnostics, also pointing at an inner divinity through God’s spirit. Mainstream Christianity lambasted this as “heretic”, preferring to separate creation (human creatures) from the Creator, as does also Judaism and Islam.
This is different in original Akan, Igbo, and Congo spiritual ideas and cosmology, wherein (in different forms and degrees) the divine is present as a “spark”, and energy within all humans (individuals) by birth, at the same time often connected with the ancestors and community. Also in “Eastern” religions, such as Hinduism, this idea of the “divine present in all humans” is present, as well as in Chinese Taoism, ‘Tao” being an ultimate divine principle, present in all things, including humans.
Islam separates creator and creation even more than Christianity or Judaism, seeing as heretic all suggestions of the divine residing in (or even “entering”) humans, only the more mystic (and freer) Sufi orders within Islam think a bit more in that direction, such as the Marabout in (Mande-speaking) Western Africa, maintaining pre-Islam spiritual aspects within their brand of Islam. Mainstream Islam – however – rests on a sharp and uncompromising boundary between the Creator and creation, to maintain the uniqueness and “oneness” of God, but a oneness apart from humans, that the latter should submit to and study. Tellingly, the very word “Islam” is Arabic for “submission”, i.e. to that one, supreme God (Allah in Arabic).
You have submitters and creators, apparently.
Again, an important difference with traditional African spirituality and cosmology, with less that separation, in different ways.
KRA
Does the Akan spiritual tradition have an inner divine spark, that is present within – or enters - humans? Yes, but so do the Igbo and Congo traditions. Partly, it is conditional, seemingly setting it apart from Hinduism and Sikhism having that divinity within humans more as “standard” and statically present.
Delving into Akan, Igbo, Yoruba, and Congo traditional beliefs, one can conclude – however – that personal life forces always have a link with a higher divinity, like a “divine spark”, so to speak. In Ghanaian or Akan religion this personal divine connection within a human being is called “Kra”. An individual carries this divine spark. Essentially this is not very different from the “I and I” concept within Rastafari.
In the Igbo traditional belief and cosmology, what is called “Chi” connects similarly to a divine inner spark or “destiny” within each human.
In the Congo (Bukongo) beliefs the supreme deity (remaining distant), known as Nzambi, leaves a divine spark in each human. This is - as elsewhere in Africa - more potential and dynamic than static, as man’s actions influence - can dim or strengthen - this inner light. Doing good and moral things strengthens this divine light within. It can be polluted, or dimmed, but is there.
A beautiful thought, in some way, and also – in essence – resembling “I and I” within Rastafari, as harmony is desired communally and spiritually. Referrences to “badmind” (envious) people, backstabbers, or “wolves in sheep clothing” - condemning these -, in Rastafari-inspired Reggae lyrics, attest to this.
It seems to me that such origins (at least in part) within the African diaspora make more sense than a supposed influence outside of Africa (e.g. from India).
WIDER STUDY
For this post, I even went that far to study how the “inner divine” in humans is viewed in various worldwide religions/belief systems. Not just in Africa. Doing this religion-wide, global study, I realized that it was something I myself really wanted to know too: having a broad overview.
Like I mentioned before: most, older “religions” worldwide – before Abrahamic Judaism arose – had in some way an idea of an inner divine connection, a spirit within each human. In mostly animist and pantheist religions, such as the Amerindians had, as well as the Aboriginals, partly some African peoples, and (e.g.) the ancient Celts or Basques in Europe, divinity is in humans, but is not uniquely human: assumed also present in the natural environment, in trees, mountains, lakes, and animals. Humans just share in that spirit. That is animism or pantheism, that moreover neither tends to recognize an “external, or upper god” (or plural gods).
Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and the best-known Hinduism as ancient Indo-Persian belief traditions, have in fact as “standard” this “divinity within humans”, but connected to upper deities. This Hindu “inner divine” shares in this sense some similarities with African traditional faiths, but is only more static, taken for granted, in African faiths more conditional and relational.
