Akporode 4: Between Study and Meditation in Akporode Philosophy and Mysticism: Developing a Philosophical and Spiritual System through the Art and Thought of Bruce Onobrakpeya
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Jun 12, 2025, 10:01:20 PMJun 12
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Akporode 4
Between Study and Meditation
in
Akporode Philosophy and Mysticism
Developing a Philosophical and Spiritual
System through the Art and Thought
of
Bruce Onobrakpeya
I aspire to ignite the possibilities of Onobrakpeya's work in developing a philosophical and spiritual system out of it, thereby actualizing its potential, including and going beyond aesthetic appreciation and intellectual study.
Method
This involves aesthetic, imaginative and intellectual study of Onobrakpeya's art and life, writing about them and developing and applying philosophical and spiritual processes in relation to the trajectory and distinct expressions of his life and work.
The Akporode Installation
I'm currently working on Onobrakpeya's installation called Akporode, pictured above. It is inspired by an Urhobo expression of the same name, which may be translated as "the vast and mysterious universe".
I have written and published online three essays developing the imaginative and conceptual framework to my approach to Akporode.
I have also narrated my experience with artificial intelligence as an aide to better engaging with the installation.
An Apkorode Meditation Conjuncting AMORC/Rosicrucian and Buddhist Techniques
This piece develops a meditative approach, more elaborate than others I have described in earlier essays on Akporode.
I frame this discussion through a presentation of a meditation technique I find inspiring. I introduce the meditation through a booklet representing the philosophy and method of that meditation style.
The AMORC/Rosicrucian Celestial Sanctum Booklet
The battered booklet shown in the picture below, one of the most important texts in my library, describes most effectively a powerful technique for mental development and general well being.
It outlines the logic of a particular meditation strategy and guides the reader in performing that meditation.
Meditation may be described as a style of concentrating the mind, taking it beyond its general manner of working. Many styles exist.
The one outlined in this book is known as the Celestial Sanctum meditation.
It was developed by Harvey Spencer Lewis, the founder of the philosophical and mystical school AMORC, the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross, a branch of the Rosicrucian movement, a spiritual and knowledge network originating in Europe.
The Celestial Sanctum meditation is described in various booklets with the same title-Liber 777: The Celestial Sanctum: Its Origin, Purposes and Program of Services.
This version in the picture however, written by Charles Dana Dean, is the most philosophically sophisticated and imaginatively rich of the various versions I have encountered.
The philosophical description is most memorable for me. Here is an abridged version of it:
" Noble thoughts, aspirations, and intuitive illumination have motivated mankind in a progressive trend.Whence comes the spark of higher idealism?
There is a cosmic harmony within nature that man can experience in various ways.There is a magnificent focal point of all the positive thoughts of which men are capable.
This focal point is the Cosmic - it is not a place. It is not limited by space or time. It is a virtual 'Celestial Sanctum'.
At any time, anywhere, men may, in sincerity of heart, with noble purpose and by a simple technique raise their consciousness and enter this Celestial Sanctum."
The text enjoins one to visualize this sanctum in anyway one wishes, an image embodying one's loftiest conceptions.
I use this text describing the meditation as my foundational, inspirational text, complementing it with later versions which go further in clarifying the technique.
At the heart of this meditation is the invitation to regularly and responsibly indulge in fantasy, in mentally visualizing an inspiring scene, within which one imagines oneself as located and perhaps even engaging in activities there.
In a variation to the technique, one may visualize this inspiring place as located in a world above the Earth as one rises to enter it.
This process should be clearly defined in terms of when one is engaged in it and when one is doing other things so as not to interfere with other activities.
To further assist in concentrating on the visualization, in imaginatively entering the inspiring scene one is visualizing, one could wash one's hands, rinse one's mouth and drink some water immediately before the meditation, all actions suggesting self purification, although those physical purificatory steps are optional.
One should then sit in silence and commence the visualization.
The process can be opened by a prayer.
The standard AMORC prayer in this context is " May the divine essence of the Cosmic infuse my being and cleanse me of impurities of mind and body, that I may enter the Celestial Sanctum and attune in purity and worthiness. So mote it be!".
The prayer/affirmation can be customized to their own taste by the meditator.
You then visualize an inspiring space and imagine yourself inside it.
If you have any challenges, think of them and request help.
When you are satisfied or when the time you allocate to the session ends, you open your eyes.
You could conclude with a prayer or affirmation like the AMORC one, "May the God of My Heart sanctify this attunement with the Celestial Sanctum".
The Celestial Sanctum meditation technique has been immensely fruitful for me, priceless for inspiration and for generating ideas.
