"What is a Human Being?" Discourses in the Forest: Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics in Dialogue

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Sep 28, 2025, 5:29:41 PM (13 hours ago) Sep 28

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Discourses in the Forest

Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics

Dialogue

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

The Conclave in the Forest

What Does it Mean to be Human?

"What is a human being? That soft bodied creature that first stands on one leg and then on another in other to move forward, what is he?

The human person is eniyan, as understand in the oldest form of Yoruba thought, a harmony of matter and spirit, a point of convergence of all the physical and spiritual forces that blend into a person, shaping their identity, their iwa, in dialogue with that person's actions.

These contexts interact through the infrastructure provided by Ori, personalised and unique to each person, the head without and the head within, a person's inner eye and ear, their sharpest point and most alert guide as they navigate through this world and the one beyond, connecting humans to the spiritual and physical worlds, acting as a bridge to the supernatural forces, which humans cannot fully comprehend".

The words, though spoken softly, rang in the forest space.

Spirit and Creativity

Could these ideas explain why the speaker, Toyin Falola, had earlier described of his creativity "It is the spirit that directs me on what to write at a particular time"?

"Without the spirit", he further stated, "I don’t write anything. I cannot explain this, but this is how it works for me. A spiritual 'journey' precedes anything I write.

And as the spirit commands, words pour like rain, intellectual drenches that become a flood".

Falola, a prolific author, and I, were at his forest school, in which creative interactions take place in the inspirational ambience of forest, in this instance, the Osun forest in Osogbo, a premier centre of Yoruba origin Isese/Orisa spirituality.

Building on his essay "Ritual Archives", which depicts sacred spaces as embodying infinite learning potential, he was exploring forest environment as learning space.

Seated in a chalet in the forest, we talked. The air thrummed with something akin to electricity, an inspirational presence projected by the trees and the light constituting the space but reaching beyond them.

The "supernatural forces" Falola referenced or forces inherent in nature but at a spectrum beyond full human discernment?

Could these ideas explain my own inspirations, ideas unfolding uninvited in my mind?

Could they help me understand that consuming force driving my quest for knowledge, its restlessness making it hard for me to find a place in society?

The Mysterious Story

"We are actors in a great story we barely grasp. Yet, our actions also shape the narrative", Falola stated, as if sensing my mood.

A mystery in which we have somehow become involved.

" We exist in a cosmos that is not fully comprehensible to us", he continued.

The enclosing forest, a universe of its own, resonated with those words.

Its eerie but sublime radiance echoed that sense of cosmic impenetrability.

I felt small. Overpowered. Overwhelmed. The enveloping silence terrifying. It concentrated itself into a personality, invisible but palpable. A muteness of sound that I could endure only beceause there was another person there with me.

I remembered Irele. The numinous and infinite, the supernatural and unseen, coexisting actively with the everyday and the finite.

Was I being introduced to such sensitivities through this stimulating dialogue in a uniquely sensitizing space?

"That sense of awe you are experiencing suggests stimulation of those powers through which the roots of the universe are approached" Falola observed, reading my facial expressions and body language.

Intersections of Spirit and Matter

"Humans possess certain unique qualities that makes them semispiritual and capable of interacting with the invisible realm under special circumstances" he stated.

"Such interactions open one to the fantastical and magical character of the spiritual universe intertwined with the physical world. Challenging to grasp but the human mind may penetrate it to a degree" he concluded.

My mind went to the intersecting horizontal and vertical lines of the igha-ede symbol used in Benin-City Olokun worship, to the veve visual structure representing the crossroads identified with the deity Legba in Voodoo and the bisecting lines inscribed on opon ifa, Yoruba origin Ifa divination trays, all symbolizing the convergence of diverse realities. An ancient concept vividly expressed.

The School of Sacred Spaces

"Would you recommend any system of knowledge for exploring these ideas?" I asked the pedagogical explorer. Falola was combining his work as a teacher in the conventional academic sense with his exploratory pedagogy, using sacred environments as learning spaces.