Some religions, such as Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Amerindian faiths, and others, do not have external or “sky” gods or “upper deities” as such, but still see humans as part of a total, spread and shared, spiritual, divine essence. In Shintoism this divine spirit within humans is neither taken for granted, as it is seen as corruptible, requiring in cases “cleansing” similar to as in other (also African) religious traditions, worldwide.
An interesting parallel across cultures and continents, but also intriguing differences in the precise manifestation or functions of this “inner divinity”.
RITUALS
I already described recurring tenets of traditional African religions, in which ancestors are important, as are lesser deities influencing lives, alongside divinity in humans.
That inner divine spark (from upper deities) in humans in African religions tends to be – interestingly – more conditional and dynamic than in Hinduism. It can be affected (corrupted, weakened), but also invoked and strengthened, in which rituals and rhythmic music play a part.
This conditionality has echoes in “I and I” within Rasatafari, whereby (a present) consciousness is enhanced or aroused through “meditation”, drumming and chanting, marijuana use, and/or “reasoning” sessions among Rastas, which is discussing deeper issues.
Yoruba-derived, Afro-Cuban Santería has an inner divinity in each adherent, called “Ori” (literally “head” in Yoruba), but also requiring maintenance – by good living - or occasional cleansing (ritually) before other deities can help you, or “mount” you for guidance. This inner divine “ori” needs to be purified for that. Rituals required are usually accompanied by percussive music, explaining in part Cuba’s rich musical tradition.
At the same time, the music shows another parallel with “I and I” in Rastafari, among whom the Nyahbinghi drumming and chanting have a meditative purpose, to strengthen “I and I”, both in the community and in the spiritual sense. Deities and their personification certainly differ, as the deities in Santería tend to be deified ancestors (male and female) with special powers (like Shango, Yemayá), while Rastafari adherents – formally believing in One God - focus on Haile Selassie I in Ethiopia as – manifestation of - Jah/God, and at the same time king and emperor. Further, Rastas refer to the Bible, or to Marcus Garvey, and other Black thinkers and activists. These explicitly – rationally/intellectually, one might say - are related to African roots and an Afrocentric worldview, whereas it’s more implicit in the spirit possession religions like Santería or related Haitian Vodou.
BROAD STUDY: COMPARISONS
The parallels with Rastafari became clearer through this broad intra-faith, global study of mine, which I found very educational, but I learned new things about world “religions” or spiritual traditions (and their history) beyond that as well.
Germanic mythology apparently taught that humans were made originally from wood (tree trunks) by upper deities, while the Celts south of these Germanic peoples (France, Alpine regions, later Britain and NW Spain) were originally very animistic in their beliefs (the holy oak, but toward whole nature). Pre-Roman people in what is now Spain (Iberians, Mediterranean, Celtic a.o.) apparently gave bulls also a divine status, as archaeological studies showed. Ironic, seeing the dwindling but still practiced bullfighting tradition of Spain, that many see as animal-unfriendly. Maybe the bullfighting represents a fight against pre-Christian idolatry, some historians therefore argued.
North of these Iberians, the Basques in the western Pyrenees region and Northern Spain/SW France have an old culture with spirituality originally related to “Mari”, a feminine deity, that can be associated with “Mother Earth”, leaving a divine spark within humans. Later, with Christianization in Iberia from about 200 AD, Basques would become quite Catholic, even influential within Catholicism in Spain and Europe (the Jesuit order was founded by a Basque, for instance), and Basques were important in Spain’s Christian “reconquista” on Muslims, but they had apparently an older traditional belief, which was qua divinity more “ground” and nature than “sky” and “book” (as later Christianity) based.
This idea of a sacred, feminized “mother earth” can be found among several older, religions of an animist nature throughout the world, including among the Amerindians and Aboriginals, usually adding roles for ancestor spirits.
