Stanzas of Thanksgiving Inspired by Wariboko, Milarepa and Abhinavagupta : An Adaptation of Nimi Wariboko : The Adepoju System of Initiation into World Spiritualities and Philosophies
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
The Adepoju System of Initiation into World Philosophies and Spiritualities
Abstract
I call upon the infinite circle of the Spirit of God
that grounds all circles.
I call upon those who assist me in writing the book of my life.
Circles upon circles!
Center of my life am I
a gift
of God, human beings, and nature.
I call upon the living, the dead and the unborn
I call upon the distant sounds of the footsteps of coming generations
the not-yet born
I call upon all my teachers, past, present and future
I call upon the entanglements of knowledge, debts of insight and well-wishes
from past, present and future generations
the river whose streams make glad the labor of living
inspiring the lonely habitation of existence.
I call upon
the birds of spring and summer
of rainy and dry seasons
delighting me in their singing, chirping, and acrobatic displays
I call upon the trees, their flowers, and their dancing in the wind
adding splendid color, fragrance, and fillip to my imagination and sight
the unity of nature, thinking, and divine ecstasy
in voluptuous embrace.
I call upon the sons of fire
the master in his Tibetan cave and the brother in his Boston home
distant in space and time yet present in spirit
remote in space yet close in mind
human yet one with the more than human
human yet reaching to the Ultimate
unified with the holder of the thunderbolt sceptre
piercing through clouds of ignorance to glorious truth
mighty Vajra-Dhara, sublime Dorje-Chang
one with the wielder of the bell
summoning all to the quest to know that at the root of existence
in the unity of that love beyond all yet within all
infinite knowledge beyond understanding
yet filtering into mind.
Brother
naked in the cold free of warmth
but within which you are aflame with passion
unclothed before sight of Essence
may I be thus naked facing Reality
aflame in the fire that burns away all that is not Real
my Lord Jetsun,
one with the Abonnema master Nimiwari
in wishing well being on all with such force
that one’s mental processes transcend thought.
I call upon you all
constructors of symphonies of ideas, actions and sounds
ekstatic patterns
expressive architectures of Unconditional music
form and energy of the original multiple Oneness
in rhythm with the symphony of the universe.
I invoke you
where many roads meet
past, present, future
the finite and the infinite
the known, the knowable and the unknowable
contact zone of possibilities
the fragile, fleeting, and slippery site
of new, refreshing insights and lights
the uncanny non-place
birthing the underivably new in history.
May my soul find deep peace at this frontier
the edge of knowledge
that is always approaching and withdrawing approach.
May my heart
the core of my being
which is the core of all beings
the innermost awareness
that animates all manifestation
shine forth
the product of the exuberance of emotion
due to the mating of my father and mother
embodying the bliss of the ultimate
one with the state of absolute potential
made manifest in the fusion of these two
my father as Shiva
the foundation of being complete in himself
whose zest in creativity is manifest in her
my mother, as Shakti
the universal Divine Energy
which expresses its stamina in ever fresh creativity
radiant in ever new genesis
my mother
whose greatest joy was in my birth
and my father
when both were all embracing in their union.
May my heart
which is the emission of vibrance from the couple
and therefore full of the supreme nectar
shine
expand
as the totality of the bliss of the Absolute.
The working
the unworking
and the reworking.
Bringing to completion
creating incompletion
reaching for infinite truth beyond tradition.
Everyday is a challenge of opportunity, for creativity or destruction, for fulfillment or unfulfillment, for hope or despair.
The space that opens out into the intersection between the self made up of our biological and social existence and the self described as embodying our ultimate potential beyond space and time, the rhythm between ori lasan,the biological head and ori inu, the inward head, as understood in Yoruba origin Orisa cosmology.
The oscillation between So, the totality of possibilities, and so, the expression of this totality in our lives, as understood in Kalabari thought.
I do this by beginning my day through looking inward in silence, acknowledging the miracle of my existence and the fact that I am aware of that existence.
I give thanks for that miracle and ask for guidance to make the most of it.
At critical times, I return to that inward space, and dialogue with my deepest self about how to see and respond to situations.
Recently, I have followed the meditation by reading the prayer of thanksgiving below before doing anything else.
Wariboko, through the acknowledgements pages of his books, from which most of the poem is quoted or adapted, Milarepa in his poetry and Abhinavagupta in the opening lines of his books on the thought of the Trika school of Hindu Tantrism to which he belongs, such as Tantraloka, Light on the Tantras and Paratrisika-Vivarana, translated by Jaideva Singh as The Secret of Tantric Mysticism.
I shall follow up this piece with a publication, with his permission, of the selections from Wariboko's acknowledgements pages that inspired this work as well as with a detailed interpretation of the poem.
All stanzas, except stanzas 6,7, 12 and 13 are quotations from Wariboko, at times slightly adapted, with a few interjections by myself.
Stanzas 6 and 7 are completely my own constructs while stanzas 12 and 13 are Abhinavagupta's lines, presented through integrating various translations, such as Jaideva Singh's of Abhinavagupta's Paratrisika, Mark Dyzkowski, Christopher Wallis, Roger-Orphé Jeanty of his Tantraloka, Bettina Baumer's discussion of the sequence of passages in various books in Abhinavagupta's Hermeneutics of the Absolute and Alexis Sanderson's comprehensive analysis of the meaning of those lines within the religious tradition to which Abhinavagupta belongs in ''A Commentary on the Opening Lines of the Tantrasara of Abhinvavagupta.''
This essay is part of a series on Wariboko's acknowledgements pages, itself part of my ongoing work on Wariboko. The Wariboko project itself is part of a complex of engagements with various bodies of knowledge across disciplines and cultures which I am integrating as the ''Adepoju System of Initiation into African, Asian and Western Philosophies and Spiritualities,'' which I have introduced in the linked poem of that title and which is explained in detail in a later publication as a small book.