OVERSTANDING RASTAFARI Posted by REBEL KING on September 23, 2009 at 12:49am in All Things Rasta!

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OVERSTANDING RASTAFARI

Yasus'to Jamaicapublished: Saturday | April 14, 2007Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter

Dub poet Yasus Afari during a Gleaner interview. - Ian Allen/Staff PhotographerRastafarian reggae poet Yasus Afari on March 29, launched his book Overstanding Rastafari: Jamaica's Gift to the World. In an interview with The Gleaner, the author spoke about his book and offered perspectives on Rastafari. The following is part one of that interview.

( Q ) What inspired the book in the first place?( A ) I think that once you are a part of a community, Rastafari and the Jamaican community in my case, you have a responsibility to seek to understand that community and the people with whom you co-exist in that community. You also have an equally important obligation, to make an effort to facilitate an understanding of you by the other people in the space you share. So in that regard, we think this book intends to address that balance. Seeking to overstand as well as to be overstood.( Q ) When did the actual writing begin and when did it end?( A ) The actual writing began at least five years ago. It was wrapped up about February of this year. It was a labour of love.( Q ) What would you say is the main point of the book?( A ) The main point of the book is really tolerance, overstanding, seeking to overstand and to be overstood as a social being. It is not really laced with Rasta jargon - but the thinking is we all share the same breath of life. At least we have that in common, let us base our thinking on even that one premise and work the others out. It was not surprising that Professor Barry Chevannes described the tone of the book as ecumenical - that is part of my nature and part of the thinking for writing the book.( Q ) Why the 'ecumenical' thrust of the book?( A ) In the evolution of the book and in my research, the basis of religious and social thinking is really spirituality. And spirituality is really the pure, original, undiluted essence and design that the Creator intended for us as human beings. Religions are manmade institutions with the fundamental mandate of aiding and abetting the spiritual growth and development of human beings. When religion becomes subverted by power struggle and greed and collusion, envy and war, and colonial imposition and cultural imposition - then religion becomes corrupted, counterproductive.

That is when you have to revisit the fundamentals of religion which is spirituality. Spirituality speaks to the network which connects us, one to the other, and our source, the Almighty, the Creator. The duty of Rastafari is not to invent another religion but to be a livity and help that realignment with spirituality.( Q ) Are you saying Rastafari is a religion that is friendly to other religions?( A ) I am saying Rastafari is not a religion and need not be. It is unnecessary to invent another religion. I think we need to be a livity. Livity would mean the formula, the methodology to nurture life, sustain life and to enhance our social relationships ... and assessing all the needs of contemporary man. So it would be social, religious, political etc. I think that Christianity and the other religions can serve the religious needs of the Rastafarian community.( Q ) How do you see prospects for harmonisation between Christianity and

Rastafari?( A ) It is already there and is working itself out because, the name Haile Selassie I is the baptismal name of the Emperor. That was the name he used as his throne name on November 2, 1930. Therefore, Haile Selassie is a Christian who followed Christ. That is the fundamental, the underpinning of relationship between Rastafari and Christianity. My thinking is that Rastafari constitutes the roots of Christianity.

If you take a walk with me and examine the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in its traditional form, and if you were to study the early Christian churches, and if you were to study genesis of the monastic life - then you would find remarkable evidence which would be substance to my claim that Rastafari constitutes the roots of Christianity.( Q ) How then do you relate to the view that the emperor followed Christ but he did not see himself as deity? I understand that Rastafari embrace the emperor as deity.( A ) By virtue of the constitution of Ethiopia, and by virtue of the relationship which comes from the Judaic elements in the Ethiopian reality - there is a special relationship between church and state, between the physical and spiritual reality of the Ethiopian people. And on that very same basis, you find out that Haile Selassie is the father of the Ethiopian nation and people, Haile Selassie I by virtue of the constitution and this relationship we just alluded to, is sacred, indestructible ... and that in itself, suggests and speaks directly to the claim that the emperor is sacred, is divine.( Q ) To what extent is this work theological? How does it treat ideas like sin, eternity, God?( A ) To answer your question, I borrow from Professor Barry Chevannes who wrote the foreword for the book. But merely to say that Overstanding Rastafari is an authentic source does not do justice to what is indeed a rich compendium of the principles that guide the development and spread of the Rastafari. Of even more striking significance, is the interpretive brilliance of the remarkable philosopher that is Afari.

