[Ifá-Orisa]: The Secret to getting your Legitimate Needs, Reasonable Desires and Realistic Requests fulfilled by Ifá and the Irunmole-Orisa.

[***The Secret to Finding Fulfillment in your Spiritual Life. The [true] means to realizing your legitimate needs, requests and spirituality are easy and simpler than you think.***]

Aboru Aboye. Ogbo ato asure iworiwofun. Àse.

Today spirituality is being abused and has been turned into a business by many. Hence what was once something pure, potent, meaningful, simple, uplifting and efficacious has become virtually polluted, powerless, meaningless, complicated, degrading and ineffective.

Self-respect, respect for others, sincerity, and love have long since departed and disappeared from the spirituality of many. Today many have a sickly, lopsided, malnourished, unbalanced, unstable, volatile, self-serving [selfish] and emaciated spirituality.

Many think that to receive and enjoy the love, power, support and benefit of the irunmole-orisa that one has to spend exorbitant amounts of money in complicated and questionable rites, rituals and ceremonies.

My dear friends please ask yourself: “Why has a faith, spirituality and tradition that was once once simple, clear, direct and easy become so complicated, confusing, hazy, unsatisfying, superficial and difficult?”

The simple, direct and truthful answer is that true spirituality has been lost because many are not looking for true spirituality. When true spirituality is lost then dry, powerless and pointless perfunctory rites, rituals and ceremonies begin to increase and multiply. Instead of orisa spirituality being a wholesome, holistic and satisfying lifestyle it becomes a money making venture and an avenue for self-aggrandizement. Instead of orisa spirituality being what it was intended to be, an authentic spiritual path that produces honest, humble and loving people of courage, spiritual virtue and integrity it has become a means to promote arrogance, megalomania, self-worship and narcissistic tendencies!

The true heart of Ifá-orisa spirituality is non-existent in a great many professed devotees. This is why no matter what such devotees do or practice nothing happens, and nothing of genuine benefit emerges from all of their dizzying activities. They gain no true benefits of any kind for themselves and they confer no true benefits of any kind to anyone. Instead of getting better, pressing forward and improving many are going backwards and losing themselves in pride, arrogance, delusion, confusion, ostentation and make-believe.

How can someone in this condition receive the favor and support of the irunmole-orisa? How can someone in this condition be entrusted with responsibility and power? How can someone in this condition expect to receive answers from the irunmole-orisa and how can they expect to truly understand, experience and know the true nature of Ifá and the irunmole-orisa? How can someone in this condition find and enjoy genuine and lasting fulfillment, prosperity and contentment?

How can we remedy and eliminate the corruption and spiritual malaise within the tradition today? How can we recover the many jewels and riches of life giving spirituality that have been lost?

What is the answer, solution and remedy to such present day dryness, insincerity, impotence, disenchantment, competitiveness, strife and disappointment?

THE ANSWER: It is time to return to the original simplicity of the divine ancient tradition [isese-isembaye] of the irunmole-orisa as it was originally bestowed upon humanity. The irunmole-orisa entrusted to us something that was thoroughly beautiful, attractive, effective, satisfying, clear and simple but through our own greed, pride, neglect, irresponsibility, indifference and arrogance we have corrupted, ruined, diminished and distorted the true power, beauty, splendor and simplicity of the isese.

What is needed among devotees today is not a lot of complicated, perfunctory and expensive rites, rituals and ceremonies.

A body without a spirit is useless. A mind without intelligence is useless. A heart without sincerity, sensitivity, divine sentiment and purity is useless.

Rites, rituals and ceremonies can never take the place of genuine reverence, faith, simplicity, wholesomeness and love. Genuine reverence, faith, simplicity, wholesomeness [personal integrity, self-respect, character] and love are the things that we must offer to Ifá and the irunmole-orisa so that our legitimate needs and requests are fulfilled. These are the things that we must have to find meaning, fulfillment and satisfaction. These are the things that generate and cause the descent of the power of divine manifestation, blessings and auspiciousness in our lives and our community.

