The Falola/ Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala of the Spiritual/Physical Cosmos 2 : Visualizing an Architecture of Material and Spiritual Cosmology in a Journey through the Circles of Existence
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
The Falola/ Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala of the Spiritual/Physical Cosmos 2
Visualizing an Architecture of Material and Spiritual Cosmology
in
A Journey through the Circles of Existence
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
Short Abstract
This essay analyzes the foundational ideas of Toyin Falola’s Yoruba Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality as a major breakthrough in articulating a systematic, indigenous Yoruba metaphysical framework and creatively expands it by introducing the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala—a visual cosmogram that synthesizes Yoruba symbolism with mandala traditions to map the architecture of existence.
By grounding this philosophy in lived experience and comparing it to global traditions, the essay positions Yoruba thought as a sophisticated framework for universal concerns, using the mandala as a tool for pedagogy, analysis, and contemplative practice that honors cultural specificity while demonstrating its broader applicability.
Long Abstract
This essay engages Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality (2025) as a striking achievement in African philosophical scholarship—introducing a fresh, comprehensive and systematic exposition of endogenous Yoruba metaphysical thought. Through critical analysis and creative extension, I develop the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala, a visual cosmogram that translates Falola's verbal framework into geometric symbolic form, synthesizing Yoruba cosmological symbolism (opon ifa) with cross-cultural mandala traditions.
This mandala employs four concentric circles mapping the architecture of existence: an empty center representing Olodumare as the matrix of infinite possibility; a blue circle signifying human consciousness positioned at the cosmic crossroads between matter and spirit; a green circle depicting the coinherence of spiritual and material dimensions (ọ̀run and aye); and a yellow outer circle acknowledging the cosmos as inexhaustible mystery. This structure visualizes Falola's core insight that this school of thought describes existence as comprising spirit-matter unity operating within frameworks that exceed complete human comprehension.
Grounding abstract philosophy in phenomenological testimony, I trace how encounters with sacred geography—particularly Nigeria's Osun forest—instantiate metaphysical principles as lived experience. These encounters with the numinous and sublime demonstrate how Yoruba epistemology's progression from oju lasan (ordinary vision) to oju inu (inner vision) manifests not merely as theoretical construct but as experiential reality accessible through contemplative practice. I thereby foreground relationships between rationalist approaches to philosophy (which emphasize systematic argumentation and conceptual clarity) and more phenomenological or experiential approaches (which prioritize lived experience and narrative knowing), oscillating between these orientations.
The essay situates Falola's work within comparative philosophical contexts—from Hegel's systematic ambitions to Buddhist void-philosophy, from Christian negative theology to Western esotericism—demonstrating sophisticated responses from indigenous Yoruba metaphysics to perennial philosophical questions while maintaining cultural specificity. By examining concepts including ori (essence/inner head), ase (vital force), and the Ifa knowledge system as both epistemology and ontology, I demonstrate endogenous Yoruba thought as providing frameworks applicable beyond its original cultural matrix without diluting its distinctive character.
The essay is further enlivened and its ideas amplified through the use of diverse images of visual art complemented by explanatory text.
The Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala functions simultaneously as pedagogical instrument, analytical tool, and contemplative technology—making imaginatively visible invisible architectures understood as structuring existence while serving as a practical aid for consciousness expansion. In an era demanding epistemological diversity and decolonization of knowledge systems, this synthesis demonstrates how African philosophical frameworks can illuminate universal human concerns while maintaining rootedness in specific cultural wisdom traditions. The mandala embodies the integration of "wisdom" (timeless metaphysical insight) and "knowledge" (rigorous scholarly inquiry), offering contemporary seekers a dynamic instrument for navigating existence's complexities while honoring the irreducible mystery permeating all dimensions of reality.
I use the term ''classical Yoruba thought'' to refer to the oldest ideas developed in Yorubaland and which remain paradigmatic in studies of the enduring contributions of that civilisation. I also employ ''endogenous Yoruba thought'' in indicating the ancient origin of those ideas in Yorubaland. I do not use the more familiar use of ''traditional'' to refer to the same ideas because I want to emphasize in precision and the enduring significance of those cultural contributions even as they may undergo change.