Having internalized it over the years, I don't always say the prayers before and after the meditation but I cultivate a lifestyle in which I take advantage of particularly conducive times and spaces where I am most sensitive to entering into a meditative state.
Such a time is once I wake from sleep. I begin the day with meditation and prayer.
I also structure my bedroom as a sacred space, with images on the wall reminding me of my life's most exalted purpose and how I need to work towards it.
Why am I beginning this writing on morning after the day's meditation?
I stumbled on something interesting, a visualization I developed for the first time, integrating visualizations I normally do separately.
The Akporode Visualization
I at times combine various meditation techniques, such as meditating with or without visualization.
Visualizing Milarepa
After that I imagined a naked, lean man, with long but carefully braided hair and beard seated where I had imagined Onobrakpeya positioned.
Milarepa, the Tibetan Buddhist hermit who spent his life meditating in solitude in mountain caves, seeking to pierce, through his meditating mind, into the essence of existence and bless all beings through his efforts.
I imagine him as not needing to wear clothes because he had mastered the discipline of keeping his body warm though his mind even in the bitter cold of the mountains where he lived.
Imagining Dorje Chang
I then visualized another figure, superimposed on Milarepa, a calm faced personage, his features serene and yet not exactly human in its sense of distance.
Dorje Chang, the source of the universe and the supreme teacher in Milarepa's Kargyutpa school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Imagining Myself as Akporode
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Bruce Onobrakpeya's Akporode installation. Onobrak Arts Centre Galleries, Agbarha-Otor, Nigeria. Picture by myself.
Abstract
A description of goals and methods in developing a philosophical and spiritual system of knowledge inspired by the work and thought of artist and writer Bruce Onobrakpeya.
Goal
I am developing a philosophical and spiritual system through the work of the artist and writer Bruce Onobrakpeya.
I am developing a philosophical and spiritual system through the work of the artist and writer Bruce Onobrakpeya.
Onobrakpeya's Art Between Classical African and Christian Spiritualities and Modern Technology
Onobrakpeya's work engages spiritual and philosophical concerns, drawing particularly from various African cultures, as well as richly visualizing the Christian message in an African context, creativities existing in dialogue with modern technology.
Onobrakpeya's work engages spiritual and philosophical concerns, drawing particularly from various African cultures, as well as richly visualizing the Christian message in an African context, creativities existing in dialogue with modern technology.
These spiritual orientations are not developed in direct service to African spiritual cultures even though those cultures are strategic to the inspiration of the art.
Onobrakpeya's Christian art, however, has been commissioned and displayed by the church.
These difference in patronage reflect social factors in which the two forms of spirituality are implicated in Africa, tensions also strategic to the inspirational core and social contextualization of Onobrakpeya's art.
I aspire to ignite the possibilities of Onobrakpeya's work in developing a philosophical and spiritual system out of it, thereby actualizing its potential, including and going beyond aesthetic appreciation and intellectual study.
Method
This involves aesthetic, imaginative and intellectual study of Onobrakpeya's art and life, writing about them and developing and applying philosophical and spiritual processes in relation to the trajectory and distinct expressions of his life and work.
The Akporode Installation
I'm currently working on Onobrakpeya's installation called Akporode, pictured above. It is inspired by an Urhobo expression of the same name, which may be translated as "the vast and mysterious universe".
I have written and published online three essays developing the imaginative and conceptual framework to my approach to Akporode.
I have also narrated my experience with artificial intelligence as an aide to better engaging with the installation.
An Apkorode Meditation Conjuncting AMORC/Rosicrucian and Buddhist Techniques
This piece develops a meditative approach, more elaborate than others I have described in earlier essays on Akporode.
I frame this discussion through a presentation of a meditation technique I find inspiring. I introduce the meditation through a booklet representing the philosophy and method of that meditation style.
The AMORC/Rosicrucian Celestial Sanctum Booklet
The battered booklet shown in the picture below, one of the most important texts in my library, describes most effectively a powerful technique for mental development and general well being.
It outlines the logic of a particular meditation strategy and guides the reader in performing that meditation.
Meditation may be described as a style of concentrating the mind, taking it beyond its general manner of working. Many styles exist.
The one outlined in this book is known as the Celestial Sanctum meditation.
It was developed by Harvey Spencer Lewis, the founder of the philosophical and mystical school AMORC, the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross, a branch of the Rosicrucian movement, a spiritual and knowledge network originating in Europe.
The Celestial Sanctum meditation is described in various booklets with the same title-Liber 777: The Celestial Sanctum: Its Origin, Purposes and Program of Services.
