Nibolotiwa | Ebeekaisi
When in a foreign land you may be asked “where are you from?” (nibo lo ti wa)? Where are you from (Ebee ka i si)? Where are you originally from? Where is your source (Orisun)? Of course, you know where you are from. Ọmọlúwàbís know where they are from. Ezigbo Mmadus know that they are from me. You know you are a spiritual being; you are your spirit, your spirit which emanated from me. Your essence, the everlasting you, is your spirit.
I am the source, I am the creator, I own the spiritual realms, I am the spiritual realms, the spiritual realms is me. (Emi ni Orisun, Emi ni Eleda, Emi ni Olorun, Emi l’orun, Ọrun nimi). I am the Great Spirit; I am Chukwu. I embody heaven (Eluigwe).
To the space explorer, I am like the mother spacecraft and your spirit like a small shuttle spacecraft on board. To the sailor I am like a cruise ship and your spirit is like a dinghy on board.
To the weather forecaster, I’m like a cloud and your spirit like water, reaching the earth as rain or snow and returning to me as vapor. To the biologist, I am like a cell and your spirit is like a particle that undergoes exocytosis and endocytosis.
As they say, human beings are spirits having an earthly experience. Yes, humans are embodied spirits. Your real essence is your spirit, that spiritual energy that flows from me and as energy, your spirit cannot be created or destroyed.
While on earth, you will find ways to explain how life works such as fate, destiny, ako sile, kadara, ori, chi, chance, predestination, karma, etc. Embrace whichever philosophy and/or theology that works for you and makes it easier to go through life, provided you do no harm to your neighbor or to yourself.
Philosophies, theologies, theories, and hypotheses have been found by many to be useful in making the journey of life more bearable. Life is like a stage play with actors following a script but able to improvise from time to time. Life is like a computer simulation game in which your ability to exercise free will is somewhat limited by the constraints of the game.
So how do you transition from the spiritual realm (orun) to embody a human being on earth (aiye)? Your spirit emanated from me via a process similar to exocytosis to invade a human body at the embryo stage and you remain constrained within that human host while they are alive.
As you know, a zygote is formed when a particular sperm meets a particular egg to form a zygote in a completely random process. Though with IVF, the process is less random. Anyway, soon after a zygote is formed, it develops into an embryo, gets inhabited by you – the spirit as the soul develops alongside the human body.
Your spirit has the option to choose which embryo to inhabit, but the body and soul of the human host who develops from the zygote-turned-embryo is conditioned by their genetics and environmental circumstances in which they find themselves on Earth.
Unfortunately, you won’t know the full package in the DNA of the zygote or the socioeconomic circumstances that your human host will be born into till you get to Earth. So, it is really a case of “try your luck”.
Your spirit is what makes you as a human being different from other animals because although other animals may have souls and bodies, they do not have that spiritual essence in them.
Life on earth is like an extreme sport and you are a player on the field of life, playing to win against all odds. While you are playing the game, your fellow spirits are on the bench watching as observers, as that great cloud of witnesses.
It can sometimes be boring sitting on the bench, especially when you feel you could play the game better than the players you are watching. So, while on the bench, you are eager to have another go at the game.
An important rule of the game is to do no willful harm to yourself or your neighbor. Those who break this rule are relegated to the benches for a long while.
Why are hurdles in the game you may ask? Why does the fisherman put a shark in the fish tank? If there are no obstacles, if there are no challenges, then there is no victory nor the joy of winning.
As they say, winning in life requires you to work with the cards you are dealt. In this game, I have no favorites and I do not fix the game. I don’t pick the cards for you. It is a random event that keeps the circle of life ongoing. However, I can guide you on how to make the best of those cards you have.
Winning is attaining contentment and peace of mind while you make the best of the cards you were dealt. Making the best of the circumstances you find yourself in and the resources at hand.
The goal on earth is to make it better than you found it. The goal is to attain self-mastery, to subdue the ego or flesh. To get the flesh to listen to the spirit. To try to lead your flesh aright.
You, the spirit, while constrained within your human host becomes their conscience, constantly communicating with the soul. However, environmental conditioning of a soul may prevent it from listening to their conscience (the voice of their spirit).
The soul consists of the conscious mind and the subconsciousness. It has hopes, desires, aspirations. It is frail and may be vulnerable to its weaknesses.