For example, his deduction that woman was created before man not only makes sense, but clarifies the need for 'the woman and man [to] rule and govern in oneness and equality of purpose'. Or his explanation of the singularity but at the same time the plurality of the divinityof Rastafari is a theological tour de force second to none.In harmony with what he is claiming, I am saying it is pretty much a broad theological overview as to how I and I interpret the concept of God, sin, the idea of morality, the idea of life ever living. I did not back away from sensitive issues like how Rastafarian community see the concept of death and so on.( Q ) Let's talk about some of those concepts. What happens to Yasus when he dies?( A ) Yasus never dies. Nor will ever die. That is what we are about. I and I is about life immortal. I and I concept of what people call death, I think it is has been misconstrued about what I and I is about. Because in harmony of the knowledge me have of energy, which is ability to do work - energy cannot be created or destroyed but changed from one state of existence to the next. This is not what Rastafari say you know, this is what we adopt from the physicist ... I and I represent a capsule of

energy. We were created in the expressed image of the Almighty God.

The story in the Bible about Adam and Eve and sin - man was made with even physical immortality, but lost that ability when man transgressed. The idea of Christ or the idea of redemption and salvation speaks specifically to renewing that potential in man. And that is what I and I are about. The reality of Rastafari is to live that death must die because the formula of salvation ... is to perpetuate life eternally in harmony with the definition of energy since we are capsules of energy. So when you check it still, a lot of people are walking around and are dead.

And a lot of people's bodies are cast into the ground and yet they live. The earth is very much alive, the earth everliving ... Man is physical, mental, spiritual. Matter exists in three forms - solid liquid and gas. Solid speaks to the physical, liquid is analogous to the concept of mental, and spiritual to the gas. So even one's intellectual work, continues beyond the physical existence. Also one's spiritual work transcends the limitations of physical and mental. So therefore man in essence is a spirit really that is clothed in the garment of flesh. The flesh is a vehicle for the spirit.( Q ) Does Rastafari have anything akin to the Christian concept of heaven and hell?( A ) Yes and I speak to that in the book. I and I envision a earth and a government in the earth whereby mankind will not be harassed or interrogated by the challenge of evil and sin and death and destruction.

And that is the Kingdom in the earth as it is in the heavens.( Q ) Do you see man going where God is in terms of heaven or is it heaven coming on earth?( A ) I do not enjoy talking about God because the concept of God is so misconstrued. I talk about the Creator, the Source, the Beginner, the all there is being and the all there is. I do not like to divorce the Creator from the created, or divorce God from humanity. Without God, how would define and rationalise humanity? And then without humanity we would not have a concept of God I would like to think, or certainly not the concept we have now.Ras?•ta?•farian Lexi?•con

Overstand: Perceive the meaning of; having good insight.Ascendant: Offspring, rising toward zenith.Boo-York: City in United States.Blind-garette: Cigarette, otherwise called cancer-stick or pope stick.I and I: I and those whose views I reflect and represent. The source of our existence and all others revolving in harmony around the Source/Centre.

Mussessity: That which is required, of vital importance.Appreci-love: To regard with (genuine) love and affectionFull-ticipate: Wholehearted involvement, take full entitlement of, fully involved.Full-joy: Take delight or pleasure in; joyous fulfillment, give joy to.

Merry-macka: The thorny injustices, looseness and racism of the United States.( Taken from Overstanding Rastafari: Jamaica's Gift to the World by Yasus Afari )

Tags: afari, jah, rastafarian, yasus