This version in the picture however, written by Charles Dana Dean, is the most philosophically sophisticated and imaginatively rich of the various versions I have encountered.
The philosophical description is most memorable for me. Here is an abridged version of it:
" Noble thoughts, aspirations, and intuitive illumination have motivated mankind in a progressive trend.Whence comes the spark of higher idealism?
There is a cosmic harmony within nature that man can experience in various ways.There is a magnificent focal point of all the positive thoughts of which men are capable.
This focal point is the Cosmic - it is not a place. It is not limited by space or time. It is a virtual 'Celestial Sanctum'.
At any time, anywhere, men may, in sincerity of heart, with noble purpose and by a simple technique raise their consciousness and enter this Celestial Sanctum."
The text enjoins one to visualize this sanctum in anyway one wishes, an image embodying one's loftiest conceptions.
I use this text describing the meditation as my foundational, inspirational text, complementing it with later versions which go further in clarifying the technique.
At the heart of this meditation is the invitation to regularly and responsibly indulge in fantasy, in mentally visualizing an inspiring scene, within which one imagines oneself as located and perhaps even engaging in activities there.
In a variation to the technique, one may visualize this inspiring place as located in a world above the Earth as one rises to enter it.
This process should be clearly defined in terms of when one is engaged in it and when one is doing other things so as not to interfere with other activities.
To further assist in concentrating on the visualization, in imaginatively entering the inspiring scene one is visualizing, one could wash one's hands, rinse one's mouth and drink some water immediately before the meditation, all actions suggesting self purification, although those physical purificatory steps are optional.
One should then sit in silence and commence the visualization.
The process can be opened by a prayer.
The standard AMORC prayer in this context is " May the divine essence of the Cosmic infuse my being and cleanse me of impurities of mind and body, that I may enter the Celestial Sanctum and attune in purity and worthiness. So mote it be!".
The prayer/affirmation can be customized to their own taste by the meditator.
You then visualize an inspiring space and imagine yourself inside it.
If you have any challenges, think of them and request help.
When you are satisfied or when the time you allocate to the session ends, you open your eyes.
You could conclude with a prayer or affirmation like the AMORC one, "May the God of My Heart sanctify this attunement with the Celestial Sanctum".
Raymond Bernard's Messages from the Celestial Sanctum
Raymond Bernard's book Messages from the Celestial Sanctum is a great demonstration of this technique, by a supremely imaginative mind.
Bernard uses his immersion in medieval Christian architecture, its gargantuan elaboration and profusion of intricate symbolism, in imaginatively framing his expansive knowledge of world religions and the Western esoteric tradition.
Integrating these cultural forms,he visualizes an edifice converging spiritual currents from around the world.
My Relationship with the Celestial Sanctum Meditation
The Celestial Sanctum meditation technique has been immensely fruitful for me, priceless for inspiration and for generating ideas.
Having internalized it over the years, I don't always say the prayers before and after the meditation but I cultivate a lifestyle in which I take advantage of particularly conducive times and spaces where I am most sensitive to entering into a meditative state.
Such a time is once I wake from sleep. I begin the day with meditation and prayer.
I also structure my bedroom as a sacred space, with images on the wall reminding me of my life's most exalted purpose and how I need to work towards it.
Why am I beginning this writing on morning after the day's meditation?
I stumbled on something interesting, a visualization I developed for the first time, integrating visualizations I normally do separately.
The Akporode Visualization
I at times combine various meditation techniques, such as meditating with or without visualization.
In this instance, beginning from my self directed efforts, the visualization took on its own momentum, beyond my total control, moving fluidly from stage to stage in unfolding possibilities I had earlier conceived but not correlated but which my mind now seamlessly executed and synthesized.
That morning I first visualized the Akporode installation.
I imagined it's structuration of space through using pillars placed at its entrance, like an entranceway with open space as a door, as well as pillars lined across the back wall of the space, generating a sense of monumentality and grandeur.
The pillars vibrate with the power of aspiration, the vigour of concentrated and elevated thought, evoking "prayer for divine assistance in reaching divine greatness", adapting the Urhobo pillar symbol for aspiration towards Oghene in Urhobo shrine arts, as Onobrakpeya describes the installation in a note placed on its wall.
Oghene, the Supreme Reality in Urhobo thought, rings out in in this context in a resonance integrating and transcending existence, fusing all and issuing into the incognizable source from which all emerges, as the mind runs through the sequence of columns in a horizontal sweep, evoking cosmic immanence, climbing the verticular elevations through invocatory resonance, penetrating a height beyond space and time, actualizing transcendence:
Oghenevwovwerha, the plenitude of rain watering the earth, the explosion of plenty, the blast dispersing the matter and energy constituting the universe as it races outward through space and time,the sound reaching our instruments after countless billion years...
