Before reading please take note of the following.
Baba’alawo or Iyalawo is Ifa Chief priest or priestess that studies Ifa after initiation. Ifa has 16 stanzas. Each stanza has about 495 verses. ( Odus/Odu Ifa). Baba’alawo or Iyalawo (Ifa Chief priest or priestess ) is required to know by heart a lot of these verses (just like the Imam studying the verses in the Quran or Pastor studying verses and chapters in the Bible in Eastern and Western civilizations, Islam and Christianity respectively).
So when Omo Eniyan with problem goes to a Baba’alawo or Iyalawo (Ifa Chief priest or priestess ) to find guidance, the Baba’alawo (Chief-priest) is required to consult Ifa. i. e Look into ifa, find the Odu/verse where that person’s destiny falls and interpret it to the Omo Eniyan as guidance to brighter future. See Example of one Ifa verses bellow. 495 x 16 = 7920 Verses a Baba’alawo or Iyanifa must learn or know by heart. See example of a verse or odu (Ogbe Rikusa) bellow when you continue after the page jump bellow.
Check out top 72 Odus a devotee needs to be initiated to Ifa.
It’s after this initiation he or she can be called Baba’Alawo or Iyalawo (meaning ‘mother of divination) or Iyanifa
After some years of intensive training and confronting the political and economic challenges that come with the struggle to learn and grow in any religious community, we decided to make a journey in Nigeria far beyond the well-known towns of Ile-Ife and Oyo to find a new teacher in Ifa studies. We reasoned that if we ventured to a place less influenced by globalization, we might find a Babalawo who would be more interested in our spiritual growth, than our economic and political resources. So we decided to journey to the town which esteemed Nigerian novelist, D.O. Fagunwa called Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale, which Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka translated as The Forest of a Thousand Demons. This was the first novel ever written in Yoruba language, set in the hills of Oke Igbo, a remote town outside of Ondo, Nigeria, where some mysteries may remain in spite of modernity. Without knowledge of the location or of a single living soul in Oke Igbo, we ventured to Oke Igbo to continue our training.
Before our journey, we decided to consult a Babalawo as soon as we arrived in Oke Igbo, to ask the Ancestors and Orisa for guidance during an unknown journey in search of an upright teacher in a place we were total strangers. Looking back, we are very thankful we chose to consult Ifa, because the advice and guidance we were given, made all the difference in our subsequent quest. Here is the Ifa Verse from Ogbe Rikusa (Ogbe Osa), we were told by the Araba of Oke Igbo who we met almost immediately upon our arrival in Oke Igbo. The story goes like this:
Continue after the page break bellow..
Odu Ogbe rikusa
The blind and disabled are friends
The disabled person asked the blind person:
Is this how we are going to die of suffering?
The blind responded: what shall we do about it?
The disabled answered: let us go and ask a wise person what to do.
They inquired of the wise person: will we ever walk or see again?
The wise person queried: Have you ever walked or seen before?
They answered: never!
They were asked to perform an offering
They were perplexed: What is he talking about?
Can we afford to pay for any offering?
The disabled suggested suicide as an option
Days latter the disabled repeated the suggestion to the blind person
The blind responded: you know I cannot see, so whatever you suggest is okay
We have been friends for too long and I could not live without you
The disabled responded: I know a place we can go to kill ourselves
The disabled person added: when we get to the water, I will just jump into it
The blind person questioned: how would I know?
The disabled said: I will bring you close to the edge so when you hear the loud sound of falling, you know it is time to jump
On the second day they decided to end it all
The disabled led the blind to the water
As they neared the edge the disabled lamented and threw a huge stone into the water
The disabled hoped he tricked the blind person to jump
But the blind person was so worried and upset that threw his walking stick around and hit the disabled person
The disabled person shrieked!
The blind person was so surprised
He asked the disabled why he wanted to trick him to die
The disabled apologized and the blind person could not be too upset
Did he not need the disabled to bring him home?
As they continued along in the bush they came across some food
Cooking the meat seemed to take too long. but
The blind realized that each time the disabled spoke it sounded as if he was eating
Since the blind person kept asking the disabled person for food, the disabled gave the blind a toad to eat instead
The blind could not see so he put the toad’s head in his mouth
As he bit the toad the water from the toad’s eyeball broke and splashed into the blind’s eye
He regained sight!