For ancient Greek philosophers (like Plato), the “thinking mind” of people were signs of the divine, which seems sensible to me, and not unlike what the other, older religions stated (in more mystical terms, perhaps), or through the term “soul”, also in Christianity.
Igbo spirituality was in comparison more individualistic, and less hierarchical (lacking priesthoods, kings, and such), than the Akan, Dahomey (Fon/Ewe), or Yoruba belief structures elsewhere in Africa, who had hierarchies with kings and priests. This reflects the more decentralized, rural living in Igbo land (now SE Nigeria), compared to the more centralized, and urban-based Yoruba social structure (now SW Nigeria, and parts of Benin). With the city comes hierarchy, this made me realize. A deeper lesson!
While setting out to study Rastafari’s “I and I consciousness” and its connection to ancient African traditions of the ancestors, my broader study of all these different belief< systems in the world, and divinity within it, thus proved very insightful for me too.
ZOOMING OUT: DISRUPTION?
Especially when looking at it from an “eagle’s” or “bird ‘s” view – or “zooming out” in modern computer parlance - , as a general overview, I noticed that the Abrahamic religions now so dominant in this world (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are in fact exceptional, from a historical perspective, representing a “disruption” , if you will. They started denying after all the “divine”, the “godly” as inherently present in humans, in creation – unlike virtually all preceding beliefs among humans - , but asked of humans only to try to resemble, and submit to “God” or “Allah”, in Judaism and Islam. Divinity seems with this removed away from the human. That I find dubious..
In Christianity, Jesus somehow represents the divine spirit in a human being, and in old Christianity, such as in Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity or Armenian Orthodox Christianity, this original meaning of Christ is maintained. More than Catholicism, and especially Protestantism that came later.
Orthodox Christianity after all centralizes Jesus as embodiment of a human as divine, and also as model: God became man, so that man can become God. Giving oneself to this spirit of Jesus enforces in that sense thus humans’ inner divinity. Jesus represented not just “another higher God” or his holy son, that humans must serve, but rather embodies the divine within humans. That’s certainly another way to look at it, than what mainstream Christianity in Europe mostly came to promote.
Reading about this in Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity (Tehawedo), I concluded that Ethiopian Christianity was in fact more Christian than Christianity as I know it in Europe. Catholicism had some avenues for “deification”, or the inner divinity or spirit, entering within mortals, but these few disappeared with later arising Protestantism (early 16th c.). Text-, scripture-focused Protestants maintain – based on “the fall of man” in the Bible - that humans are sinners by nature – maybe forgiven through God’s grace, while Catholics uphold humans’ good essence, only “wounded” by sin. The latter – with all the criticism institutional Catholicism and the Vatican gets and/or deserves – sounds in my view a bit more sympathetic and humanistic. In the context of this post, it might also be that the “goodness of God” – as creator – is left in his/her creations. That’s a good thing to say about Catholics, but the same idea was even stronger in older (Orthodox) – “original” Christianity.
I concluded from my broad overview and the “zooming out” above all those religious views, that Islam and Protestantism are most opposed to “inner divinity” within humans. To a lesser degree, also Judaism, Catholicism, or Orthodox Christianity rejected this “inner divinity within humans”, and likewise set clear boundaries between creator and creation (just allowing a bit more flexibility than Islam or Protestantism).
REJECTION OF INNER DIVINITY
Why this sudden rejection in Judeo-Christian and (later derived) Islamic religion of that divinity within each human? I began to wonder then. Was there a fear of that inner divinity within humans, believed in for so long? Of them taking control and responsibility of their own lives and lot, not subjugated to “powers that be” in societies, but using their own agency, or “divinity”? Did Abrahamic religions more truthfully arise to thrive for domination over the masses, rather than seeking their redemption, enlightenment, or consolation? Power games disguised as spirituality and faith?
Islam behaved historically as a conquering, aggressive religion, but Catholicism later likewise (since Columbus in the Americas), and European/British Protestantism as colonial religion (also in Jamaica, where Rastafari originated, or e.g. in Apartheid South Africa) all were dominant and oppressive, often as part of exploitative, enslaving societies, with unequal power relations.