Keywords: Yoruba metaphysics, cosmology, visual epistemology, Toyin Falola, opon ifa, mandala, sacred geography, African philosophy, contemplative practice, ori, ase, indigenous knowledge systems
Contents
Cover Image: The Falola/ Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala of the Spiritual/Physical Cosmos
Abstract
1. Theory, Phenomenology, Methodology
1.1.Theory
Seeking Totalistic Knowledge of African Realities
From Yoruba Focus to Universal Applicability
Falola's Concise Summation of Classical Yoruba Metaphysics
Mapping Intelligibility Within Mystery
Between Rationality and Spirituality, Between Classical Yoruba Thought and Western Thought
The Complexity of Western Cognitive History
Representative Texts in the Science and Spirituality Dialogue
Towards Integrated Epistemology
1.2. Phenomenology
Metaphysics as Lived Reality: The Osun Forest
The Journey to the Osun Forest
Trees as Cosmological Images
The Numinous Presence
The Unity of Spirit and Matter
Epistemic Unfolding
1.3. Methodology
Visualizing a Growing Awareness
Mandala and Opon Ifa: Concentric Visions of the Infinite
Theoretical Framework: Convergence of Opon Ifa and Mandala Symbolism in a Shared Geometric Language of the
Sacred
Methodological Reflections: Creating the Mandala
Translation as Transformation: From Text to Image
Functions and Applications of the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala
Aesthetic Delight, Pedagogical Instrument, Contemplative Technology and Mystical Gateway
The Hermeneutic Circle
Methodological Considerations
The Universal and the Particular
Conceptual Decolonization
The Ethnophilosophy Debate
2. Demonstration
2.1. The Cosmological Cartography of the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala
2.1.1. The Empty Center: Olodumare as Matrix of Infinite Possibility
Cross-Cultural Resonances: Emptiness as Creative Principle
From Transcendence to Immanence: The Sanctity of Every Moment
Questions and Inspiration in Relation to the Empty Centre
Image and Text
Opon Ifa and Odu Ifa
2.2. The Blue Circle: Human Consciousness at the Cosmic Crossroads
Visual Resonance
Human Consciousness in Relation to Cosmic Architecture
The Human Being as Microcosm
Ori, the Essence of Self
Endogenous Yoruba Epistemology: From Outer to Inner Vision, from Oju Lasan to Oju Inu, from Ori Ode to
Ori Inu
Horizons of Perception
Personal Inspiration
The Self as Cosmic Microcosm and the Self as an Aspect of the Ultimate
The Numen Within
Image and Text
Owusu Ankomah's Microcron Begins - Micra - Genecode
2.3. The Green Circle:The Coinherence of Spirit and Matter
Interpenetration
Colour Symbolism
Ethical, Ecological and Epistemological Implications
Animistic Panentheism: A Cohesive Hermeneutics
Image and Text
Symbols of Cosmic Unity in Classical Yoruba Thought
2.4. The Yellow Circle: Cosmos as Inexhaustible Mystery
Perspectives on Mystery in Classical Yoruba Thought
Existence as the Unfolding of a Mysterious Story
The Complexity of the Enigmatic Story
Wonder at Cosmic Being and Becoming
Mystery and Concealment
Mystery as Enchantment
The Sublime and the Numinous: Mystery Within Immediate Experience
Sacred Geography: Personal Testimony of Mystery
Image and Text
Forest as Cosmos
3. Integration
Cognitive Systems: Ifa as Navigational Knowledge
Mapping the Narrative Structure of Existence
Image and Text
Owusu- Ankomah,Thinking the Microcron 1
4. Conclusion: A Living Symbol for Contemporary Engagement
The academia.edu, Linkedin, Studying Toyin Falola blog publications of the essay and the PDF of the essay attached to this mail contain the complete sequence of images which had to be reduced because of Gmail restrictions.
1. Theory, Phenomenology, Methodology
This section lays out the theoretical foundations of the essay, presents a phenomenological relationship with the subject -a description of and reflection on an encounter significant for the ideas discussed here- and explains the intercultural inspiration of the visual symbolism developed in the essay.
1.1.Theory
Seeking Totalistic Knowledge of African Realities
Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality ( 2025) is published at last.
The omnivorous scholar, pursuing a project of unrivalled proportions in African Studies, across the humanities and social sciences, from history, to sociology, to religion and the visual and verbal arts, presents his first comprehensive engagement with a subject that he has previously studied from various angles.
