In the spiritual lexicon of Rastafari, no phrase is more essential, or more misunderstood, than “I and I.”
At first glance, it might sound like a simple redundancy. “I and I” — two first-person pronouns awkwardly dancing around each other. But that’s the illusion. This is not a grammatical error. It’s not dialect or patois. It’s a deliberately constructed expression of a worldview — one so elegantly radical that, in three syllables, it collapses the dualism that has plagued Western thought for millennia.
“I and I” means there is no separation between the individual self and the collective, between the human and the divine, between speaker and listener. The first “I” is the individual, the second “I” is the universal — God within, consciousness without. There is no “you,” no “he,” no “they.” All is “I.” All is one.
This isn’t solipsism — it’s non-dualism with dreadlocks. Where Descartes says, “I think, therefore I am,” implying a separate thinker and object of thought, “I and I” says, “I am because we are” — echoing the African ethic of Ubuntu, yet infused with a divine immediacy.
It’s a linguistic assertion of unity in a world obsessed with division — racial, political, economic, metaphysical. “I and I” dissolves hierarchy. There is no man above another, no God above man. The divine spark is not external or conditional — it is immanent. Already here. Already within.
When a Rasta says “I and I will reason,” it doesn’t mean “you and I will talk.” It means “we, as expressions of the same consciousness, will seek truth together.” There’s no debate. No dominance. Just livity — the Rasta term for the living essence that connects all beings.
“I and I” is a linguistic rebellion. English, the colonial tongue, separates: I, you, he, she, it, they. Rastafari reclaims it, recodes it, and repurposes it as a tool of spiritual liberation. The language of empire becomes the vessel of emancipation.
And here’s the deeper magic: “I and I” isn’t just theological. It’s neurological. It reflects what modern cognitive science hints at — that consciousness may not be individual, but collective. That the self, far from being a solitary ego encased in skin, is porous, relational, co-arising. That “I” exists only in relation to another “I.” The observer and the observed — entangled, like quanta.
To adopt “I and I” is to train the tongue in humility. To recognize that every interaction is divine encounter. That even in argument, you’re speaking to a reflection of self. It is a daily act of resistance to the ego’s urge to isolate.
So no — “I and I” is not broken English. It’s a spiritual technology. A mantra masquerading as grammar. A three-syllable theology capable of undoing centuries of separation, domination, and illusion.
Say it slowly. Say it to yourself.
I and I.
Now ask yourself — who exactly is speaking?