Black, Protestant Christian-derived churches (adding African spiritual elements) arose also in Jamaica, just like in the US South among African Americans, adding more the idea of “possession” and inner divinity, along with other African retentions, also musically.
Rastafari historically drew on that (Black Protestant-Christian faiths), among other influences, such as on other local African retentions (Akan, Igbo, Congo) within Jamaica, from (Congo-based) Kumina and Burru spiritual movements outside the churches, perhaps some Indian influence as some stated, and on reinterpreting the Bible, to take it further toward a recognized inner divinity within humans – in this case African Jamaicans -, thereby opposing submission to a colonial order, and one’s dehumanization, rather foregrounding one’s agency and creative force. Also to stand up for one’s rights.
That is the spiritual part, as condition for one’s own agency. That agency, then, directs attention to the African roots and history, rationalized but mixed with spirituality, as the “thinking mind” (as Plato and Aristotle thought) – or the “soul” of humans - by itself represents divinity within humans.
Marcus Garvey’s views on religion were important here. Garvey noted that all races have their gods and deities as their racial/geographical likeness (Chinese Buddha, Indians Shiva etc.), except Africans in the diaspora, often worshipping a whitened, European Jesus. Haile Selassie – whose crowning in Ethiopia in 1930 Garvey seemed to predict – offered such an own, African god or deity to Black, African-descended people, in the form of an African emperor. Like Jesus in old Orthodox Christianity, he represented a divine figure (some Rastas even dispute that, but leaving that aside), at least representing the “divine spirit” within a human.
That Haile Selassie I considered himself a Christian – believer in Christ – need not even disturb that, unless you can take things only literally.
Relatedly (somehow), Christian art in Ethiopian Orthodox churches, monasteries, and elsewhere within Ethiopia, depict Jesus, the apostels, the three wise men, Mary, and so on, but all as local Ethiopians, with the Ethiopian phenotype (dark skin, frizzy hair, Afro’s, etcetera).
The spiritual and social within Rastafari thus connect, with the “I and I consciousness” as vehicle, a means, created within an own culture, organically. This self-created spiritual vehicle in turn served to express the purpose of Black redemption and liberation.
This makes it both unique and emancipatory.
PROBLEMATIC
This reflects in Reggae lyrics – “I and I” as concept – sometimes even explained in some lyrics, such as in Black Uhuru’s Rasta anthem “I Love King Selassie”, or in the Congos “Open up the Gate”, and even in some of Bob Marley’s lyrics that “inner divine” within I and I can be traced. This means that lyrically Bob did not sell out, using the same Rasta terms as less commercial Rasta artists at the time, such as Culture, Israel Vibration, Dennis Brown, the Itals, and many others. The “I and I” notion recurs in Reggae lyrics of newer or today’s artists too, if they are Rastafari, albeit with personal touches.
As also heard in Reggae lyrics, however, is critique of Vodou and Obeah, being African-based belief systems, but associated with witchcraft with negative intent.
This seems contradictory to Rastafari’s Afrocentric character, yet can be explained by the Protestant Christian context Rastafari arose in Jamaica, since the 1930s. Many Rastas grew up with such Protestant tenets, as reading the Bible, with reverends lambasting old “magic” practices.
Besides just repeating Christian critique, it might also be that the Bible with monotheism seemed maybe to give a more solid “purpose” to the movement than vague remembrances of polytheistic, spirit and possession religions from forefathers.
Besides the eschewing of “magic”, spirit of the dead, or “spirit possession” – and the several deities, instead of just one - of traditional African religions of the Akan, Igbo, Yoruba, or Congo ancestors – the role of Good versus Evil is less clear than in the more rigid Bible.
