An innate feeling dwells humans for thousands years: We all come from the same source and will return to it; a global, ancient, ongoing and overwhelming feeling that grasps human conscious.
Concentrated in Southwestern Nigeria, Benin and Togo the Yoruba religion, or tradition, controls the believing hearts of an ethnicity that amounts to 45 million of people inhabiting: Yoruba land, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Togo, Ivory Coast, UK, US, Niger, Burkina Faso, Italy, Liberia and many other locations in all continents though they originated from Africa.[1]
“Ayanmo”, which can be interpreted as destiny, fate, spiritual secret, constitutes the essence of each object on earth; as it is believed that each creature on earth, even nonliving entities, does have a spiritual core. All these creatures are destined to perform its spiritual role and finally it will be unified with the source of all energies: “Olodumare”; a simple, global, primitive but profound concept for construing the universe.[2]
Orun-Rere, it is literary “heaven”, or the place which receives kind spirits rewarded for their goodness.[3] An individual has to unite with self in order to have the chance to unite with the source; i.e. during the physical existence “ori-inu”, a person has to develop consciousness, reaching real spiritual self “ori orun”, and through discovering self, an individual should discover the core of the source.
It is interesting to note that the pioneering figure of Islamic Sufism “Ibn Arabi” stipulated: “You will never know your own Lord until you know yourself”.[4]
Much similar to all religions worldwide, prayers, meditations, or balanced divine isolation is the route towards self-discovery which leads to unifying with nature and eventually amalgamating with the source.
Creation:
It is hard to trace the Yoruba heritage as they existed since the 7th century BCE, keeping oral heritage until the 8th century when their kingdom in southwestern Nigeria was discovered by Portuguese.[5] However, like all nations, Yoruba people exerted a considerable effort in inferring the universe and generating their own mythology regarding the story of creation.
Olodumare, which can be considered as another name for: God, Allah, Jehovah, Atum…etc, is the Creator.
The spirit of “truth” visited all planets to arrange life on it, fatefully, the Earth was covered with water, a number of deities led by Obatala were sent to perform the task of helping the earth to develop its layer. During one of their visits, the arch-deity Obatala came on a place dwelled by a phylum that hid a ground form winged beasts. The contents were emptied onto what quickly became a large mound on the surface of the water and shortly thereafter the winged beasts began to scatter it until the point where it gradually turned into a large patch of dry land.
Obatala hurdled from a height and named the place “Ife”. The land became fertile. Olodumare gathered gases from the outer reaches of space and unleashed an explosion that turned into a ball of fire. He then sent it to “Ife”, where he dried much of the earth and simultaneously began to invent motionless figurines. It was at this time that Olodumare released the „breath of life“ to blow across the land and the figurines were slowly „born“ as the first inhabitants of “Ife”.
Resembling the majority of ancient peoples, the Yoruba people think that “God” or Olodumare, has specially blessed their land.[6] Nevertheless, they have always believed in the Unity of humankind.
“Orishas”, which can be translated as deities, gods, or angels, are considered to be the “Hands of God” in a way or another, they are the entities that reflect Olodumares’ power and will.
Yoruba people believe in after and before life; i.e. they believe in reincarnation of souls throughout time.
The global philosophy of Yoruba religion did not halt the mutual hostility with Abrahamic dominant religions. An antagonism that was fierce enough to cause the diaspora of Yoruba people, who were able to surface their religious philosophy and discuss it freely away from hotbeds of conflict.
It is essential to guard human heritage which is still vivid and embodied in the way of life of various societies and to connect it to modern life without deforming the past of trying to annihilate it. This heritage is our scientific route for uncovering strategic stages in human progress.
[1] https://aaregistry.org/story/the-yoruba-people/
[2] https://www.learnreligions.com/yoruba-religion-4777660
[3] https://africanspiritualitynow.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/81/
[4] https://ibnarabi.site123.me/%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%88%D9%85-%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B2%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%B5%D9%88%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7-%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AB%D8%A9-%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%81%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A7#:~:text=%22%D9%84%D8%A7%20%D9%8A%D8%B9%D8%AA%D8%B2%D9%84%20%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%91%D8%A7%20%D9%85%D9%8E%D9%86%D9%92%20%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%81%20%D9%86%D9%81%D8%B3%D9%87%D8%8C%20%D9%88%D9%85%D9%8E%D9%86%D9%92%20%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%81,%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%AE%D9%84%D9%91%D9%82%D9%87%20%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%A7%20%D8%B8%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1%D9%8B%D8%A7%20%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B7%D9%86%D9%8B%D8%A7%22%20-%20%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86%20%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%91.
[5] https://firstclassnigeria.com/history-of-yoruba-people/
[6] https://yorubalessons.com/2020/10/10/the-yoruba-creation-story/