Because you are of me, you are inherently good. You are an Ezigbo Mmadu. However, perceived lack of resources and/or inability of your human soul to hear from your conscience may lead to a scarcity mentality and desperation.
This might make you embrace the dog-eat-dog world philosophy, or the belief that a fish that does not swallow other fishes will not grow bigger (Azu na-eloghi ibe ya adighi ebu) but if you think outside the box, you may find other alternatives. Note that those who feed on themselves stand a chance of going extinct. Take a lesson from the Neandertals.
If your soul can connect with its conscience (your spirit, my spirit within you) it will develop a win-win mentality, realizing that the sky is big enough for all the birds to fly without bumping into each other. (Oju orun to eye fo layi kan ara won).
Make the best of the resources you have. Constant use of your resources e.g., brain power, physical muscles, time etc keeps you in a good state of health.
The earth is a good place to live especially if you are lucky to live in a fair and equitable society. However, if you are unfortunate to find yourself with unjust people, you may start longing for the hereafter. (Ai’se dede ara aiye, lo n’mu’ni da’ro ara orun). Though it is best not act on that urge because it will cause those who care about you a lot of suffering.
When the time is right and you depart the earth, you join other spirits, the cloud of witnesses to cheer on those still living on earth as they go through the joys and pains of the human experience. How great is the rejoicing of your return!
If your spirit chooses to come back immediately, you have the opportunity to return to the family you were with before or go on a totally new adventure. If your spirit sits too long on the bench as part of the cloud of witnesses before returning to the world, the descendants of your previous human family will be like strangers to you, so you might as well just try your luck in a different place.
When your spirit comes to earth, you are like a blank slate, full of hopes and aspirations. When your spirit departs earth, you leave behind all your achievements and acquisitions. So, it is so much easier to come to earth than to depart from it (Àtiwáyé ò dàbí àtirorun) especially when life has been fun.
The process by which your spirit is re-engulfed by me when you die is like how it was extruded from me into a human body before you are born. When you, the spirit departs your human host and return to me, the human soul dies, and the body starts to decay.
Sometimes we try to delay the inevitable. Grappling with a headache today, tomorrow dealing with liver issues, don’t die, don’t die they say, but death is inevitable (Òní orí fífo; ola, edo rírìn; Mákùú Mákùú, ìgbà wo ni Mákùú ò níí kú?).
What will be will be. Repeated prayers are made that a young person should not die, but if death unfortunately comes, those living keep on living. Life goes on (Nwa anwuna, nwa anwuna, nwa nwuo ka anyi mara ma chi agaghi efo).
When you lose someone dear, allow yourself to grieve the loss. Acknowledge the pain, mourn and weep then let it go, dry your tears. Do not keep making yourself miserable, for too much grief wearies the soul. If you keep looking at the face of the dead, you would cry yourself to death (onye lee ka ozu dewere ihu,o begbuo onwe ya na akwa).
Hold on to the fond memories of the dead, draw strength and inspiration from them. For their memories are a blessing. You are blessed to have had them enrich your life while they were on earth. Treasure the moments you had with them. Let good thoughts of them warm your heart and bring a smile to your face.
Remember that you shall all tread the path they’ve gone at some point of the other, and then you will be like them. You can only hope that the day of death of each loved one will be widely spread apart (Ojo a jina si ara won) and that you survive your elderly loved ones (aa gbehin arugbo wa).
Returning to me is sure banker for everyone. Let no one gloat and make you feel they have custody of the heavens for you shall all return there (Má forun yo mí; gbogbo wa la jọ ńlọ).
From me you came and to me you shall return. The spirit within a human being returns to me (the source) at the end of life while the body rots away and the soul becomes a memory which is wished a fate in the mind of each person they left behind on earth.
A soul may be wished to rest in peace when such a person’s memory is a blessing to the individual left with those memories. While it may be wished to rest in pieces when it is associated with painful memories.
Nevertheless, to rest in the mind in peace or in pieces is all wishful thinking, some sort of therapy for those left behind. Once each soul finishes its business on earth it remains just a memory. Make do with that memory as you please. For the spirit has departed, perhaps to embark on a new adventure.
After all is said and done, until one dies, no one knows the full picture of what lies in the hereafter. May you find that what you believe is true when you finally die and see what happens after death.
I permit you to dream of it as you will. As long as your dreams give you peace of mind and do no harm to you or your neighbor.
….to be continued.