2.19.2007

ori orisa consciousness by iyanla vanzant

i found this in a blog on myspace. it's an oya's marketplace article from 1993, but i think the lessons are still relevant & important.

alafia & adupe to all the reputable, knowledgeable, and spiritually focused priests & practioners of ifa.


I often wonder if I am the only person who readily admits, when I got initiated, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. My experience with YORUBA culture had been through the dance and music. It seemed only natural that I would embrace the spiritual and religious philosophy. So I did, not because I understood it, but because it was “the thing to do.” I also admit, that my lack of understanding,information and reverence for the intangible energy of ORISA, cost me dearly.

As I think back, what I knew about the priesthood was that once I was initiated,
people would bow down to me (salute); when the white sheet went up, I would be on the inside rather than the outside; I would be able to eat at the table with the priests before everyone else ate; I would have my own godchildren; and that ORISA would speak to me. As I was initiated in the Santeria tradition, I was also primed and ready to be possessed, since that seemed to be a prerequisite to being a good priest.

Further retarding my understanding of initiation was the fact that I was one of
those people who “had to be made.” I was told if I was not initiated, “something
horrible” would happen to me. No one ever told me what it was, but they, and
I were convinced that it would happen. Frantically, I borrowed, begged and
gathered up the thousands of dollars required. I went into the room frightened, confused, desperate, totally unprepared and economically devastated.

My year as IYAWO was equally frantic to my initiation. By the end of my year, I was no longer affiliated with my godparents. (That’s another article for another time). Suffice it to say that I was left lost and unprepared. I remember the first time I ventured to peer into my ORISA pots. I had been forbidden by my Godmother to ever touch, much less open the beautiful ceramic dishes. On my first birthday, with her gone, somebody had to do the propers. Cautiously, with my eyes squeezed shut,
I took off the lids. When I finally mustered up the courage to look, I was
horrified! I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Call the police! I’ve been
ripped off! There’s nothing in this pot that can speak to me! There’s nothing in
these pots but... If you’ve got pots, you know what I saw. I did what any ill-prepared, confused person would do; I cried.

There’s an old saying, “If you want to know the end, look at the beginning.” My first three years as a priest brought into manifestation all of the confusion, misunderstanding and hysteria which had surrounded my initiation. I had no idea of what I was doing. I watched and mimicked other priests with no idea or understanding of the metaphysical principles they obviously knew. As an ORISA orphan, bouncing around from place to place, picking up a little here and a little there, my methods were scattered. My understanding eclectic at best. Then I made the ultimate mistake for a confused priest, I initiated someone else. I thought I had finally made it into the big time. I was on my way, I thought, up. I found out, I was on my way down and out of the darkness.

There’s a basic principle about motherhood, even in ORISA. Mothers want to give their children the best. They do not want their children to suffer or experience the trials and hard times in life. I wanted the best for my IYAWO. I wanted to be the best mother I could be. I wanted to give her the best, do the best by her. Unfortunately, I did not know how to give it to her. I was unprepared. I was confused. I was lost.

But because ORISA is merciful, just and in control, they have a way of coming in and making sure your prayers are answered. My prayer was:

Dear OBATALA:
Please help me do the right thing.
Please show me how to be a priest.
Please make me worthy to wear your
crown and raise your daughter. Please
put the right thoughts in my mind and
point my feet in the right direction.

Because I had so little understanding, I did not know that OBATALA really heard me and would really answer. My answer came in the form of my goddaughter leaving my house and taking nearly all my godchildren with her. It came in the form of scandal and disgrace. It came in the form of everything I thought I knew about ORISA being proved to be wrong. It came in the form of isolation. It was the best thing to ever happened to me. It brought me to a place I call “ORISA Consciousness,” the place I live today.

“ORISA do not come to make life better for you. They exist to make you better for life.” Life is a gift from OLODUMARE. At any point in time, there are 14 million souls waiting for a body. They want to come to earth to manifest the glory of life. Those of us who are fortunate enough to receive a body, have a responsibility to life. We must live it to the fullest, in alignment with the Divine Will, sharing and giving the gifts we have been given, for the betterment of humankind. Few of us
have that understanding. That includes those of us who are priests. Somewhere along the path, we get the idea that life owes us; that we are in control and that
the world and everybody in it should be the way we want it to be.