Oghenevwogagan, the spider's exquisite web, the unity of land and water, earth and sun, planets and stars, comets and cosmic law, beauty and intricacy from wisdom and power.
Oghenerukewe, life palpitating within the creature that did not ask for it but is blessed by it; consciousness alert within the entity that embodies it though it does not recall any reason for it to have it beyond the gift of nature.
Oghenekaro, "Why is there Something rather than Nothing?" In the blink of an eye, Everything became. In the blink of an eye, Everything vanishes. Why are we?
Oghenevwogaga, the Merciful. How much better are we than children, stumbling through the highways and byways of the cosmos? Stretch a hand of guidance.
Oghenevwede, the sheet of spotless white shining from the entrance to the sacred forest, invisible but majestic, dread and fascination.
Ogheneme, "What is Truth?" The thread required to weave together the fragments of the world.
Oghenevwovwerha, the rock where the stars take shelter when the cosmos shifts;none knows when the world came to be and none will know when it ceases to be, except Oghenevwovwerha.
Oghenevwogaganrere, line stretching into infinity.
The Onobrakpeya Visualization
I then imagined someone inside the installation. I saw, in my mind's eye, a small bodied but energetic elderly man, Onobrakpeya, seated in front of the divination tray on the floor, at the centre of the artistic structure.
In this system I am developing, I am using Onobrakpeya's image as that of a guide, depicting the artist as an inspirational figure, embodying ceaseless exploration of life's ultimate meaning at the intersection of art, spirituality and philosophy, his art dramatizing his quest and insights.
Visualizing Milarepa
After that I imagined a naked, lean man, with long but carefully braided hair and beard seated where I had imagined Onobrakpeya positioned.
Milarepa, the Tibetan Buddhist hermit who spent his life meditating in solitude in mountain caves, seeking to pierce, through his meditating mind, into the essence of existence and bless all beings through his efforts.
I imagine him as not needing to wear clothes because he had mastered the discipline of keeping his body warm though his mind even in the bitter cold of the mountains where he lived.
His nakedness also symbolizes his absolute distance from the practice of material possessions and of social positions of any kind, possibilities irrelevant to his quest for ultimate reality, beyond being and non-being.
His nakedness also suggests total kenosis, totalistic emptying of self in seeking Sunyata, the Void, uncharacterizable in human terms even as it enables all possibilities.
His absolute detachment from society is yet complemented by his commitment to help enlighten others about ultimate reality, vowing, in the words of the Boddhisatva vow invoked in Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara, " as long as space abides, as long as the world abides, so long shall I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world", in the light of which vow Milarepa regularly sent "rays" of goodwill to all beings "with such intensity that one's mental processes transcend thought" ( Tibet 's Great Yogi Milarepa, Ed. W.Y. Evans Wentz, trans. Kazi Samdup).
Milarepa is my central guru, my primary spiritual guide, in relation to whom I measure myself and in the context of whom I assess the strengths and weaknesses of my vocation, "the orientation of a person's life and work in terms of their ultimate sense of mission"("Vocation", Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language).
In essence, I am that person distant from all social contexts, seeking only the Ultimate.
Complementing that hermit identity, I am also the person cherishing human companionship and a degree of social integration.
The balance of those identities is a central quest of my life.
Imagining Dorje Chang
I then visualized another figure, superimposed on Milarepa, a calm faced personage, his features serene and yet not exactly human in its sense of distance.
Dorje Chang, the source of the universe and the supreme teacher in Milarepa's Kargyutpa school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Imagining Myself as Akporode
I then visualized myself as also within that space occupied by Onobrakpeya, Milarepa and Dorje Chang, all sharing the same space but perhaps in different but overlapping dimensions.
In previous meditations involving Milarepa and Dorje Chang, I would visualize Milarepa superimposed on myself and Dorje Chang upon Milarepa, thereby placing myself within the initiatic, inspirational lineage from the ultimate reality represented by Dorje Chang to the human recipient that is Milarepa, and, after Milarepa, myself.
This time, I imaginatively experienced myself, not as a particular human person, but as the Akporode installation.
The pillars and other structures of the installation were my form and the empty spaces between them my formless essence, a pregnant emptiness palpitating in rhythm with my own mental centre, the silence within me, beyond imagination, beyond thought, into which Akporode and the masters of wisdom who inhabited it with me, or who existed within my cognitive space represented by Akporode -Onobrakpeya, Milarepa, Dorje Chang, had all been distilled as my own visualization of the meaning of the Urhobo term "Akporode", "the vast and mysterious universe" which Onobrakpeya's installation visualizes in the artist's own unique way.