He thereby further develops the multi-faceted perception of African realities his work provides, suggesting the question of whether his writings could inspire a summative description of reality from the perspective of African Studies, an aspiration similar to those undertaken, in their own contexts, by thinkers such as G.W.F. Hegel and Arnold Toynbee, who sought to account for the dynamism and meaning of human existence through the intersection of comprehensive history and philosophy.
From Yoruba Focus to Universal Applicability
Falola's summation of endogenous Yoruba metaphysics, the view of the character of the universe and of humanity's place within it, originally developed in Yorubaland, is proving a landmark in my philosophical and spiritual quest to understand the logic, the organization and dynamism of the cosmos, and of my place in it as a human being.
The combination of conciseness and applicatory range of his summation takes it beyond its Yoruba referent into a universal mapping of descriptions of the universe as a unity of spirit- invisible forces associated with intelligence- and matter, the physical world. His account of classical Yoruba metaphysics also resonates with descriptions of the effects of the power of spirit in the material universe.
Those two positions, spirit as inherent to the cosmos and the power of spirit as shaping the cosmos from beyond the universe, are fundamental descriptions of religious cultures and their spiritual expressions, aligning with Falola's picture of endogenous Yoruba thought.
Similar structural principles appear across diverse traditions: the Hindu concept of Brahman as both immanent and transcendent, the Chinese Taoist understanding of the Tao as pervading yet exceeding material existence, and the Christian theological tension between divine immanence and transcendence. These parallels suggest not mere coincidence but fundamental human recognition of existence's dual character—the interpenetration of visible and invisible dimensions.
Falola's Concise Summation of Classical Yoruba Metaphysics
''1. We exist in a universe that is not fully comprehensible to us. Some forces and beings possess significant spiritual power over humans.
2. Humans can engage with these spiritual forces and exert some influence over them. However, we are ultimately responsible for shaping the course of our own lives.
3. These forces exist in an unseen or invisible realm, known as Ọ̀run, distinct from our physical world. This unseen realm is often described as fantastical, magical, and challenging to grasp. Yet it is closely intertwined with the physical world, with its inhabitants, including the Supreme Being, playing a vital role in it.
Conversely, while primarily residing in the physical world, humans possess certain unique qualities that make them semispiritual and capable of interacting with the invisible realm under specific circumstances. Ọ̀run is also the dwelling place of deceased ancestors and the origin of human existence before birth''. (xi)
Mapping Intelligibility Within Mystery
Falola's summation of classical Yoruba metaphysics is presented in the Author's Note which opens the book and is elaborated in the rest of the text. I find the perspectives of the first page of the Author's Note problematic, however, as I discuss briefly later in this essay.
Entering the second page, the author's summation of classical Yoruba metaphysics, pure gold emerges, as an original and insightful, concise and yet universally resonant account of the subject is rolled out, specifics bracketed by a poignant recognition of the mystery defining existence, its imperviousness to full human understanding as the human person plays his part in a cosmic narrative, the ultimate rationale and the full scope of whose dynamism is unknown to him even as he is able to have an effect on the unfolding of the story to a limited degree.
I understand such sensitivity to mystery as being at the heart of the religious and spiritual, and in some cases, the philosophical adventure, as from within his profound perceptual sensitivities, framed by even more profound limitations, the creature on the third planet from the sun wonders how far he can travel in the understanding of the universe in which he finds himself, the great story in which he has somehow become involved, as J.R.R. Tolkien describes Frodo's thoughts on watching snatches of the history of Middle-Earth in the magical Mirror of Galadriel in Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings.
Cognitive constructs, such as historical accounts and metaphysical schemes, are akin to such magical mirrors, where the human journey in space, time and knowledge are refracted in ways inaccessible without the concentration of investigation, thought and expression demonstrated by scholarship, mirrors provoking sensitivity to the implications of the human adventure as a traveller without any verifiable understanding of his origins, his ultimate destination or the ultimate logic of his existence.
Bede's panorama of English religious history, for example, has a striking passage where the relationship between the observable realities of history are framed by the mystery encompassing human being and becoming:
The present life of man...seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through [a] room wherein [ a king sits] at supper in winter, with [ his] commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of [ their ] sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant" ( Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book 2. Ch. 13).