Our early life is so wrought with power struggles, self-denial, debasement and fear, we rarely consider life beyond what we need and/or want to survive in our
limited environment.

We are not taught universal law and principles. We are not taught that we are divine manifestations of the Most High Creator and that we have the divine right to love, peace, happiness and abundance. We are taught that we must struggle, fight and keep others from getting what we think we want.

We are taught to think of life and ourselves as limited. We are not taught metaphysical principles such as the power of thought and word. We are not taught that we create our own experiences as learning tools in accordance with the lesson we have come to life to learn. We grow up believing that someone is out to get us;
that God is too busy to hear us and that if we don’t follow a prescribe way of
thinking, we are doomed. Then we become priests, bringing the same misguided notions into the sacred order.

My prayer to Obatala led me to the understanding, in order to build up you must tear down. I had brought so much garbage into my priesthood, it had to be discarded. It was necessary for that process to begin in my own consciousness. I had to take a long hard look at me, not my parents or godparents; not the ORISA community. Not even what I had been told was right or wrong. I had to tell the truth to myself about myself. That was a long, hard, ugly process but I knew it was the only way to get rid of the garbage and create an evolution of consciousness.

Next, I had to come to the understanding of who or what OBATALA was not what was in the pot; but the nature, the energy, the divinity. I had to understand how that force manifested throughout nature. What was the duty and responsibility of the OBATALA nature with regards to the rest of the universe. Everything OLODUMARE makes is purposeful.

What was OBATALA’s purpose? And, how could I bring myself into alignment with that purpose? This took a great deal of observation; surrender of judgment or criticism and a great deal of faith. I had not been taught to trust myself or my thoughts.

What I did not understand was that my thoughts could no longer be my own; I was a limited human. OBATALA was a divine force. I had to move out of the way and let the
nature, force and purpose of OBATALA manifest through me. That was my purpose in the priesthood; to bring for the divine energy of ORISA to the earth plane.

ORISA consciousness meant that every move I made, I made by asking the question, “What would OBATALA do in this situation?” Each time I opened my mouth to speak, I had to consider the same. OBATALA had to become the foundation of every aspect of my life; not just on weekends at bembes or initiations. I had no idea at the onset that the priesthood would totally encompass my life. I had not been taught that. It all seemed so easy. I came to realize that the only way through was to surrender everything I had ever been taught as a human. And, the only way to surrender was to commit every aspect of my life to the nature of OBATALA -- order, discipline, humility, silence, patience and service. As I began to do that, as my consciousness began to expand, my entire life changed, as did I.

Eventually, I came to the understanding that coming to the priesthood unprepared was the way I chose (spiritually) to get to where I needed to be. There was not fault or blame. By giving power (ASE) to my human garbage, my godparents blessed me. They placed me in a position where I was forced to choose between the potential destruction of myself or the elimination of garbage. I do not however take the credit for my evolution. I know it is only through the nature, grace and consciousness of OBATALA that I survive.

Today, I am not one of the “guys.” I no longer have the desire to do the things which were at one time so very important to me. There are times when that is hard. I no longer have opinions or fears or the need to struggle to survive. As long as ORISA is, I am. Very often I ask myself, “Is it worth it?” I am not at the end yet so I really don’t know. I have moved away from family, friends and the “normal” people I know, to live almost in seclusion. That can be lonely. I choose to see it as purposeful. The greatest benefit I receive is that each morning when I wake up and go to my temple and pour libation and say, “OBATALA, how can I serve you
today?” something happens in my mind.

I know that everything I do and say will be an ordered sequence of events which will have an effect on the universe. “I am because ORISA is! All that ORISA is, I am!” Can you imagine? That blows my mind and gives purpose to my life. It’s a matter of choice. It’s a matter of consciousness.