There is indeed an idea – and a preference! – for the good within these African traditional beliefs as in the Bible, but this is more fluid and intra-human than as in the Christian external “devil” attacking mankind. Harmonizing or cleansing rituals take place, more in a concrete, communal sense.
Even the Congo beliefs that recognize such bad “magic” (spells on people, etcetera) more, still show preference for the good to overcome, though this requires spiritual work.
MUSIC AND DANCE
Again music, especially percussive and with drums, tends to be important in these spiritual process, including the dancing to it.
Some anthropologists even called these African traditional religions “danced religions”, as dancing is done for possession, healing, and harmony spiritually and communally.
That rhythmic, percussive music within spirituality is an African retention, sustained in e.g. Nyabinghi drumming, and even some present-day “conscious” Reggae, even if that is a secular music genre.
One article in the academic “collective volume”, ‘ Chanting Down Babylon : the Rastafari reader’ (ed. by Nathaniel Samuel Murell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane,1998), has as title ‘African dimensions of the Jamaican Rastafarian movement’ (by Neil J. Savishinsky), and addresses some issues I mentioned here: the strong relationship between dance, music, and religion within African culture, stronger than on other continents, and with percussion and rhythm being important as another African trait.
A specific link between “music” (or even movement/dance) and spiritual beliefs is found in some cultures outside of Africa too – of course -, but is most prominent and worked out in Africa, especially regarding dance, percussion, and rhythm. Savishinsky explains well how this African retention of “danced faiths” is present in Rastafari practices, as well as in Reggae music. Dancing to “conscious” Reggae shares the same essence.
Savishinsky does, however, not mention “inner divinity” notions as part of the “African dimensions’ of the title, keeping it practical.
Another article is the same volume is titled: ‘The epistemological significance of “I-an-I“ as a response to Quashie and Anancyism in Jamaican culture’, by Adrian Anthony McFarlane.
This sounds interesting and seemingly touching the theme of this post (“I-an-I”). McFarlane definitely describes it adequately enough, and as explicitly “Jah within” Rastas, i.e. (broader) an example of divinity residing within humans.
ORIGINS?
In McFarlane’s article, though, the origins of this “inner divinity” is hardly analyzed, neither elsewhere in this volume of scholarly articles (‘Chanting Down Babylon : the Rastafari reader’), only a vague, Eurocentric connection to Plato’s philosophy is made.
Other articles and works I read discuss a Hindu influence on Rastafari, as there was an East Indian minority in Jamaica, often in same social spheres as lower-class “Black“ or African Jamaicans, thus interacting. The word “ganja” and marijuana use being such an influence – even that is disputed, the Congo region in the African motherland had early marijuana use too, with spiritual dimensions. The quite harsh and ugly separation of menstruating women as impure is found among Hindus, but also among African Jamaicans (and other Afro-Caribbeans), and some Rastafari adherents, such as those of the Bobo Shanti mansion, resulting in temporary gender separation.
The “inner divinity” the Hindu faith does acknowledge and honour might be an influence too, but it was also present within own cultural spheres, of African roots. Indians were still a minority, and were in addition not always Hindu, including quite some Muslims too.
I still do not discard the possibility that a mix of influences (inner and outer) came to Rastafari’s founders and elders over time, but I find the African origin of an “divine spark in humans”, found in Igbo, Akan, and Congo spiritual traditions – along with the music and percussion focus from those African cultures – a more plausible route – or dominant wave - in shaping Rastafari’s “I-an-I” consciousness and concept.
All the more odd that this origin is virtually ignored and disregarded in most academic studies about Rastafari, aided – perhaps – by the bad name Vodou- and Obeah-like spirituality has among common Jamaicans, and even among Rastas, as some type of anti-social, evil, ill-intended witchcraft.
This is clearly a Protestant and Biblical influence on Rastafari, as is the scepsis among some Rastas of “ancestral spirits”, that also Afro-Jamaican cults like (Congo-based) Kumina uphold, as “spirit of the dead”, Rastas like Levi (priests) in Judaic tradition, avoid death, and dead bodies, and the strictest ones thus don’t even go to funerals of loved ones. African traditional religions – on the other hand - give a role to such deceased ancestral spirits for the communal harmony, and often even present death of an individual as “becoming fully divine”.
