Discovering The Heart Of Jamaica

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Tristan with his new friends.

By Tristan Holme

Having found the peace and quiet I was looking for in my new abode of the Yellow Bird, the next thing on my agenda was to find out the truth behind the faith that makes Jamaica tick - Rastafarianism.

I just so happened to find Adam, Steve and Shanti sitting in the corner of what was becoming my regular hangout spot in Negril, Salinas, where they had spent a good part of the afternoon chilling Jamaican style - endlessly smoking and talking without any worries and generally just letting the world pass by.

To put the understanding (or 'overstanding' as they liked to put it) that I gained from our four-hour long conversation into words is no easy task. Once we got talking, the rabbit hole just got deeper and deeper.

The first thing they were quick to point out was that Rastafarianism is not really a religion, but a way of life. The way I had been made to understand it from my time in Cape Town was that one had to conform to a set of rules, such as not eating meat or smoking tobacco if you were to be a real Rasta.

This is rubbish.

Anyone can be a Rasta, and it doesn't require you to be vegan, dreadlocked or anything in particular.

All it asks is for you to appreciate that there is a greater being than ourselves, and to both love Him and fear Him in equal measures. One must appreciate that He is the reason for life, both human and otherwise, and praise Him for this.

It's equally important to find a level of acceptance - acceptance of who you are in order to love yourself, and acceptance that we are not perfect and will therefore make mistakes, allowing you to admit your mistakes and learn from them.

Hence you will find Rastas who smoke tobacco and succumb to other temptations that lead one astray from the path to purity. But the search for purity is continuous, where purity is a state of being in which one is in perfect harmony with nature.

To Rastafari, Africa is the centre of the earth in the sense that it is the cradle of mankind, but Jamaica is the home of Rasta culture as it is where the concept was formed in search of emancipation on all levels.

Meditation is an important part of the culture and is a way of achieving a higher mental and spiritual state, which can be done through music, dance or even something like playing football. It's a way of getting closer to yourself in some ways, and ganja plays an important role in this for Rastafari.

But at the very centre of it all is the concept of 'One Love', an appreciation that we are all part of the same natural cycle created by God (or Jah as he is often referred to).

In today's world we are divided by artificial boundaries that keep us apart, which often leads to tension between different sides and even to war. Greater authorities seek to keep this separation so that they can keep their man-made power.

Rasta culture looks beyond these boundaries to recognise that we are all God's people. It realises that respect for our fellow beings can lead to peace on earth and a happiness generated from Love rather material possessions.

To a lot of people in the first world this may sound like an bunch of hippy rubbish, but if you mentally step out of the rat race for just a moment and give it all some thought, it can make a hell of a lot of sense.