ADUPE! ADUPE! ADUPE! BABA MI.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

i have never responded to a blog, nor have ever thought there is a reason for me to do it. however, the words in this blgo have touched me deeply as a student of the orisha religion and one who is constantly questioning her place in the religion. as a raised atheist, it was not until four years ago that i truly opened my heart and mind to the possibility of welcoming the orishas into my life. i am a skeptical and very rational being... faith and trust in the unseen were never taught to me nor offered as possibilities of a way to experience life.

this article touched me the most because it seems very sincere and because it offers some lessons that i have not hear until now. i thank my father obatala and the writer of this article for her insight and light.

as a child of obatala i now better understand his nature. i can see how order, discipline, humility, silence and service have always been part of my life... patience on the other hand, has not but i see now how it is just another challenge that through a conscious approach will allow me to continue evolving and living the life that obatala has graced me with.

bendicion.

omi said...

greetings...

thanks so much for stopping by and sharing a bit of your journey.

until i found this article, i didn't know that iyanla vanzant was initiated into the orisa tradition, but hers is certainly not the first story i've heard of someone being initiated and then left to figure things out on their own. i'm certainly glad that she had the courage to tell her story and hopefully help someone else in a similar situation.

i'm omo sango & oshun. however, obatala has also cared for me over the years, both directly and through his children.

may the orisa and your ancestors continue to bless you.

Unknown said...

Blessings...

Thank you very much for speaking from your heart and writing this blog for others to learn from. I, too, am a child of Obatala.. and 4 years into the religion. While I have a family of santeros and have been blessed with loving and wise godparents, I have struggled terriby with trying to figure things out on my own. But I believe, now, that those internal struggles are part of this journey. You are right in stating that in order to build, we must tear down. I continue to learn who Obatala is, and what He expects from me. I have also learned, through failures of my own doing, who I need to be in order to grow spiritually. And that involves talking to me about me, in a most honest way. It is difficult, humiliating and embarrasing, at best, to see the mistakes I've made, but I am grateful I am seeing them, so that I may change what I have created into something more honorable and respectful. My mother is Ochanla, another aspect of Obatala, so respect and humility are two key aspects I must learn, and learn well. Patience and lack of judgement are two others. I'm not good at those, and must continue, each day, to be conscious of what I am thinking and how I am reacting to someone, even quietly in my mind. Thoughts are powerful.

Thank you for sharing your requests to Obatala, specifically asking Him "How can I serve you today?". What a beautiful prayer. I plan to make that part of my morning ritual, as well.

Benedicion.

omi said...

alaafia, MB. thanks for stopping by & sharing your story.

i just reposted the essay when i found it...it was originally written by iyanla vanzant (http://www.innervisionsworldwide.com/Inner/About/founder.htm).

i've been blessed to know several priests of obatala, and have had my own experiences with him. he is a wonderful force in our world and in our lives, surely.

may your ori, the orisa, and your ancestors always uplift, strengthen and bless you.

~omi

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for that! I am learning a lots. But still confuse about a lot of things spiritually. I feel along and an outcast. I will start working with someone and then things happen. It just stop! It's like they reach a point with me and they do not know what to do for me. The questions I asked, it's like taboo. I feel they either do not the answer which is ok. But you would think they would say let search together and find the answer. Instead they treat me like a child. One thing I learn on this journey, is that your godparents are not gods and most of us think that. And some acted that way. So now I am own a lonely journey trying to find myself and where I belong. And you really brought it home to me. Thanks

omi said...

alaafia, Barbara,

thank Iyanla! it's her essay. :-)

i appreciate you stopping by, and for sharing a bit of your story.

entering the traditions can be trying, for a variety of reasons. Iyanla's essay was 14 yrs old when i posted it here 7 yrs ago, and it's still relevant. i'm still hearing stories like yours, and hers.

my Ancestors helped me the most when i was "between traditions" and trying to figure out what to do. if you haven't already, i'd humbly suggest that you go to your honored dead and ask them to lead you to the teacher you need, based on your spiritual/blood heritage(s). they'll lead you home.

may you be blessed, always.