The Adepoju System of Initiation into African, Asian and Western Philosophies and Spiritualities 1: Description, Method, Acknowledgements and Poem
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
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Long have I been on this journey, before memory of leaves, in harmony with the cycles of time represented by traces of fossils in prehistoric rocks...night weighs huge about me...reflections of the intersection of my own journey at the rocks of genesis...
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Description
The Adepoju System of Initiation into African, Asian and Western Philosophies and Spiritualities is a series of methods developed by myself for engaging with a number of these systems in a manner that demonstrates their inspirational power as never before.
Through fundamentalities unifying all human activity, I explore these systems in their uniqueness and unifications.
I do this through a series of methods operating at the intersection of the visual and verbal arts, philosophy and spirituality, an integration of my varied explorations of questions of ultimate meaning as I journey through diverse philosophical, spiritual and artistic cultures.
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The aspirant visualizes cosmic symbols,
the geometric Sri Yantra of Hinduism and the figure of Dorje
Chang from Buddhism, as assimilated within himself, the
better to identify with them and connect with what they represent.
The seated figure at
the extreme left is myself. The landscape on which the images are
superimposed is that of Vision Park in Histon, near Cambridge, where I once
sept up the Compcros public library and Research and Retreat Centre, for which this
image was constructed as part of the brochure describing the centre.
The form of the human aspirant, the visual space constructed by geometric abstraction and the
evocative space of the human form represented by Dorje Chang, converge in
an evocation of aspiration to spiritual unity, institution building and of
landscape as embodiment of these aspirations.
The initiatory journey is constituted by increasing identification with the values represented by these forms and the practical demonstration of these identifications as a way of life.
Method
This poem presents these engagements as a journey. Each reference to a system of knowledge, to a spirituality or philosophy is most often to subjects I have written about and published on, have written on but not published significantly on, and perhaps aspire to do so, or have written and published significantly on and continue to work on, or in one or two cases, intend to commence writing and publishing on.
My spiritual and philosophical journey goes beyond the systems referenced here, into such schools as Catholic and Pentecostal Christianity, the Grail Message, Eckankar and the self help philosophy of Sidney Bremer, all foundational to my growth, but I have not written about them so I am not including them in this summation of my cognitive journey as demonstrated in my writings.
This poetic summation will be followed by consolidations of my work on the systems referenced by integrating my work in these fields into books. The poem could also be reworked with time.
Complementing this poem is a forthcoming text on the endlessness of knowledge, on its paradoxical distance from the aspirations it inspires, framing the relentlessly unfolding cognitive hunger dramatized by the poem.
A brief autobiographical context is provided by my essay ''Between a Spiral,
a Circle and a Straight Line : How Do I Tell My Life's Story?"
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''One also [ encountered, in the Compcros Research and Retreat Centre] a pot, its circularity in resonance with
the circularity of the table on which it stands.
The circularity of the pot and
the table evoke the endlessness of infinity. The depth of the pot suggests the
plunge into the depths of the unknown represented by the quest for knowledge.
Is infinity the culmination of this quest?
The dialectic of interior space and exterior form demonstrated by the pot suggests relationships between inside and outside, brain and mind, cosmic form and cosmic inhabitants, the known and the unknown, being and becoming, between the fecundity of the ultimate beyond time, space and form and the constitution of being.
Initiatory progression consists in increasing penetration into the values represented by the pot, through the interplay of inward and outward being it evokes.
First three paragraphs are quoted from former Compcros Centre brochure.
Inspirational Examples
Foundational to this poetic integration of a multi-cultural quest is the example of the initiation and teaching texts of the Golden Dawn, most influential of Western esoteric orders through its masterly synthesis of ancient Egyptian religion, Hebrew and Western esoteric Kabbalah, Christianity, Enochia, Tarot, astrology and perhaps other systems in creating one of the greatest texts in history, equal to the world's greatest scriptures in its imaginative and expressive force but superior to them in its emphasis on ritual and contemplative techniques through which its spiritual visions could be actualized by the aspirant, comparable texts of similar force such as the Bible, the Koran and the Upanishads consisting more of theory and philosophy than practice, while practitioners work out methods of practice under the inspiration of those theories.
The Golden Dawn, however, combines theory and practice in one volume, my exposure to this text being through the version first edited by Israel Regardie.
The practical techniques I develop in relation to the systems and cognitive figures discussed here are presented in my essays on those systems and thinkers, essays often accessible online and which I shall be publishing as books.
The explanations of each stanza of the poem will be presented in the second part of this work.
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The ladder of ascent of initiation, the circles of commencement and completion, the intersections of challenges and opportunities, all within the stream of being represented by the ocean waters of Olokun, embodiment of the intelligence of the world’s oceans, as depicted in Norma Rosen’s depiction of an example of Benin Olokun graphic art.
Forms of Initiation
Engagement with each system or body of knowledge referenced here is described as an initiation into the unfolding appreciation of human possibility in trying to make sense of existence.
The motif of initiatory journey resonates for me in terms of my own journey of knowledge as an initiatory progression at various cognitive levels, one's mental world continually reconfigured as one progresses and the reinforcing of my own voyage through various summations of initiatory journeys.
I am particularly inspired by Western esotericist Dion Fortune's description of a temple initiation in the Greco-Roman Mysteries, a process Fortune understand as symbolizing spiritual growth in the Western esoteric tradition, in which the aspirant is led from one room to another, spaces containing ever more complex, increasingly recondite symbols of the Godhead, till finally they are led into an empty room, at which point the initiator declares, ''there is no God,'' a paradox dramatizing what Fortune describes as the nature of God as being beyond human conception and experience, all ideas of God being more speculative than factual, inferences from abstract or concrete phenomena, deductions from expressions of God as the source of existence rather than insight into that which is beyond even imagination, as she explain in The Mystical Qabalah.
