Psychological trauma denotes a person vulnerability and inability to cope with stress and even to the seemingly slightest challenges of life as a result of acutely stressful past event (or events) –which leads to dysfunctional mental and physical being and, ultimately, to inappropriate mental and physical activities in his or her interaction with the external environment.
Pan-Africanism calls for a politically united Africa. In a true Pan-African spirit, Murindwa (2010) said, “Buddha was an African, Buddhism started in Africa, and so it is worth celebrating.” Buddhism is an ancient practice of achieving and preserving wisdom –which in turn facilitates eradication of suffering, misery and disease in all beings –to total liberation and happiness. Pan-Africanism entails looking back to one’s origin (Africa) with pride, confidence and high esteem –inspired by its rich heritage –to achieve success in all spheres of life.
Religion precisely organizes people towards attainment of spiritual expectations as pathways to achievement of life goals. Therefore, there must be a kind of relationship with the Divine –bound by a covenant (or set of rules) in order to realize one’s goal in life. Many Buddhists writers and practitioners believe their practices are beyond religion.
“Christian definition of religion practically excludes Buddhism. Unfortunately, English language is not a spiritual language and many words do not do; just the Pali language words like Dhamma, Buddha sasana and so on... I think, a philosophical point of view is more inclusive.” -Ven. Bhante Buddharakkita, The African Buddhist Monk.
It is necessary and natural to decide which development path to pursue as several options arise in order to preserve life. And regardless of individuals’ independency and contentment, they ultimately decide which philosophy or religious inclination will best work for them. In contemporary life, we are often confronted with pressure to choose one or more desirability among the many with difficulty –in a given time and space.
The quality of decisions made will determine nature of results –with varied influences and intensities on life of an individual or community –both in short-run and long-run. Therefore, it calls for critical thinking and analysis in order to make the right decision. Although spirited devotees turn ritualistic, Buddhism was either non-religious or religion by choice. It is a way of life –with amazingly positive outcomes to life-systems leading a practitioner to happiness as final destination. Unlike religions, Buddhism is experiential.
It has enshrined practical values yet universal (recognizing diversity) that guides one to empirically undergo sustainable healing to attain total state of wellness –rather than if it was merely a matter of believing. It was applicable to day-to-day-life bids to yield harmony for oneself and others. Moreover, it is one way of empowering oneself in particular and psychologically traumatized people in general with the tool of objective decision-making rather than if one rides on love-hate interactions, imaginations and emotions. Its reception in Africa is still poor –though.
Mainstream African religions, too, give many testimonies about healing and success. Indeed believers in Islam as is the atmosphere in the mosque, show great feeling of acceptance from God –which strengthens that relationship and continued adherence to the teaching of Prophet Muhammad. There is a lot of freedom for Christian counterparts; their sinful nature only calls for mercy and prayer, rather than humiliation from others or a sense of it within themselves.
For Muslims, sin is terrible and feared, but that does not apply when it becomes a religious “right” to organize assaults against Christian nor do peace-loving ones advocate otherwise. During conversion rituals for new entrants, both demonstrate sharply divisive and aggressive messages –a potential seed to future wars. For example –whereas Muslims stressed that Jesus is not a son of God because he (God) does not have biological attributes to father anyone –and they rubbish the resurrection story, Christians are quick to assume superior rights over inheritance of worldly riches and preserve their stance that Jesus rose from the dead –and as more powerful than Muhammad preserve.
Christian actions and belief system help to create calmness within an individual and tremendously caused relief from stress, anxieties and depression –through messages of love, and assurance of healing and eternity. As they sing music that carries the burdens of life, the process of attaining relief too began to full results. As an outcome, followers find a kind of health center in attending church services –especially those active in singing and dancing. That increases connectedness to their God. Unfortunately, that connection is lost by mid-week to necessitate re-fueling the next Sunday or Saturday.
