Negative Energies

Once Again, I`m not sure what the negative energies [are] in which orisa protect us from.I would say the negative energies are life`s adversities, or maybe the Ajogun,who are spirits that create obstacles for humanity.The head of the Ajogun is Baba Esu Elegbara.I do not [believe] that the Orisa were sitting around waiting for us for [millions] of years.To demonstrate what i believe I bring up the subject of human parents. Our parents were not sent to earth solely for the purpose of having us. Before they had children our parents lived their own lives. However,somewhere down the path of their destinies they were supposed to have children.When Osun swells the river she usually does so because it is a natural [occurrence].The Orisa guide us along the paths or destinies of which we chose in front of Olodumare himself prior to being born.the orisa instruct us on how to live our lives.The Orisa show us how to achieve ‘Agbo Ato’, Long Life.they also discipline us when we have strayed from our paths.

Much respect,
Oludare Akinola

Thanks for the feedback Oludare Akinola,

Human parents are more closely associated with other primates than with Orisa. The whole point of members of the animal kingdom is to be fruitful and multiply. In essence, it actually is your parents’ purpose to have children. The fact that our parents take their sweet time getting around to being parents does not mean their purpose was not to become parents.

As humans we have complicated life so much that we actually think our purpose in life is to be doctors and lawyers and other professions. We have a tendency to judge each other based on what we do instead of who we are. We have developed complex economic systems to accumulate wealth and maximum profit and more materialism than the average person has any right to in order to develop a comfortable life. I think of how our African ancestors and our Native American ancestors lived simply off the land without the accumulation of such excesses and I wish we could go back to a style of living where it is all for one and one for all.

We now live in a culture where it’s every man for him self. And everybody has to work their hardest in this rat race. Other primates don’t enslave themselves to economics like we do. No other animal chooses to live its life so removed from nature. Generally speaking it is only the human species that have evolved so distant from its true roots. Because we have voluntarily brought so much trouble, so much osogbo into our lives, so much negativity, many of us look to our beliefs for relief. We think the solution to our problems lies in the supernatural realm instead of in our own hands.  We look towards Orisa and ancestors and Olodumare himself for some relief from our choices as a collective civilization.

But it is not the Orisas’ purpose to guide us through self inflicted trouble. When it comes to the relationship between the Orisas and humans, all we can expect is the guidance to develop our spirituality. As our spirituality matures, we should eventually realize that the materialism and the wealth and the other distractions that we think are important really don’t rate that high at all. When we develop our spirituality, we learn to keep perspective on the problems we normally think are so overwhelming.

All Orisas are here to help us in this endeavor of spirituality, especially Baba Esu. Esu opens the door that leads to the path of spiritual development. With so many people needing so much help getting their spirituality in order Esu has his work cut out for him trying to get all of us to go through that door that can lead to our spiritual salvation. But instead of us acknowledging his contribution to our development, we blame Baba for our own bad choices. What incentive would Esu have to help us when we malign him so?

If Esu had the humanistic traits many of us put on him we’d all be in trouble. Through the traditional propaganda of Ifa, we learn to believe that he is a trickster and someone that is not to be trusted.  Thankfully, Baba Esu, like all Orisas, is above the human weaknesses we constantly like to saddle them with. We say Orisas are great. We say that we appreciate their guidance. But then we say that the Orisa Esu cannot be trusted and that he spends his time luring us off of our path after he worked so hard to get us on it.

It doesn’t take an Orisa to distract humans. For the vast majority of us, all it takes is a shiny bauble or trinket to get us to lose sight of our true goals. All too often human spirituality is fragile and we are always looking for some type of prestige or status that we can hold over others to win their admiration. If this was Esu’s purpose he wouldn’t have very much work to do at all.

More people need to spend more time developing their own personal relationship with Orisa instead of relying on the tales and stories that traditional Ifa has passed down from generation to generation. We rely on conjecture and hearsay from our elders and other humans that we trust to know what they’re telling us. But when we take a moment to examine what they’re really saying it doesn’t take much to see that we are being sold tainted goods.

The only negative energies that impact our lives are the negative energies we as individuals and we as a community allow to impact our lives. As a collective, we can do so much better than this. We make the choice to take our spirituality for granted and allow our understanding of Orisa to be based on what others choose to believe about our spiritual guides. Until we learn to take better control of our spiritual development we will continue to be manipulated and we will continue to suffer negative energies as a result. No one punishes us. When we make the choice to take our eyes off the spiritual prize we are the ones who open the door for trouble to come.

Peace