Ayman and Rowan are dedicated to the ancient teaching that sacred commerce can and will prevent warfare and bring peace to the world. Here they describe the roots of their teaching about the principles of using trade for the greater good with details of the sacred âMerchant Priestsâ of ancient Egypt.
The priests of Egypt had vocations and roles above and beyond what we are accustomed to in our time. Back then, the temples were the centres of learning and the priests were the teachers, specialising in different disciplines. Some Egyptian priests never left the temple; they served by staying in perpetual dialogue with the universal current of life. Other priests were scribes, healers, mediators and celebrants. Still others were known as the Merchant Priests who worked with the Gift of Commerce as a mission to serve humanity.
Merchant Priests focused on society as a whole, working to balance the collective psychic state. They travelled specific energy pathways that were known to them because of their high vibration. These ley lines became the trade routes that led from one temple to the next, allowing precious goods to be exchanged between regions.
The Merchant Priesthood shepherded the ebb and flow of exchange between different levels of society, thereby ensuring that wealth did not get bottlenecked. No one place or social class could pool resources at the expense of another.
Goods were seen as vessels of energy and also a means to engage and connect on a personal level. Trade, in many ways, functioned as social intercourse. The Merchant Priests placed great value on cultivating empathy and friendly relationships, in order to form a basis for commercial dealings. Relationships were understood to be the means by which this harmonious state was established throughout a culture. In summary, the Merchant Priests knew that Emotional Intelligence was a prerequisite for Prosperity. After all, it was Prosperity rather than profit that was most important to them. Abundance is having access to resources needed at the time they are needed; Prosperity is the enjoyment and the sharing of this Abundance.
From physical manifestations such as muscle tension, skin tone, vocal quality, facial expression and even heart rate and blood pressure, the Merchant Priest learnt to sense the texture and temperature of the emotional side of trade. In time they developed the ability to equalise and balance the energy of emotions that swirled around the marketplace.
They worked to raise the frequency/vibration of an emotion, whereby the emotion is lifted or raised from a lower octave to a higher one such as, for example, lifting the root emotion of fear to a level where it could be felt as concern. Likewise, a Merchant Priest could also transform the root emotion of anger into courage, courage into passion and so on.
They were taught, too, how to recognise and contain the emotion of jealousyâso prevalent in prosperity issuesâlearning first to experience it fully in themselves. Tending to emotion in a literate and intelligent way, individuals learned to listen to what âthe green-eyed monsterâ was saying, seeing it as an ally. By respecting the emotion as a communication containing vital information, they would listen to its signal and learn about what they truly wanted, lifting it to a state of graceâthe ability to receive what is truly theirs.
This is the foundation of Emotional Literacyâto pause, for example, when we are afraid and to notice: my body is sending me a signal of fear. Making the emotion of anger or fear conscious in this way may sound simpleâand in a way it isâhowever, it requires an intentional moment of self-reflection which can easily be drowned out by the power of the emotionâs habitual tendency to trigger an unconscious, knee-jerk response of fight, flight or freeze.
The good news is that, more recently in our evolution, we have developed a neocortex that enables us to bypass the automatic reaction with a conscious response, one that is more appropriate to the reality of the situation in which we have found ourselves.
The treatment for anger, fear or jealousy, for example, is so simple and elegant that you can test it out and put it to good use immediately. The Merchant Priests called this âadding a drop of joy.â
When you feel angry or fearful, bring the emotion to consciousness and call up a moment of joy that you can remember and focus on the feeling of it. By adding a drop of joy to the negative emotion, an alchemical reaction occurs, transforming the negative into positive.
We can learn to conjure joy at will by calling on memories or fantasy. Your brain does not know the difference between an event that is actually occurring in the moment and an event that is occurring in your imagination. When you remember and relive a joyful moment, your body will automatically recreate the chemistry of the experience. Then, like the Merchant Priests, you can receive what is truly yours and experience grace.
Try it yourself. Next time you are upset, angry or jealous, acknowledge the fact, become conscious about it and add a drop of joy. You will be amazed.