He had employed sacred spaces in different parts of the world, exploring their unique properties in relation to the values associated with each of those locations, linking each spatial and ideational configuration with possibilities beyond each of those spaces, correlating each of them with a web of universal values, cultural and cosmic.

The zones he had explored included Yosemite National Park in the US, sacred to the Native Americans and to contemporary visitors, Chartres cathedral in France, an ultimate glory of Christian architecture, the Zen gardens of Kyoto, Japan, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, displaying the work of a master of the sacred operating beyond religious contexts and David Ebengho's magnificent shrine of Benin and Yoruba spiritualities in Benin-City.

I was privileged to be with him in this Osun forest exploration.

The Ifa/Ori Synthesis

"The 'Ifa/Ori' synthesis is my latest interest", he said, responding to my request about what approaches he would suggest for exploring the ideas he was explaining.

"Really?" I responded.

"Yes", he affirmed. "The union of method and idea, unifying the immediate and the cosmic, the local and the universal, is what the Ifa/ori synthesis represents for me", he spoke on.

"Hmmm...." was all I could say as I listened patiently.

"Ifa is method and idea, technique and vision, while ori is the pivot on which Ifa turns", he elaborated.

" Certainly a valid approach to Ifa going by the Isese/Orisa belief community's emphasis on ori", I agreed.

" Thanks" he said. " Do you recall the classic ese ifa 'The Importance of Ori' Wande Abimbola translated in Sixteen Great Poems of Ifa?" he asked.

"Certainly", I responded. "Iconic. A manifesto on the ultimate significance of the individual human spirit, ori, above all other forces", I concluded, as the chorus of myriad tiny forest creatures seemed to agree with me, the sounds of night filtering in, as our discussion had continued into the setting of the sun.

" Superb" Falola answered. "But why does Ifa remain a priest centred spirituality? Going through priests to hear from one's own ori, one's own spiritual essence, needs to be re-examined" he queried.

I laughed. "Are you not veering towards Ifa heresy, in the spirit of Moyo Okediji, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, Olobe Yonyon and their co-travellers in that Facebook challenge that shook the Isese community?" I asked, "where Moyo was emphasizing the idea of unmediated relationship between the human being and his or her ori as the primary conduit to Olodumare, the creator of the universe?"

" What is heresy but a view the orthodox are uncomfortable with, a view that perhaps cuts through layers of superimpositions to arrive at the essence of a knowledge system?" Falola challenged.

We both remained silent, as we absorbed the gravity of his words.

Were we approaching a Martin Luther moment in the development of the Isese/Orisa branch of Yoruba thought?

"The just shall live by faith", Luther declared, in opposition to the idea of the supremacy of priests in guiding people to God in Christianity.

Universal Resonances

"The Ifa/ori conjunction resonates globally though it comes from Yoruba thought" Falola continued.

The Undying Essence of the Self

From the "atman" of Hinduism to the Igbo "chi", the Benin "ehi", the Yoruba "ori", the Akan "kra", the Christian "soul", the Zen Buddhist " the face you had before you were born", to the Western esoteric "inner or higher self", an idea about the essence of the human being runs across various spiritualities", he asserted.

"What's that idea?" I responded, intrigued.

The Ultimacy of Ori in Ifa and the

The Ultimacy of the Self in

the Upanishads

Ifa

"Who of you orisa/deities, can follow their devotee on a distant journey over the seas without turning back?" a question asked by the personified Ifa in "The Importance of Ori" is the Ifa version of the idea.

"The various orisa, deities, declared their undying loyalty to their devotees until they were asked a variant of the question directed at Orunmila, upon which they all answered in the same way.

The question was "What will you do if after travelling for a long distance, walking and walking,you arrive at Igeti hill, the home of your fathers?

If they offer you two fast-moving rats, two fish that swim gracefully, ten hens with big livers, two goats heavy with foetus, two cows with fat horns; If they prepare pounded yam and you take well-brewed guinea-corn beer, alligator pepper, and good kola nuts?’

Orunmila answered saying, ‘After eating to my satisfaction, I will return home.’