Such sensitivities, as foregrounded by Falola, project his subject in ways that frame the effort to make sense of this mystery, efforts represented by metaphysics, which may be described as a general picture or investigation of the nature of reality and of humanity's place within it. Such sensitivities place even the most ambitious and self assured of spiritual and philosophical schemes in a realistically humbling context.
Between Rationality and Spirituality, Between Classical Yoruba Thought and Western Thought
Endogenous Yoruba metaphysics, particularly as described by Falola, in dialogue with other schools of thought, has been priceless in facilitating my exploration of the interwoven dimensions of reality. Hence, I am sensitive to what I understand as the limitations of perspectival coherence in Falola's book, evident in the contrastive assertions he makes in the first page of the book as different from those in chapter 14, on discursive metaphysics.
In the first page, he makes a distinction between rationality, generally, scientific rationality, particularly, which he associates with Western thought, and spirituality, which he identifies with Yoruba metaphysics, a problematic perspective, regardless of how rationality is perceived, particularly in a book dedicated to demonstrating the rationality of Yoruba metaphysics, within its grounding in a spiritual understanding of reality.
Chapter 14, on discursive metaphysics, contradicts the limitations of the book's opening page, struggling to find a balance between rationality and spirituality in relation to Yoruba thought but at times tilting towards one or the other orientation. Does the scope of published knowledge on this subject not suggest an understanding of spirituality in terms of a form of rationality, even if that rationality is not fully empirical?
The Complexity of Western Cognitive History
How realistic is it to characterize Western thought, in its diachronic, historical progression, and its synchronic, contemporary identity, in terms of forms of rationality, generally, and scientific rationality, in particular, that are opposed to spirituality?
Is the dialogue between forms of knowledge in Western history not more complex than that?
From the interwoven streams of spirituality, myth and intellectual logic defining ancient Greek thought, to the influence of these on Christianity, itself building on Islamic engagements with ancient Greek philosophy, to the influence of these streams in shaping Western philosophy, the conjunction of Hermetic and Greek thought with Christianity and intellectual explorations in generating the Scientific Revolution, and the resonance of these conjunctions in contemporary philosophy generally, and history and philosophy of science particularly, in Christian and other theologies, does a much richer complex not emerge than stark oppositions between rationality and spirituality?
Is critical dialogue between various forms of knowledge, intellectual, sensory, imaginative and spiritual, across traditionally Western, Asian and indigenous bodies of knowledge not more representative of the contemporary diversity of Western thought than divisions between them?
Representative Texts in the Science and Spirituality Dialogue
The first chapter of Tian Yu Cao's Conceptual Developments of Twentieth Century Field Theories (2019) provides a particularly rich and yet concise survey, in relation to an exploration of the significance of metaphysics for modern science, of the diverse streams of thought that converged to create the Scientific Revolution.
A magnificent example of those streams is the work of Isaac Newton, understood by some as the greatest scientist of all time, between Hermeticism, alchemy, Christianity and physics, as demonstrated of physics and Christianity in his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, and for his Hermetic work in relation to his complete productivity, by Rob Ilfe's Newton : A Very Short Introduction while Richard Westfall’s various explorations of his life and work, from Encyclopedia Britannica essays to his massive Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, provide a comprehensive examination, among many other books and essays mapping the totality of Newton.
A robust engagement with contemporary dialogues between science and religion is represented, among others, by such a figure as Paul Davies, as in his God and the New Physics andThe Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Natural World, his edited Information and the Nature of Reality and such volumes as Philip Clayton and Zachary Simson's The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science.
An influential effort at correlating modern science and Asian spiritualities is Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Capra built on those foundations in developing a holistic philosophy, leading him to the conclusion in his book with Luigi Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (2014) that “a new systemic conception of life has emerged at the forefront of science” representing an insight into science and thought generally about the universe in ways preceded by Abiola Irele and correlated with classical Yoruba thought in his “The African Scholar’’ (2014), as I describe in “Abiola Irele and Negritude Aesthetics : Rhythm as a Metaphysical Principle: Transcultural and Scientific Implications”.
