Barack Obama adopted the phrase “Yes We Can” from the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1972 when one of its’ founders, Dolores Huerte, created her slogan, “Sí, se puede,” which translates to “Yes, it can be done” or “Yes, you can.” Huerte coined the term during a fast by the leader of the UFW, Cesar Chavez, when many were demoralized and were saying “No se puede,” “No it can’t be done.” The UFW adopted the slogan, “Sí, se puede” to inspire and empower farmworkers during their labor movement that was receiving much resistance from agribusiness and the government. Obama embraced the English translation during his 2008 presidential campaign, particularly after a speech following the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, to convey a message of hope and possibility. 

What is not well known is the ancient historical origins of the phrase.

Interestingly this “I can” slogan turns out to be way more than an inspirational UFW and Democratic National Party campaign slogan. It has its origins long ago at least as far back as two thousand years and is perhaps much older. What we do know is that Jesus referred to it often in his teachings to his apostles and his closest students. It is not referred to in the New Testament of the bible as far as I know because so many of Jesus most important teachings either never made it into the official four gospels and because the ones that did were so distorted that they lost their original meanings.

The distortions were a result of a good many influences, terrible and inaccurate translations from Jesus’ language, Aramaic, a nomadic tongue, to Greek, from Greek to Latin, from Latin to English and many other languages. Often there were no clear and accurate translations for Aramaic words in Greek, Latin and so on. So, the words used in Greek and Latin did not have the same nuances, the same exact meanings. Part of the problem was that Aramaic words could be translated differently according to how they were used in a sentence or how they were pronounced and translators of the time did not know these nuances. Aramaic was verb heavy and Greek and Latin were more noun heavy, so much was mistranslated because of these language problems. Of course, there were the prejudices and politics stemming from a time when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire and church officials established dogma causing even further distortions, some of them quite purposeful.

Of course, Jesus was not a Christian, the religious movement came along way after he died, so he was not teaching Christianity despite what people think today. He was teaching the Logos as he understood it in the times that he lived. Some of what he taught was undoubtedly direct revelation and a good part of what he taught was actually the mystical teachings of the day drawn from many important teachers and prophets before him that he referenced often.

With that said more accurate translations of Aramaic by recent scholars refer to his frequent reference to the “I can” aspect of the Creator, All That Is, Everything and Nothing, Allah, Rama, or God if you will. Basically, what he was saying is that a very important and fundamental aspect of God is the concept of “I Can,” that anything can be done, and is done by the creator. Why? Because the creator can do anything, and does do everything because she/he/it can. We could then say that the “I Can” is the action component of God. If God could not do it, then the whole concept of the creator of everything would not be true. Since we humans are a product of the creator’s “I can do it” and if we are made to the image and likeness of the creator then “We can too.”

We can clearly identify ancient shamanic origins of this knowledge including the notion that we can do way more than our limited human ideas suggest. The Toltecs of Ancient Mexico attributed this particular ability to do the impossible to the hummingbird, their totem that led them to establish their center in what is now known as Mexico City and the ancient temples and pyramids of Teotihuacan, a feat of phenomenal proportions. Because the little hummingbird could fly upside down, backward, and straight up, they saw it as that aspect of creation that actively demonstrated that the impossible was possible. “Si, se puede.” Although the ancient Toltecs had numerous gods, and goddesses and totems, they clearly understood that ultimately all was one as was clearly demonstrated by their understanding of numerology that described the evolution of one to the many.

Let’s explore this understanding of “I can” a bit more here. If you were to ask Spirit if it could create the entire universe in all its manifestations eternally and infinitely, the only dance there is, the Tao, All That Is and All That Is Not, It would say, I can and consequently it is done. What about all the parallel universes and alternate possibilities of every decision ever made? Si se puede. What about the physical plane, astral plane, causal plane, akashic plane, Messianic plane, Buddhaic plane? Si se puede. Well, what about in the physical plane all the big bangs creating all the galaxies, solar systems, suns, moons, planets, black holes, asteroids, gas clouds, red giants, supernovas, black and white dwarves, molecules, atoms, neutrinos, protons, electrons, particles and waves, quarks blah blah? Si se puede. What about all the life forms, every blade of grass, grain of sand, every virus, bacteria, animal, plant and so on? Si se puede. What about all the tidal waves, earthquakes, avalanches, hurricanes, tornados, fires, floods, and so on? Si se puede. What about all the horrible things humans do, the murders, the genocide, the torture, the greed, the selfishness, the narcissism, the sociopaths, the criminals, the demons, etc? What about all the traumas, all the intense pain of debilitating diseases, or terrible accidents, the loss of loved ones, death, destruction, despair, hopelessness, depression, terror and all the rest?

Here would be the first clarifications. The Creator would say, “I am in, around, and through all these things. I am as them and with them, and they are of me. I created all the materials they are made of and I created their essences as expressions of myself and I gave people powers to make things and the ability to choose. Si se puede. I did not give you the names you give them, criminals, sadists and the like, disasters, plagues, and famines. I do not judge them like you do. I see that you are free to make delusions and illusions. I see and know that you forget who you are and that you imagine that you harm each other and make great sufferings for yourselves and each other and that is what you imagine you experience.

I see that you make and choose disease, loss, accidents, and pain and that you then blame me for all of it. What do you think? That I am some kind of helicopter mom seeing to it that you don’t make unfortunate choices? That is not my job. My job is to provide opportunity to experience, to be, to know. I do know what you experience but do not create these things because there is one thing that I do not create and that is SEPARATION! Why? Because I am one and that is all there is. You can imagine all these things that seem separated but the key word is SEEM. They simply are not separate and in the end the seeming separation vanishes and its’ oneness is revealed and then all the suffering, all the things that you mentioned that SEEM so terrible will reveal themselves to be not what you thought, never were, never will be, just an interesting but painful dream that has no reality whatsoever. What happens to all those dead people lying all over the ground when you turn your films and your video games off? They never were.  What happened to all your fears and anxieties watching the films or playing the games? Gone.

I am in the business of creating oneness and that is All That Is, Everything and Nothing all together, All Of Creation, The One Note Sung, The Only Dance There is, The Monad or the Single Event. You, as an expression of me, can play all the games you want, but in the end,  you are All That Is. How could you be anything else. What fun. Si se puede! Yes, you can. I Can. We can!

Jesus did know what he was talking about. He just needs to be translated accurately.