Orunmila was told that he could not follow his devotee to a distant journey over the seas."

The discussion ends with the assertion that only ori can follow its devotee on a distant journey without turning back, even the most distant of journeys, the journey of death.

Let us salute the genius of whoever composed that poem. May Abimbola be blessed for translating it" Falola summed up.

The forest seemed to hold its breadth at this declaration. A sudden total silence reigned. The countless miniscule forest creatures made no sound. The regular rhythms of the vegetative space, accidentally rhyming with our discussion?

" What do you see in the poem as having universal resonance? " I asked at last.

Nachiketas and Death in the

Upanishads

"How is that poem different in essence from the story of Nachiketas' encounter with Death in the Hindu Upanishads?" Falola challenged.

"Is that not going too far away culturally?" I wondered aloud.

"Not at all", Falola countered.

"Both stories centralise the idea of a journey. A journey over the seas, even beyond death, in the Ifa poem. A journey to encounter Death, in the Upanishads. Both culminate in an account of the transcendence of death through the immortal essence of the self " he stated.

"True?" I responded, struck by the idea of such precise similarities between texts from such diverse and geographically distant cultures.

"Yes. Both also employ the motif of the sacrifice of material forms as a precursor to an ultimate possibility beyond such sacrifices.

The orisa are fed with a range of sacrifices, upon which they abandon the journey with their devotee beceause they have reached the limit of their interest in the journey.

Nachiketas' father sacrifices all he has as a religious offering but the son complains about the adequacy of the sacrifices, urging his father to sacrifice him too in order to maximise the value of the sacrifice, pestering his father until his father declares 'I sacrifice you to Death.' "

"What happens then?" I respond, eager to hear the rest.

"Nachiketas arrives at Death's home to find the dreaded one absent, but on Death's return he asks Nachiketas to name a wish as an apology for not meeting him at home, upon which Nachiketas requests to know how to transcend death".

"Wow. How does Death respond?", I wonder aloud.

"He resists mightily, offering Nachiketas anything else, money, women and more, in place of the answer to that question, but Nachiketas declines. Women and money cease to matter when death comes calling, he insists. How may one transcend death?, he urges."

"Amazing", I respond at such visionary spirit.

"Death is at last forced to answer the question about how he can be defeated". Falola continues.

"Its a matter of knowledge. Knowledge of the Self. 'The Self is not born. Does not die. Understand that everything comes from Spirit, grasp the unity of self and universal Self, mount beyond birth and death', is the summation from the Indian sages whose wrote the Upanishads.

"How is this knowledge gained?" I asked.

"Through meditation. Looking inward," he responded.

" Interesting. How would you sum up the similarities you see between the Ifa and Upanishadic stories in terms of going beyond death?" I asked.

Going Beyond Material Sacrifices

in Ifa and the Upanishads

" They both focus on the idea of a self that transcends death.They both demonstrate an emphasis on going beyond material sacrifices, even of everything one has, as in the Upanishadic story".

"But the culture of material sacrifices is central to Ifa, deeply encoded in its literature and ritual" I observed.

"How did that come about?" Falola queried.

" Ifa literature emphasises the centrality of the spiritual self, the ori.

Yet Ifa literature also ties relationship with ori with consulting Ifa priests and with material sacrifices.

The Ifa priest is made the privileged means of getting knowledge from one's own ori" he concludes.

"The babalawo- the adept in the esoteric knowkedge of Ifa- is a highly trained professional", I counter.

"Should the option of direct relationship with one's ori, one's higher self, not be part of such a spiritual practice as Ifa?" Falola thought aloud.

" This privileging of the Ifa priest is amplified by the complex knowledge structure in terms of which the divinatory system works, ensuring it will always be a highly specialized, elite practice, not a generally accessible one" I observed.

The knowledge system represented by this complexity is among the greatest achievements of the Yoruba" I pointed out.

"Unifying mathematics and literature, graphic symbols and visual patterns, herbalogy and the visual arts, spirituality and philosophy, its potential for interpretation and application is infinite" I affirm.