Towards Integrated Epistemology
May the contemporary state of endogenous Yoruba metaphysics, in relation to its historical progression, not be better appreciated in terms of a dialogue between the immediacies of sense perception, the transpositions of intellect, imaginative reshaping and spiritual sensitivities, as suggested by Babatunde Lawal's brief but robust description of classical Yoruba epistemology, theory of knowledge?:
As with other aspects of Yoruba culture, the eyeball is thought to have two aspects, an outer layer called oju ode (literally, external eye) or oju lasan (literally, naked eye), which has to do with normal, quotidian vision, and an inner one called ojui inu (literally, internal eye) or oju okan (literally, mind's eye). The latter is associated with memory, intention, intuition, insight, thinking, imagination, critical analysis, visual cognition, dreams, trances, prophecy, hypnotism, empathy, telepathy, divination, healing, benevolence, malevolence, extrasensory perception, and witchcraft, among others. For the Yoruba, these two layers of the eye combine to determine iworan, the specular gaze of an individual.
( "Àwòrán: Representing the Self and Its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art", 2001, 516)
1.2. Phenomenology
This is an autobiographical section describing an exploration of sacred space facilitating appreciation of classical Yoruba metaphysics as described by Falola. This description of embodied encounter is elaborated through conjunction with other accounts of this metaphysics and its epistemology-a theory describing how knowledge may be developed.
Metaphysics as Lived Reality: The Osun Forest
My own cognitive journeys across various bodies of knowledge, from different cultures, as indicated by "Theories and Practices of Cognition : Sense Perception and Metaphysical Integration in Western, Asian, Islamic and African Thought", have been representative of the continuum described by Lawal, a continuum in which endogenous Yoruba thought has been priceless in helping me understand conjunctions, even amidst tensions, between diverse ways of knowing and the various forms of knowledge emerging from those explorations.
My explorations of nature, particularly sacred space, demonstrate these convergences of diverse cognitive approaches and forms of knowledge, exemplifying what I find inspiring as well as problematic with Falola's account of endogenous Yoruba thought.
The most definitive of these explorations is of the Osun forest in Osogbo, Nigeria, a nexus of classical Yoruba spirituality. It has this distinction in Yoruba thought because of the understanding of the goddess Osun, one of the principal figures of this spirituality, as intimately related to the river flowing through the forest and on account of the architectural and sculptural complex built in the forest by Susanne Wenger and her school of New Sacred Art, visually mapping the cosmology of this school of thought.
This nature/art confluence makes the forest a privileged point of intersection of endogenous Yoruba metaphysics and epistemology, its picture of the universe and approaches to understanding reality the cosmology demonstrates. The writings on the forest and its art, from Susanne Wenger and Ulli Beier, likely the earliest and most likely yet unsurpassed chroniclers of that natural space and its human creativities, such as Beier's The Return of the Gods: The Sacred Art of Susanne Wenger and Wenger's A Life with the Gods in their Yoruba Homeland, to other writers beyond them, demonstrate the cosmological and epistemic significance of the Osun forest.
The Journey to the Osun Forest
On visiting Osogbo, after taking breakfast or brunch at Yetty Mama restaurant on Odi-Olowo street, I would walk up the hilly road to the forest, its crown of trees rising ever more clearly into view as I approached the vegetative density.
The climb up the hill would be loaded with anticipation. I was going to the place that was my reason for coming to Osogbo in the first place. I was going to experience the beauty, mystery and power of the forest, particularly the Oro Grove, where those qualities are particularly concentrated.
Trees as Cosmological Images
Passing various landmarks, I would at last enter the forest through a couple of elaborate gates, and proceed up another, gently sloping hill until I encountered the first sculptural complex on the right, the Eshu shrine complex, which I would proceed across, passing through the doorway at its back, entering a small earth path bordered by a wall on the right and the mass of forest at the left, constituted by trees some of which had become familiar through repeated visits, their massive roots shaping amazing organic architectures, convolutions of stems and branches evoking mythic and metaphysical configurations in which trees act as metaphors of cosmic unity in complexity, evoking a time when "all the gods of the world were trees and animals, long, long before they entrusted their sacrosanct magnificence to a human figure", as Wenger observes from a lifetime of immersion in the vegetative glories of the forest in Gerd Hotter and Rolf Brockmann's Adunni: A Portrait of Susanne Wenger.