More concrete than Fortune's account and yet sublime is Germaine Dieterlen's ''Initiation Among the Peul Pastoral Fulani,'' in French with English summary, in the Meyer Fortes and Dieterlen edited African Systems of Thought, 1965.
Mapping the cosmos through the associations of the patterns of the coats of cattle, the initiate journeys through or engages in actions symbolising a journey through various constellations of space and time, culminating in an invocation of Gueno, the ultimate creator.
I love the hunger for synthesis of all possibilities dramatized by these accounts, while recognising that beyond what is conceivable is that which is inconceivable.
I expect the sequence of texts represented by the poem of initiatory journeying below to contribute to readers appreciation of the scope of human possibility and perhaps facilitate a degree of transformation of self.
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Encounters in search of
knowledge in society and nature as the seeker Hammadi meets, in various
contexts, Kaidara, Fulani god of gold and ultimate knowledge.
The contemplative
presence of the Buddha Dorje Chang, embodiment of ultimate knowledge and the method
of reaching it, anchors the entire tableau.
The constellation of possibilities
derived from the unification of existence in Kaidara, as represented by the
central circle , overlays the Vision Park landscape, former physical home of
Compcros.
Collage made by myself from Kaidara art by Etienne Souppart and Dorje Chang
image from Evans Wentz' edited Tibet’s Great Yogi, Milarepa.
Thanks
Great thanks to Toyin Falola, Nimi Wariboko, my father and grandfather, Vincent Folorunsho Adepoju and Abi Ojemu
( through a dream transmitted from the Great Beyond) and others who have encouraged me to organize and publish my works as books.
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Myself, seated at my study, in spatial dialogue with an intercultural network of symbols, Benin Olokun igha-ede to Hindu yantras, to Katherine Maltwood's cosmographic images of the English Glastonbury landscape, subsumed by Victor Ekpuk's circles of multicolored luminosity, interpreted in relation to Dante Alighieri's image of cosmic unity
The Journey
Senses, intellect and imagination converge
as you journey from the Stanzas of Thanksgiving
celebrating the circles of possibility enabling being and becoming
inspired by the polymathic Wariboko, the glorious Milarepa
and the magnificent Abhinavagupta
to the constellation of birds on a pole
evoking the cosmos as a tree in Yoruba origin opa ọsanyin symbolism
a tree on which are perched sixteen birds,
the mysterious mothers, cosmic entities you call upon
as you enter into the knowledge jungle of Ifa
where texts are alive
numbers and words aglow with intelligence
powers you call upon as you move into the forest
where dwells the naked and majestic female, Onile of Ogboni
under whose guidance you explore the forest mysteries
transforming your knowledge into the compelling symbols of Nsibidi
guided by Victor Ekpuk in the remaking of those ancient rhythms
in the image of your own creativity
issuing from this remaking of your world
into further constructing your symbol universe in terms of Adinkra
guided by Owosu Ankomah
empowered by the mysterious beauties of Onobrakpeya
thus journeying from
Christian
to Kalabari
to Buddhist
to Hindu
to Yoruba
to Cross River
to Urhobo, Akan and Gyaman thought
plus other multitudinous inspirations
reshaped by modern masters
eventually entering into the great waters of Olokun
her igha-ede symbols of Great Benin your guide
integrating the various universes within which you journey
the goal the way, the way the goal
in the spirit of the masters of the Western esoteric tradition
on the caravan towards an ocean without shore and a shore without ocean
journeying with Ibn Arabi from Muhammedan inspiration to multiple wisdoms
from Andalusia to Timbuktu
from time to eternity
your companions
the explorers of the known, the knowing and the process of knowing
Irele to Lawal to Ohomina to Abiodun to Akiwowo
the storyteller singer Falola
recorder of journey and reflector on its meaning
your guide the ever moving one
the Anthill of Totality
Okuapolopolo, Omonoba N' Edo of Great Benin
leopard tireless
in the great walk from the outskirts of cosmos to its core
from Benin circumference to its centre
from Uselu to the Oba's palace
the progression that is the coronation walk undertaken by every Oba
in order to ascend the throne
in the unending journey
arriving in Edo, Edo yet remaining distant
an initiatory movement akin to the mapping of the cosmos
through the patterns formed by the coats of cattle in the quest
across various domains of space and time in Fulani initiation
as you seek for guidance the ragged, ancient one
who is yet a beam of light from the hearth of Gueno, the ultimate
your journeying culminating in the navigation of the matrix of totality
in which each vertex is a cosmic entity and an aspect of self
the magnificent Sri Yantra of Tripura
she who is the most beautiful embodiment of the cosmos
her navel akin in its beauty to the translucent blue of the sky
the hair of her head snaking into this space as the waters of the blue Yamuna
exquisiteness reflected in the unique beauties of women everywhere
unified in beauties from ancient India, yet ever new
a journey consummated in wonder at the two things that fill the mind
with ever new and ever renewed admiration and awe
the more steadily and the more often they are reflected upon
the starry heavens above you and the moral law within you
as put by Immanuel Kant, the German thinker
who roamed across space and time into infinity
from within his native
Konigsberg.
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Symbol complex at Compcros
Invitation
You are invited to donate to this initiative.