Ifá principle about our life and existence (Novermber 13, 2013)

Ifá, being the sacred message of Olodunmare to humankind, this message touched some
basic aspects of our lives. The culture, custom, value, histology etc. The mystery of our
being, what we are today, and who we are.

In this lesson we shall look at the following:

1) The principle guarding our body system and life according to Ifá.

1 our connection with ori,

2 our connection with hands and legs (owo ati ese ):

3 our connection with aya that is our mind

Ori mean here our inner head. Owo ati ese mean our hand and legs, while aya mean the
mind or our heart

Ori

Yoruba people believe that we all kneel before Olodunmare in heaven to choose our inner
head called Ori generally. Orisanla, that is Obatala, is the one that made the human body,
fixed the eyes, nose, month, ear, and other human parts. But Olodunmare is the one that
put the soul. The heart was created by Olodunmare. The heart enables man to live on in
connection with ori.

Our ancestors believe that Ogun is the one that made human bones. We are not sure of this
but that is the saying.

The one we are sure of is Ajala, who made the inner head that is Ori and from whom
everyone chose their head.

The inner head is much greater than the one we see physically. That is why it is possible for
man to cut off the physical head while the inner head continues to fight on and ask for
revenge all the time.
The inner head may accept evil and it may reject evil depend on how strong your inner head
is. After the physical death, the inner head don’t die so easily except if a man chose the
wrong head made by Ajala in heaven. The inner head is the one that stand for our destiny
call ayanmo or ipin. When you chose a good head from Ajala and when you get to the
world, you will be successful. But when you chose a bad one, things will be bad for the
person on earth.

This is where Orisa comes in or the issue of Orunmila comes in as witness to our faith. Only
he can perform sacrifice to repair the evil head. This is one of the reasons while initiation is
important. No one can beat his or her chest to say, I know the type of head I chose from
heaven. Only Orunmila can tell you this.

The odu that confirm this issue of inner head is Ogbe-gunda/ Ogbe-yonu/ Ogbe-suru. With
our various hands we will kneel to pick the head we want but the one who made ori is Ajala
in person. Ajala happens to be a drunkard and a debtor. Many ori he made were bad. He
made some too big, some too small, narrow, cracked, flexible, fragile, simple, delicate,
shapeless, and damaged. Only few he made in good nice form. Note few good nice ones,
but the bad ones are plenty. He Ajala is called Alamo, which is the potter, the potter that
made ori. He made some good, some neither cool nor hot

Whosoever choose a bad head, and when you leave heaven to earth, on your way, rain will
beat the head, sun will heat up the head and before the person get to the earth , the head
will start wither away. Hence, the labour lost, struggle for success with plenty failure, evil
and bad experience in life will be the person’s portion. It takes the grace of God to repair
this type of head. They will pray without success, the will labour without success. I am
talking about person that chose bad head from heaven.

Note. The ori that ajala made in good form, no sun, or rain can touch or destroy them. If
you chose good head, such people will be successful and no evil can come against them.
Such people are rich, have good children, wife, husband, houses, cars, gold, beads, and
known for all positive good things.

The solution to poverty, sorrow, wretchedness and all bad things to somebody that chose
bad inner head is heavy sacrifice which must be constant. The only orisa who can do this is
orunmila, the one that repair the bad head and change it to good one.
Ajala is an orisa who lives in heaven before Olodunmare. He never comes to the world. If
your orisa is ori, that means, you are spiritual child of ajala in heaven.

We are all born with both evil and good. It is what we choose from heaven that is what we
are on earth. That is why the Ifá akosejaye is important (essentaye). That is the first
reading at birth during naming ceremony. At this reading, Ifá will tell us the destiny the
child has chosen from heaven. The difference between physical head and the inner head
could be seen in our daily activities. The physical ori could easily accept evil while the inner
ori could protect, reject evil.

The seer may know this, and some babalawo could do reading to know the type of a child
coming to the world. The physical head could be damaged but the inner head keep on living
even after death. This is why at times a babalawo will tell you to go an appeal your
ancestors head. We all choose one ori from Ajala but the issue is that, some ori are half
good, and half bad. Or some at a point, it was well made while at a point, Ajala will not
complete.

At a sacrifice, we touch the front and back, left and right, or the centre. These are the
points at which our ancestors believe Ajala made mistakes, or the joints points to bring
together the loose head or broken head.

I want to say here that, you should try to understand between Ori and the person that
made ori. Ori is more than any orisa. Ajala is the one that made ori, there is no way you can
serve ori without remembering the one that made it. Just for instance, when we talk of Afin
i.e. Albino, we refer to Obatanla, that anybody who is albino is Obatanla child. The same
apply to ori. There is no way we can separate ori from Ajala the one that made it. This does
not mean Ajala is your orisa. Ori stand as ori while we make reference to the one that made
it.

Why ori is more than any orisa.

Ifá says; ori eni laba bo, aba fi orisa sile. We could have made sacrifice to our ori and leave
Orisa alone (from Ejiogbe). Olodunmare put down obi of a leader or obi of a blessing (obi
alase or obi oore) on the ground. Olodunmare then called on all of the Orisa both in heaven
and earth to break the obi seed.
Ogun came to break the obi seed, it could not break it, sango, osun, orunmila, obatanla and
other orisa came they could not break the obi seed of a leader. Just suddenly when all of
them are in confused state of who will break the obi seed of leader, ori was rolling and
coming from a distance, and all orisa were baffled and saying, look at common ori coming
as well.

