Author Topic: Confusing  (Read 7768 times)

Offline Hannu

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Confusing
« on: February 16, 2008, 04:31:59 pm »
Hello

Just have been reading these webpages and critiques also and I am very confused.

Could somebody clearify what is the status of this NAFPS among native peoples?

Who can say who is fake and who is not?

Peace

Hannu


Offline earthw7

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Re: Confusing
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2008, 05:15:21 am »
As a Lakota and one who live on the reservation work for my people, I find that this site has been very helpful. the abuse of our culture/spirituality/language is overwheming.
I give everthing that I find here and give it to our elders. They are shocked that people have workshops on us, people sell our spiritual beliefs, they make claims to be adopted by our nation or claim they were taught by people who died so they can not defend themselves. It shocking to find so much abuse against our people.
In Spirit

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Confusing
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2008, 01:29:32 pm »
Try this thread:

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=1235.0

Also http://nafpsnew.nfshost.com/articles.html


Some Nuage exploiters try to spread confusion about us because we hurt their attempts to make money off those who don't know any better. There's also a racist imposter named David Yeagley whose followers have been working with exploiters like John Lekay.


Offline Hannu

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Re: Confusing
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2008, 12:51:36 am »
I must say that I am always scared when people get hot with religious issues.
Races and religions are the fire for many wars.
Too much hate and anger always in both sides.

I think now, when looked through hundred of writings from nafps and other sides, that should be carefull to avoid worsen  the situation with these issues , building barries and dividing people.

There is a danger to start to push back the growing interest for the true roots of spirituality.

Those people in western countries who are seeking some deeper spirituality
are actually the most near political force also to support indigenous issues in material level, land rights etc.
Pushing them away would be pushing the hart of western support away.    Be carefull.

People in spiritual need are mostly at all no abusers. Some of them giving answers or showing the routes can be abuser, fakes and foolers but not all.    There is much of important and healthy spiritual cultural change and interaction going on and that shoulc be couraged.  It is a danger that all the spiritual feed back from indigenous people to western people is coming questionnable. This could be seen as a defence move of our western culture not necessary a win for indigenous spirituality and traditions.

We should remember that the same colonists were destroying our traditions and spirituality just some hundred years earlier than happened after colonist came to America. We are not colonists we are also victims when thinking the spirituality.

Colonists structures are not race structures but just pover structures. There is not good or bad or colonist races even if white people seem to be ruling.   But inside white world there are also the poor and suppressed and the real colonists of today are the big companies.        We may have to be worried about neoshamanism but surely we have to be worried about neocolonialism,  globalisation which threats to be the finalization of colonialisms thousand years of history for many indigenous peoples.

I feel that same Great Spirit is present all around the Earth.     
Maybe there is just lot of tribes of Earth people some of them with rich of tradition and knowledge and some of them learning and seeking their own spiritual roots.

One love connecting the people
- not Nokia


Hannu







Offline earthw7

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Re: Confusing
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2008, 04:42:44 am »
I know i know but you should stay with your own beliefs because what happens is you change our belief, shorten them, adopt them to your world, change the way we think to the point it no longer means anything. My people do not go out to save people nor do we invite people to our ways. We are not christians.
I don't know what you are looking for in life but each person needs to look at their own center to find peace not anothers.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2008, 03:51:35 pm by earthw7 »
In Spirit

Offline Kevin

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Re: Confusing
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2008, 12:42:54 pm »
That was very well said, Hannu and your words are encouraging. The corporate earth gobblers have no spirituality - profit and power are their Gods, boundaries and borders mean nothing to them nor anyone's spirituality be it Native, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, etc etc. Children are a true natural resource walking on earth and most people do not fully realize how they are targeted by commercial giants for exploitation and consumption of material goods. The amount of money spent targeting children via advertising is astronomical and increases each year. There are games for children designed to encourage and nurture material consumption, buying, possessing. This is intentionally creating a barrier to spiritual development in the young and it is a crime againt Humanity.