In addition, it is business to run churches for Christians and owners become filthily rich at the expense of unsuspecting followers. The case is different with their Muslim counterparts –who open Mosques for the good of the Muslim fraternity and basing on faith –itself.
Main African religions, thus, open healing doors for psychologically traumatized Africans much as they do not provide exit route for misery and suffering through individual empowerment with the masterly and diversity principle. Instead, such come back to haunt believers before the week’s end –and all they look for is the pastor’s residence for a miracle healing. Level of Pan-Africanism prevails basing on strong respect Africans attach to tradition healing approaches –even with much infiltration of foreign religious cultures.
However, amidst all that, Africans make enemies of them-selves –through mindless destruction of nature and marginalization of fellow Africans because of greed and differences based on ideology, tribe and religion. Religiosity fails to tame evil in spite of the liberation message engraved in their faiths. Instead, centuries of misery continues to rule them. There is much emphasis on believing (or faith) to justify religious belonging rather than actions –the path to healing. Such inconsistencies between beliefs held and actions that occurred deny Africans and people of African decent comprehensive and sustainable healing.
Moreover, much western influences negatively affect Africa way of life in terms of speech, clothing and music. African church leaders and their followers “become more catholic than pope himself” by adopting western lifestyle. Any decision made in regards to what faith and understanding one belonged to is based on whether or not leads to attainment of complete states of psychological and physical healing (and security), wellness, peace, harmony and happiness for oneself and all other beings.
These include; the need for entertainment, to bury the negative past and to be healed, influences of family and friend, association with “big” personality figures in the church (role-models) –in the aspects of eloquence and ability to perform miracles as well as strong media advertisements and customer care techniques.
Deceptions potentially denies psychologically traumatized Africans the opportunity to make right decisions (from direct experience of mastering and understanding of nature) in the times of misery as a right path to effective and sustainable healing –as followers only work to generate church leaders’ material wealth. Meditation, though, is a Buddhist concept used in modern medicine as a means to achieve wellness.
Therefore, meditation is not just about the label, “Buddhist thing” but a very helpful yet effective practice to achieve complete state of well-being –regardless of the religious affiliation, race and tribe or origin. Above all, the beneficiary develops a sense of collectivity with all elements of life and nature –which in a sustainable manner is catalyst to healing.
In other words, healing is real and complete if the individual does not have negative conflicts in the mind or defeating perceptions about life (or body). Optimism is associated with variety of positive benefits that includes, lowering production of stress hormone –cartisol, bettering body function and reducing risk of chronic diseases. During the practice of VMT, optimism about life and love for everything as nature, or for every human and animals rather than divisions of them are constituent principle to healing.
Religious practices involve living a prayerful life as a means to come closer to the Supreme Being. Through faith and actions of a pure “heart,” the healthy relationship with humans is preserved. Islam, on the other hand, adds the dimension of ritualism –where cleansing with water, dissolving the ego and replacing it with complete humility before Allah (God) –showed by removing shoes before entering mosque and sitting down on the floor –which is later reflected in the follower’s interaction with fellow believers.
In that respect, Islamic faith portrays God, as internal and external -this means coming near God through performing rites with inner and outward significance to God. For example –purification through prayer for mercy and forgiveness of sins committed due to body dirt as to internal and ensuring hygiene by washing oneself as to external (Seyyed, 1987 Pg 111).
Man’s failure to adopt and master nature dictates his downfall –helplessly. His decision to hand over management tools to the Divine is only a reflection of failure that came back to taunt him. Yet God as noted therein had no role to play in man’s failures and self-extinction –if he (man) chooses to. Instead, man himself has to take up the responsibility to secure his natural place to avert present challenges as nuclear threats, uncontrollable sexual urges, drunkenness, drug abuse, environmental degradation, and deaths due to preventable diseases.