Taken too literal it can go that way, but in many spiritual issues things or words should not be taken always literal. A main mistake Christians and Muslims made throughout history, by the way. As Rastafari look back to the African roots, ancestors still play a spiritual role.
Perhaps not as wandering “spirits of dead”, but rather as part of the wider “I-an-I”, along with Jah, the person, other people,.. and his/her natural ancestors..
As on other matters, opinions among Rastas may differ, to be sure, and Rastafari tends to attract free thinkers, but the eschewing of Vodou or Obeah recurs throughout Reggae lyrics by different artists, and in the rituals of the Rastafari mansions (Nyabinghi, Twelve Tribes, Bobo Ashanti). Nyabinghi chants are for instance often derived from Protestant church songs, “Rastafaried”, so to speak lyrically, and musically Africanized, with polyrhythm and call-and-response added.
GENDER
I have mostly left out gender (male-female) aspects from my analysis in this post. This is certainly relevant and significant, as in the said Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) the One God is described as male, while older religions (that recognize inner divinity) have more space for female deities, like Hinduism and African traditional faiths, or the historical beliefs of Celts, Amerindians, and others. Several cultures on all continents had a feminized earth “Mother Earth” as main deity or divinity/divine essence.
This is maybe interesting for another post – the gender dimension -, but has some relevance for this post. Aside from presenting God as male, the Abrahamic religions are – let’s face it – patriarchal and discriminatory toward women. Also the Bible, although there was more progress in a more open, humane interpretation than in Islam, wherein women’s second-class status is still today more or less normalized under the guise of religion.
The link with denying “divinity within humans” is hard to make, though. Hinduism knows female deities, and partly equality in theory, but overall has in current practice many female-unfriendly, discriminatory practices, like in Islam, dictated by men. The idealized – read demanded – purity, and restraint, for women in sexual and leadership matters is there in Hinduism (less expected of men).
There are more examples of women’s discrimination and lower status within Hinduist practice, including e.g. still occurring widow burning.
Hinduism recognizes further a divine essence in humans, but also influential female deities, resulting in an odd mix.
This “purity” idea and subjugation certainly were there too in the Abrahamic religions. The Bible, the Quran, and Hadith all show a fear of “free women” and with that “free female sexuality”, that is curtailed for women, but more or less expected (even celebrated) for men.
Jamaican Rastafari thinker and poet Mutabaruka argued that “insecure men wrote the Bible and Quran”, explaining the hostility against female equal rights and freedom in those “holy books”. Mutabaruka is one of those Rastafari adherents, by the way, who thinks the Bible and Christianity are overemphasized as base within the Rastafari movement. Other Rastas remain however quite “Biblical”, so opinions differ in this regard too.
A link with the “divinity within humans” in religions/faith (or not) can be that if all humans have that divinity within, with no male leaders or spokespersons speaking for that one God, that equality between men and women would also be accepted. Hinduism (and other examples) contradict however this seemingly logical outcome.
Gender inequality is often so deeply ingrained as a social problem, not even spirituality apparently can improve this.
African traditional faiths do have much more equality for women, with little structural discrimination, though it differs per tradition, including some that historically tolerated having concubines for powerful men.
In Afro-Caribbean Vodou and Santería, and related faiths in Africa itself, women often have leading roles in practice, organizing rituals and such, while that “sexual restraint”, many religions demand of women, is not so present. This also shows in dance, and more or less tolerated polyandry (albeit alongside more open polygamy for men).
CONCLUDING
After my extensive analysis and study of “divinity within humans” in spiritual movements worldwide, and in Rastafari in particular, I can conclude some interesting things.