Analysis of Meditation Technique
This technique combines various meditation styles. It begins with visualization but ends in a zone where there are no images, only inward concentration.
It also adapts what is known in Buddhism as Guru Yoga, identifying with a spiritual teacher as a means of relating oneself to the source of existence.
It blends visualization of religious figures- Milarepa and Dorje Chang, with visualizing a non-religious figure, Onobrakpeya, taking advantage of their individual and collective inspirational force.
Significance
What is the value of this meditation for me?
I integrate within myself an image of myself as the cosmos, images in the form of the Akporode installation, within which is constellated inspiring figures who evoke my ultimate values and aspirations.
My mind- my imagination, emotions and intellect are thereby shaped by this visualization of myself in terms of exalted values while also stimulating my creativity in studying Akporode's art.
Ultimately, the meditation is mystical, in the understanding of mysticism as the theory and practice of seeking union with or perception of ultimate reality.
In previous meditations involving Milarepa and Dorje Chang, I would visualize Milarepa superimposed on myself and Dorje Chang upon Milarepa, thereby placing myself within the initiatic, inspirational lineage from the ultimate reality represented by Dorje Chang to the human recipient that is Milarepa, and, after Milarepa, myself.
This time, I imaginatively experienced myself, not as a particular human person, but as the Akporode installation.
The pillars and other structures of the installation were my form and the empty spaces between them my formless essence, a pregnant emptiness palpitating in rhythm with my own mental centre, the silence within me, beyond imagination, beyond thought, into which Akporode and the masters of wisdom who inhabited it with me, or who existed within my cognitive space represented by Akporode -Onobrakpeya, Milarepa, Dorje Chang, had all been distilled as my own visualization of the meaning of the Urhobo term "Akporode", "the vast and mysterious universe" which Onobrakpeya's installation visualizes in the artist's own unique way.
Analysis of Meditation Technique
This technique combines various meditation styles. It begins with visualization but ends in a zone where there are no images, only inward concentration.
It also adapts what is known in Buddhism as Guru Yoga, identifying with a spiritual teacher as a means of relating oneself to the source of existence.
It blends visualization of religious figures- Milarepa and Dorje Chang, with visualizing a non-religious figure, Onobrakpeya, taking advantage of their individual and collective inspirational force.
Significance
What is the value of this meditation for me?
I integrate within myself an image of myself as the cosmos, images in the form of the Akporode installation, within which is constellated inspiring figures who evoke my ultimate values and aspirations.
My mind- my imagination, emotions and intellect are thereby shaped by this visualization of myself in terms of exalted values while also stimulating my creativity in studying Akporode's art.
Ultimately, the meditation is mystical, in the understanding of mysticism as the theory and practice of seeking union with or perception of ultimate reality.
The meditation is mystical in imagining myself in unity with the cosmos represented by Onobrakpeya's imaging of the Akporode concept.
The mystic, in such a context, aspires to go beyond imagination to encounter, to experience oneself as actually united with the cosmos or as perceiving cosmic unity or understanding it in an intimate sense, knowledge not only deeply internalized but constitutive of one's own nature.
This mystical value is amplified by my imaginatively identifying my essence with Dorje Chang, the source of the universe and the ultimate teacher, as understood in the Kargyutpa school, an ultimate power which enables the existence and inspiration of those human figures who inspire me, Onobrakpeya and Milarepa.
This mystical value is amplified by my imaginatively identifying my essence with Dorje Chang, the source of the universe and the ultimate teacher, as understood in the Kargyutpa school, an ultimate power which enables the existence and inspiration of those human figures who inspire me, Onobrakpeya and Milarepa.
The mystic aspires to embody what is imagined in that visualization, experiencing unity of self with the source of existence or perceiving that source.
The mystical thrust of the meditation is consummated in my identifying the empty spaces within the Akporode installation with my own interiority, focusing on that in order to cultivate sensitivity to inspiration from within myself, a zone described by various schools of thought as the most intimate point of intersection of self and cosmos.
The mystical thrust of the meditation is consummated in my identifying the empty spaces within the Akporode installation with my own interiority, focusing on that in order to cultivate sensitivity to inspiration from within myself, a zone described by various schools of thought as the most intimate point of intersection of self and cosmos.
The mystic plunges into this inward silence, this distance from all images and forms, in order to get closer to experiencing the essence of being as transcending all manifestations, a plenitude ceaselessly enabling generation but transcendent of what it generates.
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