Ori came and told Olodunmare, that he will break the obi seed. He took the obi seed of a
leader and broke it. All of the other orisas were surprised of this little ori! They become so
jealous of ori and they approached ori to fight him, but none of them could have conquered
ori.

Ori is the one that made all orisa and none of the orisa made ori. He is one that led
orunmila to Ile Ife, is the one that lead Alara to Ara, Is the one that put Sango in Oyo, is the
one that put Ogun in Ire etc. Oke yigbiri wo odo , lodIfá fun ori , nigbati olodunmare mu obi
oree sile pe ki awon irunmole wa pa, gbogbo irunmole ko le pa obi ooree, Ori lo de ibe lo mu
obi oree pa. (Ejiogbe) this is the odu from which it is from

Ori is more than orisa, but because we don’t have any other name for him, let us call him
orisa. The first Orisa is Olodunmare and not ori. One Ifá says, Akunleyan ohun ni adayeba,
adele aye, ojukan wa. It is what we kneel down to chose from Olodunmare that we meet on
earth but when we get to earth, we allow our anxiety to over cloud us. Whatever we chose
from heaven that is how we are on earth.

If you choose good head from heaven, pray and still made sacrifice to your head, and if you
choose bad head from heaven , pray and still made sacrifice so that the bad head could be
good.

Sacrifice to ori

It is important for us to sacrifice to our head from time to time. Either you are initiated or
not initiated, either being orisa not not orisa, our sacrifice help our ori to move in the right
direction and lead us to where there is blessing. If you ignore your ori, your ori will also
ignore you.

If you are making sacrifice to other orisa on daily basis but you ignore your ori who is more
than orisa, you will discover that, what you want will not come in time. As soon as you start
serving your head, things will change for good.
Orunmila said “who can follow us to the end? Because, if babalawo die , his Ifá will be
thrown away, if ogun man die , his ogun shrine will be ignored, etc but if a man should die ,
his ori follow him to the grave.” Only our ori follow us to the end. If a man succeed in life,
give thanks to your ori , and if you fail in life , make sacrifice to your ori so that all could be
well with you.

Please, let the whole class read from fama book about ogbe Otura of Jegbe story. Also tell
them the story of Afuwape the son of Orunmila.

The materials to make sacrifice to our ori is as follows:

Obi seed is very compulsory. Ori understand the language of obi seed more than any other
stuff you may think of.

The second item is cool water.

There is one hen call adie opipi, which is the hen with short feather. The formation of adie
opipi is like ori itself. Adie opipi will not accept evil, and is one of the hen uses in yoruba
land to block the activities of iya mi that is the witches. They have stunted growth, with
short smooth feathers. The bone, the meat, the blood, is very good they don’t allow our ori
to accept evil for us. The one with bad feather (frizzle fowl) is called the witches’ hen, very
medicinal too.

Hens are used for woman and cock for men. Pigeon, snail, palm oil, gin, honey, food, cow,
guinea fowl, aidun (corn powder mixed with palm oil)

Ori should be served in a special way. The person who want to make sacrifice to ori, should
put on his or her best clothes most especially white clothes, dressed very well. He or she
should be in seated position while the sacrifice is made. The head should be covered during
the offering. The obi seed should be dipped into water, and the water drop on the fore head.
Put the obi seed on the ground, and touch the person ori, touch the obi seed and call on ori.
Say, ori mo pe o three times. Ori i call you. Take the obi seed again and use it to touch your
fore head and say, my ori, I offer you this obi seed for so so so reason…. You pray for all
you need.

Take the materials one by one and use it to touch your forehead while you pray for all you
want. At the end, break the obi seed, to see if it is accepted by your ori. Don’t feel bad if
your ori did not accept the obi at first throw, he may be requesting for something like blood
first before any other thing.

By serving our ori from time to time, it would help us to fill the bad gap or the broken space
in our lives. As said, Ajala is a heavy drunkard and because of this, he made some head
beautiful and just to discover they are just beautiful for nothing. People complain, I don’t
have this, I don’t have that, do you ever ask your head if you are destined to have what you
pray for.

Like me the son of Ogbe Alara, I will not be surprised if anyone of you stand up tomorrow to
abuse me and say bad thing about me because , it is the way of my destiny which I know
since I did my initiation to Ifá. I want to advise us not to be jealousy of one another
because we all have different destiny, if Mr A is making good money in your presence, dont
get jealous of him because if you try to do what he does, your ori may not support you and
you end up having big enemies.

While ori relates to our destiny, our orisa lead us from heaven to earth. Our ancestor’s ori
lives on to see about our daily needs. That is why only our ori follow us to the grave.
Olodunmare destined each orisa to follow our ori from heaven. We should also pray that
Good orisa lead our ori from heaven. That is why, we dont look down on the witches as bad
people because from heaven, the person who choose good ori, and Olodunmare say,
witches should be the orisa to follow the person from heaven the person will get to the
earth and be a stubborn witch. Somebody cannot just say they want to be a witch if not
destined from Olodunmare. Witches are orisa and good messengers of Olodunmare.