Let us offer to the irunmole-orisa the sacrifice and offering of a pure heart that is seasoned with the satisfying, aromatic and attractive spices of love, gratitude, simplicity and innocence of mind. Let us approach the irunmole-orisa with guilessness. Let us walk with the irunmole-orisa with a mind that is free of perversity, malice, lust and greed. Let us approach the irunmole-orisa with self-respect, respect for others and with respect for the irunmole-orisa. Let us approach the irunmole-orisa in sincerity, honestly presenting ourselves to them as we truly are and entreat them with the genuine sentiment that they are our shelter, our friends, well-wishers and our family.

Let us put all superficiality, trickery, nonsense and game-playing to the side once and for all. When we do this then the simplest act of devotion will be reciprocated and rewarded a hundred-fold.

Dry and mechanical rites, rituals and ceremonies, in-and-of themselves, will take you no-where. Such rites, rituals and ceremonies will prove themselves to be useless and ineffective. Putting a lot of money into such rites, rituals, ceremonies and sacrificial materials will not add an iota of effectiveness and efficacy, it will not cause the irunmole-orisa to take notice of you and it will not make the irunmole-orisa do anything on your behalf. It will add nothing to you as a person and it will add nothing to your spiritual life [your inner-life] and your overall quality of life.

If with simplicity, sincerity and expectant faith we approach Ifá and the irunmole-orisa we will be the better for it and we will definitely come out of all of our troubles and we will get spiritual and temporal prosperity and uplift. Peace of mind, health and contentment will be ours. Spiritual vitality, merit and strength will be ours. Divinely sanctioned authority and power will be ours.

When we approach Ifá and the irunmole-orisa in this dedicated, determined and settled manner the difficulties, obstacles and problems in our lives will be easily removed and resolved, and our legitimate desires will find fulfillment.

Ifá and the irunmole-orisa will enter and remain in the heart, mind, life and home of those who lovingly think of them with simplicity, love and gratitude. Wherever Ifá and the irunmole-orisa are truly present peace, contentment, prosperity, wellbeing, love, courage and happiness will be there.

Ifá and irunmole-orisa will laugh at, deride and ignore all those who are false, even if they worshipped Ifá and the irunmole-orisa with costly and rare sacrificial materials. Ifá and the irunmole will laugh at, deride and ignore all those who while seeking and desiring their own happiness yet are plotting to harm and undermine others.

Falsity, malice, revengefulness and hypocrisy are not [and will never be] acceptable to Ifá and the irunmole-orisa.

The attention, grace, love, power, friendship, commitment and nearness of Ifá and the irunmole-orisa can only be received by love, reverence, sincerity, simple-faith and good-will. If you do not have tenderness in your heart, if you are incapable of feeling the pain in the lives of others, if you are incapable of shedding tears over the plight and suffering of others then you cannot know and you will never truly know Ifá and the irunmole-orisa because Ifá and the irunmole-orisa are embodiments, expressions and manifestations of pure divine love.

Sincerity, love, good-will, good-faith and integrity are the best ebo [sacrifice], offering and akose [spiritual remedy]. If these are not present in any act of worship or during the performance of any duly constituted and authentic rite, ritual and ceremony then nothing will be gained or achieved. Love, virtue, generosity and rectitude must be recovered. The shrine of our hearts must be re-consecrated, and love, virtue, generosity and rectitude must be permanently installed therein. This is the answer and solution my dear friends. We must return to the original simplicity of the isese and the original simplicity of the divine pattern that was entrusted to us by the irunmole-orisa.

Each one of you reading and considering this lesson must make the choice for himself. Will you be a true and genuine devotee, or will you be a pseudo and imitation devotee? Will you give yourself the opportunity to truly know, love and experience the irunmole-orisa, or will you shut yourself out from experiencing their life transforming and uplifting love, goodness, power and wisdom? Will you recover and embrace simplicity, clarity and truth or will you continue on the fruitless path of hypocrisy, superficiality and arrogance that Ifá and the irunmole-orisa will laugh at, deride and reject?

The tradition can be yours and known by you only if you embrace it, make it your own and live it. The tradition will only be [and can only be as good] as the people who comprise it. The tradition will benefit you only if you approach it with sincerity, and if you live it with firm resolve, commitment, honesty, purity, love and dedication. Other than this there is no other way.

Aboru Aboye. Ogbo ato asure iworiwofun. Àse.

~ Awo Òrúnmìlà Mark Casillas /!!!\ A.O.M.C. /!!!\