Offline Moma_porcupine

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Re: Confusing
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2008, 02:40:04 pm »
Hi Kevin and thanks for identifying where Hannu seems to share our concerns;

Kevin
Quote
profit and power are their Gods, boundaries and borders mean nothing to them nor anyone's spirituality be it Native, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, etc etc

The deceit , greed and consumerism this website opposes is the same deceit greed and consumerism that is destroying the planet and eroding the integrity of all our communities.

Native traditions are wholistic and except for certain core values which are shared by most Spiritual traditions , Native traditions belong in the communities where they originated. These traditions don't work properly and may be dangerous if they are removed from this context.

Providing accurate information is not about hating and dividing people.

Offline earthw7

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Re: Confusing
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2008, 03:53:15 pm »
Moma that is so true there is no hate only a great love for my people and our culture.
In Spirit

Offline Defend the Sacred

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Re: Confusing
« Reply #8 on: February 29, 2008, 12:29:13 am »
People in spiritual need are mostly at all no abusers.

I have to disagree with you here. I'd say that those in severe need are sometimes too desperate to understand what they are doing. If their only experience of "culture" is Western consumerism, they just don't have the context to understand traditional cultures. It takes work to change that conditioning. Some people can change, and come to a place of understanding, but others never will.

Those in the most need are usually that way because they were raised without a sense of culture, and due to this they feel rootless. Rootless people can sometimes be helped, but other times they are just dangerous as they try to impose their values on others. This is why we see these people trying to buy and sell ceremonies and teachings.

I think if people truly learn to appreciate a culture on that culture's terms, to love and respect the ways and values of the people of that culture, they will understand that violating the  standards set by the traditionals and elders of that culture is not a loving, humane, or earth-honoring thing to do. The loving, appreciative, and spiritual thing to do is to listen to the traditional people of that culture, and respect their views. The values of the people can not be separated from other aspects of the culture, but I feel this is what outsiders who want to use the ceremonies are doing. In their desperation to find a sense of peace and meaning in their lives, or their craving to have visions that will make them feel powerful and special, outsiders wind up actually dishonoring the people who have created, and now maintain, that culture and the ceremonies that are part of that culture.

If people can have a sense of pride in where they come from, and pretty much all cultures have earth-honoring aspects if you look deep enough, or back far enough, they won't need to rip off the traditions of other peoples.

Helping people feel rooted in who they really are, in where they come from, in what their ancestors believed, helps us all in the long run. Some of us are lucky to still have traditional people of our culture to listen to, while others of us have to look more to the past. But either way, I agree that this work of cultural preservation comes from a place of love and respect. If people seem "hateful" towards the exploiters, I would suggest that it is rather righteous anger at seeing their cultures, their people and their deeply-held values being disrespected by outsiders. Well-meaning outsiders, yes, often they are, but ignorant outsiders nonetheless. This is especially painful when those outsiders then pretend to somehow be a part of their culture or, even worse, somehow a representative of it.

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There is much of important and healthy spiritual cultural change and interaction going on and that shoulc be couraged.

I'm not sure which changes these are. If actual Indigenous voices are being listened to, yeah, that's great. But many of these outsiders are so desperate that they'll listen to any imposter, or to anyone who has some Indigenous ancestry but isn't actually an authorized representative of that culture. In this way, misinformation and romanticized fantasies are spread, and cultural degradation results. These outcomes are not worth it just to make some rootless white people feel better about themselves.
 
Quote
I feel that same Great Spirit is present all around the Earth. Maybe there is just lot of tribes of Earth people some of them with rich of tradition and knowledge and some of them learning and seeking their own spiritual roots.

Well, as long as it really is their own roots they're seeking. The thing is, in the name of Universalism, we've seen a lot of people try to paste terms from a European culture over ceremonies from Native American cultures, claiming, "it's all the same Great Spirit." Theological discussions aside, there are real cultural and religious differences. People need to be coming from the place of feeling grounded in their  particular culture, imho, before they can deal with other cultures respectfully.

If they are trying to rediscover their own roots, they need to approach their specific culture on its own terms, as well, and let their findings grow from that cultural matrix. If they approach a culture with expectations that it will have the same sorts of ceremonies, theology and structures as an unrelated culture they wish it to resemble, they will never find those roots, but rather only their projections.