My mind goes to the forest cosmos in which Falola and I are held like a womb.

We are in the Ogboni grove dedicated to the veneration of Earth as mother of all.

The rising of the sun illuminates the entire space with a blaze of glory, trees reaching towards the sky, monkeys jumping from tree to tree.

We had talked into daybreak, mesmerized by our subject.

Roots and branches, soil and leaf, limbs and brain, biology and sky, all came alive in that space.

How did Wenger put it?

"The spiritual world of the Yoruba is a powerful, metaphysical forest-wilderness, vegetatively ferocious and of a scarcely conceivable vitality.

A turbulent order prevails, in which all life is closely intertwined with itself, maintains itself mutually, while with great intensity each part holds its ground.

If this jungle-arcanum is metaphorically compared to a mighty, mansion-like giant tree, with all its innumerable forms of animal and plant tenantry, Ifa would be neither root, trunk, branch,twig, leaf, flower nor fruit of this tree, but the unimaginably complex network of veins and channels that permeates it throughout."

Is the universe itself a forest, a forest of mystery, adapting Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold on Ifa, and Ifa a map of this forest, a tree in the forest reflecting the dynamism of the cosmos through its own structure and life sustaining processes?

Or is Ifa itself the forest, a forest reflecting cosmic complexity, a forest of mystery, the balance between mystery and knowledge represented in Ifa's myriad network of stories and poems, creating a forest of stories, a river of narratives, like the river flowing through the Osun forest?

The river of the human spirit speaking in myriad voices ultimately moving towards an unknown destination?

"Scion of warriors", I adressed my interlocutor. "You have truly journeyed far.This discussion in this forest is an inspired strategy. Much is gained by the synergy of space and speech, of environment and dialogue".

What is This?

This is an ongoing development of a philosophy inspired by Isese\Orisa spirituality which originated in Yorubaland.

This philosophy is catalyzed by reading the Author's Note and Preface in Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality, published September 2025.

I expect to proceed with developing this philosophy as I continue with the book.

In this story Falola is a partly fictional character, like Socrates is in Plato's Dialogues.

I start by using his own ideas about the structure of Orisa metaphysics and the centrality of the Ifa\ori conjunction but continue from there in developing my own ideas in ways that I have not read or heard Falola doing with Yoruba thought.

The definition of ori in the piece is a combination of Falola's own from the book and that by Olabiyi Yai in his review of Rowland Abiodun, John Pemberton III and Henry John Drewal's Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought in African Arts, Vol. 25, No. 1., 1992, pp. 20+22+24+26+29.

The Falola School of Sacred Spaces I describe is a blend of my own interest in sacred spaces, my experience of the Osun forest and the ideas of Falola's essay "Ritual Archives".

The reference to "Irele" is to Abiola Irele's superb account of endogenous Yoruba cosmology in "Tradition and the Yoruba Writer: Fagunwa, Tutuola and Soyinka in The African Experience in Literature and Ideology.

The Susanne Wenger quote is from her book with Gert Chesi. A Life with the Gods in their Yoruba Homeland.Perlinger, 1983. 74.

The plot of the Nachiketas story from the Katha Upanishads is adapted for this piece. The translation employed is Ten Principal Upanishads translated by Purohit Swami and W.B.Yeats

The reference to Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold is to his book Ifa: a Forest of Mystery.

I am responding to Falola's book this way on account of the stimulating force of his careful reflections on the ideational synergy of Isese/Orisa thought in Yoruba Metaphysics.

He uses the term "Yoruba" to identify the cultural origins of this body of knowledge, as indicated in the title of his book Yoruba Metaphysics, but I see Yoruba thought as going beyond endogenous Yoruba spirituality and philosophy to embrace Islam and Christianity, the two currently dominant spiritualities in Yorubaland, as different from the endogenous spirituality Falola is discussing and which was long the dominant or even the only spiritual and philosophical system in Yorubaland.

This dialogical piece is complemented by another essay I am writing, an expository and analytical essay on Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics.

Great thanks to Falola for his gift of the book.

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