What would our ancestors say if we could sit down with them today and learn? And I’m not talking about just our immediate grandmothers and grandfathers. Here today, most of us have gone through centuries of darkness—centuries where our ancestors themselves were living in the same confused state that we’re in. They’re the ones who have passed this confused state to us. But we all have long, long-ago ancestors who were living deeply spiritual lives, in touch with the natural world, who knew who they were within their tribe. There was no separation between them and reality, between them and their bodies, and where they came from. They both knew where they came from and who they were.
What would happen if we could sit down with those ancestors today? What would they tell us?
First of all, keep in mind that if these ancestors were available, we would have been living with them, with the elders in our tribe, ever since we were little babies. Everyone who’s taken care of us would have also been in touch with these elders. What would they be saying to us? I assume they would be saying, “Slow down. Slow down and let your true nature come in. Slow down. You didn’t get to sit with the elders ever since you were a small child, but you have learned how to be a human being every day of your life.
Us here in the modern world, we learn this by making tons of mistakes. So take a breath and just sit and think of all the times you’ve been embarrassed, you did some stupid thing. Where did that embarrassment come from? It comes from you having this idea that you should have known better, right? You did something stupid. Let it calm off of you for a minute and you’ll realize, ‘Oh, I hate to admit it, but I got a little bit wiser after that, a little more aware of what’s around.’ Almost always these stupid, stupid mistakes are because we’ve been very selfish. We were just caught in a whirlwind of ourselves and we did something stupid. So the ancestors would say, ‘Make sure you are learning your own wisdom.’
You at least have that. We all always have that. The ancestors would be telling us, ‘Always be learning to be a good human being.’ It’s going to always change what that means. Sometimes, you know, maybe you’re taking care of a big family. Being a good human being would be totally different in that situation than if you were a single person going to a job. How do you be this good human being? Well, the only way you can be it is to be as awake as possible. The other thing that the ancestors would tell us, or maybe just simply sitting with them we would know, is, ‘Look, as you live your life, you can get wiser. You will be an elder someday.’ We learned what we know through our lives and through all the people that taught us.
So is every day of your life making you wiser? And think about the difference between your critical mind and that vast knowing that is inside you. There is no way you can put enough data into your critical mind to figure out how to live a good life. Information just goes in and out of that part of your brain. But there is a part of you, your consciousness, your conscience, that retains information that isn’t even spoken with words. All of us have this inner knowing. We disregard it all the time. We spend our lives so busy that we don’t really pay attention to this inner knowing. But you have it. You are it. And so, the more we sit silently and be with our natural self, the more we’re being with these ancestors, because we are becoming the ancestors for the future.
We live in an amazingly complex world, all created by the human brain, right? Every single bit of society and civilization. We can collectively figure out how to manage our world in an ecologically sound way because there are enough of us to put together the pieces of how to do it. But it requires this deep connected knowingness. So sit with your ancestors, your long-ago ancestors, as often as you can. They can’t speak to you in words, but the inner knowing of how to be a good, participating human being is inside all of us all the time.
So all you simply have to do is just ask the question, ‘What would our ancestors say if we were sitting with them today?’ And what’s really funny is that once you start asking that question, you’re going to find that there are still communities of natural human beings around the planet with these brilliant elders and ancestors who are coming to us with wisdom and knowledge. As soon as you start asking this question, you will start running into these things. If it’s not happening, then just go to my website, Mprimer.com, and look at my reading list. I have a lot of really good places to point you once you get going in that direction. The ancestors are always going to be speaking to you if you can listen.