Very interesting to note also regards Buddha's background and principles of thought traced in the Black people in India known as Dravidians –another connection to Africa. They inherited India's older Black civilization known as the Harappan civilization, which existed from around 4,000 BCE and was the contemporary of Nubia prior to the first Egyptian dynasty.
In the centuries that followed, the Dravidians of India experienced a cultural and religious invasion from the north (circa 1,500 B.C.) by Indo-Europeans who called themselves Aryans (Nijel BPG, 1999. In 520 A.D., a monk named Bodhidharma left southern India for China to re-define and spread the teachings of the counter religion to Hinduism called Buddhism. Buddhism was a religion founded on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama who taught the Four Noble Truths to enlightenment. While often portrayed as Asian, the Buddha was a Black man.
Today, we awake to the facts that Buddha's tightly curled knots of hair, and elongated ear lobes are unmistakable African cultural traditions (Nijel BPG, 1999). African traditional religion continues to play a leading role in healing ways. A study carried out in eleven (11) Districts in eastern Uganda, 90% of people mental health-related problems preferred healers to health centers as the first point of contact –though there were no cases of patients cured confirmed. 59.3% sought religious leaders, 0.6% went to traditional healers while 2.3% visited modern health units (Nafula, 2007).
However, the trust and satisfaction between patients and traditional healers was enough to cause relief and hope that are essential elements of healing. In light of the popular traditional healing approach, Kigozi (2007) observed, “…highly educated contacted traditional healers.” Conflicts as usually are a routine, crop up only to motivate Africans to choose appropriate ways to live fulfilling lives. Availing options with accompanying information was relevant to that effect –from which to experience and, ultimately, make right decisions.
Unfortunately, it turns into competition and hostility for fame among mainstream religious traditions –leading to violence and loss of religious importance. Buddhism uniquely argues that happiness is for all –regardless of race, ideology and background (Goenka 2007). It respected diversity and peaceful co-existence, which now uniquely presents itself as the mirror of Pan-Africanism.
In that regard, VMT is a very effective remedy against psychosomatic conditions as migraines –and helping to facilitate behavioral change, bettering patients with ADHD, dissolving depression and anxiety states, fostering social harmony –and providing a permanent solution to environmental degradations and associated human impact. VMT benefits as much as the dangers or challenges of life affects everyone –regardless of religion. There are different healing practices reviewed with confirmed benefits –which included; 15 minutes group silence, contemplating, self imagery, positive reinforcement, and positive self-talk and masterly –accompanied by a drill or physical exercise, seeking the magic touch of a “witch doctor” or traditional healer –and prayerful nature of Christians and Muslims. Particularly Christians, their approach dictates more of believing than reflections from actions –solely because God is a merciful –who would forgive them.
Besides, they use scriptures to justify violence against fellow men, to degrade the environment nature and nurse their own egos –which only leads to disrepute for the religious organizations they belong. However, VMT has sustainable benefits yet holistic and positively full on impact on life of both human beings and nature in diversity. The accompanying message (dharma talk) champions the rights of every living thing, respect for nature and, interestingly, viewed man and other beings as equal members of the eco-system.
Man is not in any way superior but rather part of the WHOLE in diversity. Unlike other belief systems and healing technologies, VMT has practical experience of suffering and misery as part of the program to realization, connection with nature (of which God is part), and masterly of the mind (to attain wisdom necessary to realization of peace and happiness). It provided practical experience of life’s misery and suffering as best way to gain wisdom, rather than merely believing. It also deals with ailments not at their surface, or symptomatic view but, accordingly, from the root of the case.
With Buddhism, having originated from Africa and Gautama –an African himself: is time for Africa to claim her rightful values as pathways to healing –through practice of the VMT –given such amazing positive influences on mental health as portrayed therein? As a matter of decision-making, the answer is yes –which now confirms that Africans wherever they are have the means at their disposal to attain the goal of unity in excellent mental states, peace and harmony.
Jacob Waiswa
Situation Health Analyst