The Numinous Presence
Coming to the first turning to the left, I would pause, looking down the path neatly cut into this section of forest, bordered by large trees at the left and right, alert to the sense of the uncanny, of eldritch presence, a subtle but distinctive identity, invisible but palpable, that gripped me from the very first day I stood at that spot, looking inside this section of the vegetative zone.
Like Moses in the Bible, who, confronted by the amazing sight of a bush on fire, heard a voice from the plant constellation commanding "take off your sandals. You are on holy ground", I would proceed into this section of the forest in a reverential spirit, sensitive to the fact that I was in the presence of something I did not understand but which compelled my reverence, something holy, distant from the universe of humans in their motions across space, eating up time, their lives burnt up in the frenzy of motion from day to day.
Here, stillness is supreme. Silence reigns. I would have entered the first day of creation, a chameleon gingerly testing the earth, as the Igbo story goes in Chinua Achebe's Morning Yet on Creation Day.
I had entered the first circle of existence, as described by Falola in Yoruba Metaphysics, the zone of sensitivity to existence as unfathomable mystery, shaped by realities distant from human cognitive faculties, uncircumscribable by intellect, intuited by the senses plunged into something both strange and compelling, describable but not penetrable, "we live in a universe we cannot fully comprehend", Falola states of the enveloping perspective of classical Yoruba thought.
I later learnt that place is a grove dedicated to the Yoruba oro spiritual tradition. I had stumbled into a version of the Ghanaian Akan kusum, "sacred site[s] involved in the performance of mystery rites [ also known as] kusumadze: sacred, secret, mysterious places where we meet for ritual exchanges with whatever spirits guide our cultures forward" ( Owusu-Ankomah, Microcron-Kusum: Sacred Signs, Hidden Meanings,2011, 2).
I had stumbled upon an ancient phenomenon, what the ancient Romans called the "genius loci", the "spirit of place", the ancient Greeks dedicating such groves to deities, sensitivities also central to modern Western nature spirituality and its arts, as evident in such studies of the phenomenon as Paul Deveroux' global exploration The Sacred Place: The Ancient Origin of Holy and Mystical Sites and Robin Hutton's The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft.
The Unity of Spirit and Matter
The conjunction of orun, the world of spirit, and aye, the physical world, as Falola states of Yoruba thought, of erinmwin, the zone of spirit, and agbon, the physical universe in Benin ( Edo) thought as depicted in Norma Rosen's "Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship", in relation to particular locations, suggests a sphere where the unity of cosmos is manifest in ways it is not elsewhere.
These are ideas evoked by such mysterious but compelling zones as the Osun forest, environments I became sensitive to through contemplating the beauty of nature, seeking to pierce through my sight to the metaphysical roots of the natural world, its grounding in invisible essence, a quest that led me to the "mind side" of nature, the presence of consciousness in inanimate nature, as described by the English occultist Dion Fortune's The Training and Work of an Initiate, whose guidance had inspired that nature exploration in the first place, complementing the inspiration of William Wordsworth, as in his ''Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey'', Charles Baudelaire, in ''Correspondences'', and orientations summed up by the more subtle but equally powerful work of Matsuo Basho, represented by his poem of a frog jumping into water, English, French and Japanese poets, respectively, of the mystical power of nature, its ability to catalyze awareness of the essence of being, of cosmic unity.
Epistemic Unfolding
Oju inu, the inward eye of Yoruba thought, as I later came to understand it through such works as Babatunde Lawal's "Aworan", ose ora, as described in Anenechukwu Umeh's After God is Dibia: Igbo Cosmology, Divination and Sacred Science in Nigeria, the eye with which one sees both the physical and the spiritual worlds, opened up through this contemplative process.
I began to perceive otherwise invisible aspects of nature. My understanding of eniyan, the human person, as described by Falola on Yoruba thought, began to flower in relation to nature, the human being as a composite of matter and spirit, who, in certain circumstances, as Falola puts it, can see into both the physical and the spiritual worlds.
The sphere of totality that is the self consciously interacting with the sphere of totality that is the universe.
"Existence is shaped by forces beyond full human comprehension" is how Falola begins his description of the three fundamental characteristics of the world view developed by the people amongst whom he reached adulthood, and lived for decades after.