The comparison of all those religious and spiritual movements all over the world opened my eyes for some deeper truths. I realize now more strongly that removing the divinity from within humans was a disruption by Abrahamic, “holy book”-based religions. An aberration, historically.
Whether this was out of sincere conviction, or deliberate for power and domination reasons, - or both – is difficult to tell. Judaism for instance did not seek to convert so much, at least initially. This removal of intra-human divinity still can have domination or “political” reasons, but then within the own, in this case Jewish, community, namely acquiring more submissive, less questioning followers or believers, to be manipulated and led, etcetera.
This might be a too negative interpretation of mine, I realize, maybe some men just liked that external One God idea so much that they promoted it (aided by books), without thinking it through.
Deliberate or not, several historians pointed convincingly at the historical connection between Protestantism and its values and tenets with the rise of Capitalism, in industrializing England since the 17th c. Industrialization (that was financed by Britain’s colonial and slavery gains, by the way).
Some historians point out that Muhammad the prophet of Islam was in fact an early example of a capitalist businessman when he received his calling to spread Allah’s words.
Feodalism preceded capitalism historically, but Capitalism was hardly an improvement: it continued dependency now not on landowners but on people with more money. Dependency of the common, poorer folk, and their exploitation. Serving an external, higher God, served as “opium for the masses” as Karl Marx famously stated.
Abrahamic religions thus oppose divinity – read own agency and control over one’s life and lot – within each human. You can’t have that when you want to control and exploit the masses, proving for exploiters a beneficial side-effect of non-divine human beings. Cynical, but untrue?
I am just thinking freely and out loud. Yet, Rastafari adherents mostly emphasize self-reliance for this reason, avoiding dependency and exploitation, aided by the divinity within humans they do recognize, as implied within the “I and I consciousness” notion among Rastafari, many (perhaps not all) also try to live by. Of course, it is also a response to the history of enslavement and oppression Afro-Jamaicans faced for over 400 years in the West.
CONDITIONAL
African “inner divine sparks” within humans tended to be conditional, and to be affected by social circle, surroundings, circumstances, communal disharmony, and such. This shows some wisdom, in that upkeep or cleansing of one’s divine spark within is required to procure “positive, harmonious living”. Maybe some who consider themselves divine do evil or harmful things to others, regardless or even because of that (as history showed). This conditionality thus emphasizes positive divinity, adds a moral, social harmony dimension, whereas in e.g. Hinduism it seemed neutral.
HEALTHY INDIVIDUALITY
The Igbo faith’s “Chi” idea, which intrigues me a lot, is highly individual, as that divine personal energy – or destiny – known as Chi, is largely individually determined (own goals, ambitions, creativity, and desires), with less “social conformity” or “group pressure” than in other faiths. True self-reliance and self-confidence, fitting Marcus Garvey’s and Rastafari’s ideas; self-reliance with still some sense of balance with nature, “social harmony” and equality among all people. Healthy individuality, in place of the capitalist selfish corruption of “individualism” in the West.
In essence, this Chi or “divine spark in a human” consists of nothing more (or less) than taking responsibility for your actions, and your well-being. “Big ego’s” from a sense of superiority, with no or a low conscience – thriving abusively at the cost of others (white collar and other criminals) – rise in the West (and elsewhere) among men, not because one considers oneself divine, but rather – I argue – as an “overcompensation” (to use a psychological term) for not allowing that divinity within oneself and your fellow-humans.
The divine within humans can furthermore be seen as “creativity”, that all individual humans have in them, becoming “creators” too. Not just the so-called “creative types” (artists, composers, and such). Denying that innate human creativity is absurd and suspicious, I repeat.
The very fact that there are so much cultures in the world, with different ways of sense-giving, practices, and spirituality, related also to natural environments and history, shows this inherent creativity within mankind. I have no qualms about associating that with a divine essence. It also might show that humans need spirituality, in whatever shape or form.
Keeping the creative “Chi” clean and working, among “I and I”. This seems therefore a good idea to me.