As he regained sight the blind took over the cooking and gave the toad to the disabled person to eat
He then went to the waterside to drink
But he told the disabled person that if the disabled person was still present when he returned, the disabled person had only three options:
To be pushed into the water
To be beaten
To be taken into the forest and abandoned
The disabled person chose to be beaten
The previously blind person went to beat the disabled on his head
The disabled suggested being beaten on the buttocks, knowing that from the waist down was paralyzed so he would not feel any pain
As the previously blind started to beat his buttocks with a walking stick
The disabled stood up and started running!
But the two of them were so carried away they could not see what was happening to both of them
As the disabled was running and the blind chasing
They ran into a prophet
The disabled screamed for help
Help me Baba!
The prophet asked them what the problem was between them
They explained everything that happened up until that moment
Then the prophet asked the disabled: Ever since you have been disabled
Have you ever thought of asking your Blind friend or family to beat you with a walking stick before?
He answered: No!
The prophet also asked the blind person: If you had known that it was the water from toad’s eyeball that would heal you
Wouldn’t you have asked your disabled friend or family for it?
He also answered: Yes!
Then the prophet told both of them to embrace each other
They should forever be friends and never let anyone come in between them. Ever!
They were happy and started remembering their journey together
The prophet then said to them that a little bit about Olodumare had been revealed to them
Indeed, after we listened intently to Ogberikusa, little did we know that the story predicted the events of our subsequent journey in Oke Igbo. Indeed, Onaje would play the role of the blind person and Folasade would play the role of one with disabilities for the remainder of our search for a teacher. You see, although Onaje had the desire and will to venture into very remote towns and villages on motor bikes on lumpy unforgiving dirt roads, with scorching sun, miles away from any hospitals, and had been to Nigeria five times already, most of the time Onaje felt culturally, socially and environmentally blind, unable to rely on past experience to perceive even the next bump in the road. Everything felt new to Onaje and he complained or questioned our movements each time we made a decision to go deeper into the village and forest.
Folasade was truly leading a blind man and over time it was a burdensome task that slowed and worried her. Not only did she have to listen to his complaints, but she had to be careful that others did not notice his African American accent or appearance, less they exploit us. Many people sought to divide us. In a cultural and emotional sense, Sade was truly disabled. At some points to relieve herself of his complaints she would find ways to get her message across to him. Sometimes, to be honest, he did not appreciate her approach, and found himself upset wanting to tell her off like the blind man did once to the person with disabilities. We encountered so many challenges, endured so many hardships on our journey together in Oke Igbo in search of an upright teacher who might guide us in the next phases of our Ifa studies and journey together. Moreover as we neared the end of our journey, although we found some great medicine men and some great diviners who helped with our healing along the way, we still had not found a Babalawo we felt we could really trust as a teacher. It was at the end of the trip, after discovering how much we helped each other heal, however, that we met an upright teacher. His name is Bishop Ezekiel Soniran Adekunle Lijadu.
Throughout our trip in Oke Igbo, we heard there was a Bishop in Ondo, who was also a pioneer in Ifa studies. To be honest, we doubted that a Bishop in Nigeria would know much about Ifa, because of the amount of discrimination and bias many Christians have toward Ifa religion in Nigeria. It was not until toward the end of our journey that we decided to visit Bishop Lijadu and we are thankful we did.
When we met Bishop Lijadu, who is now 79 years old, over the next few days, he, unlike any Babalawo we met on this trip, sat with us for hours sharing his wide and deep knowledge of Ifa verses, Yoruba philosophy, and Yoruba history, including the noted history of his own family lineage. We discovered that his grandfather, Bishop Emmanuel Moses Lijadu, married a re-captive slave from Brazil, left the Anglican Church to start and independent African Church based on his own self-help philosophy, and wrote two of the earliest texts on Ifa and Orunmila at the turn of the 20th Century.
We liked Bishop Lijadu, not only because of the history and knowledge he shared with us, but because over the next couple weeks, he did not try to establish his authority over us, did not ask us for money, and instead listened to our questions, and always directed us to find the answers for ourselves. We felt that he applied the Ifa concept that each individual’s Ori comes to this world already with knowledge and power, to his work with us. He was there to assist us on our journey and not to impose his own. Over time he became our esteemed teacher and taught us countless Ifa verses during the next phase of our training which eventuated in our initiation. Without his dedication, sacrifice and deep knowledge of Ifa verses, we would not have been able to develop this application years later. We dedicate this application to him, who like the wise prophet, has been a great teacher. We also pay homage to the esteemed Lijadu family lineage. Indeed, like the blind and the disabled persons in the verse of Ogberikusa, we hope with all humility, that the verses in this application reveal a little bit of Olodumare to you.
Folasade and Onaje
#OgbeRikusa
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