In cultivating sensitivity to the sense of non-material presence in nature, I was experiencing the conjunction of what is described as spirit and matter, orun and aye, within a sensitivity to mystery as central to the universe.
In being able to cultivate these sensitivities, my character as a composite of spirit and matter was unfolding, a creature existing simultaneously on land and water, a creature composed of the concreteness of matter and the dynamism of water, adapting Falola on this synthesis.
1.3. Methodology
This part lays out foundations of an approach to visual correlations of theory and experience conjuncting Falola's account of classical Yoruba thought and its related epistemology with encounters in sacred space, exploring the process of ideas complementing physical experience.
Visualizing a Growing Awareness
How do I represent this understanding developing through years of exploration, fed by study of various schools of thought, concretized by Yoruba philosophy and further synthesized by Falola on that knowledge system?
Thus was born the image of the three circles of existence, the Falola/ Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala of the Spiritual/Physical Cosmos, derived from Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality, a cosmological model recognizing the co-existence of the spiritual, the natural and the supernatural within a unified metaphysical scheme.
Mandala and Opon Ifa: Concentric Visions of the Infinite
Theoretical Framework: Convergence of Opon Ifa and Mandala Symbolism in a Shared Geometric Language of the Sacred
The Falola/ Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala of the Spiritual/Physical Cosmos is a universal cosmogram developed by myself from Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics.
It is a further development from an earlier version of the same visual form described in "The Falola/ Adepoju Mandala of the Spiritual/Physical Cosmos: A Universal Cosmogram Developed from Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju".
Methodological Reflection: Creating the Mandala
In terms of my methodology for translating verbal metaphysics into visual form, what principles guided this translation? What interpretive choices did I make, and on what grounds?
The Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala modifies its preceding form through the addition of the term "Opon Ifa" to the name of the visual structure as well as reworking the description of the symbolic diagram. The circles are also colour coded in this version of the mandala in order to vivify and amplify their symbolic significance.
"Opon Ifa" is the name of a divinatory instrument and cosmological symbol of the Ifa system of knowledge as developed in Nigeria's Yorubaland and in the ethnic group's presence in neighbouring countries.The opon Ifa is both an instrument of divination and a cosmological diagram—a visual language through which knowledge of existence is accessed.
A mandala is a cosmological symbol originating in Hinduism and adapted to various contexts across the world. The term mandala—a Sanskrit concept signifying “circle” and “cosmos”—is integrated in this essay to bridge Yoruba and global spiritual geometries.The Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala is so named to acknowledge the correlative inspiration of the opon ifa and the mandala motif in creating this symbolic form.The synthesis recognizes both as symbolic expressions of totality and coherence, amplifying one another through the evocative language of concentric circles.
Both opon ifa and mandala structures harness the evocative potential of circular geometry, particularly concentric circles, to suggest fundamental cosmological principles: coherence, expansiveness, and infinity. The circle, as an unbounded form without beginning or end, has served across cultures as a primary symbol of wholeness, completion, and the eternal. When circles are arranged concentrically, they create a visual architecture that suggests hierarchical or interwoven dimensions of reality, progressive levels of understanding, or the relationship between center and periphery, microcosm and macrocosm.
Mandala theory and practice is well known but opon ifa symbolism is less appreciated. Rowland Abiodun, Henry Drewal and John Pemberton III's Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought outlines a basic presentation of opon ifa symbolism while Marcus Ifalola Sanchez develops a more expansive orientation ( "Opon Ifa Symbology" in Ifa Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow).
Translation as Transformation: From Text to Image
Falola's summation of endogenous Yoruba metaphysics demonstrates compelling force in its combination of conciseness and evocative range.
It is created to map the classical Yoruba conception of the universe but incidentally subsumes spiritual world views in general, which differ primarily in terms of modifications of the basic framework provided by Falola, as I explain in my first essay on the mandala I am developing from Falola's image of endogenous Yoruba metaphysics.
This conjunction of organizational tightness and interpretive potential inspires my doing something I love doing, creating visual cosmological and epistemological models.
Functions and Applications of the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala
These models are useful for the delight of their aesthetic force, in stimulating reflection and for going beyond reflection into meditation.The Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala distills Falola's summation of endogenous Yoruba thought, translating its verbal conciseness and explanatory range in terms of the evocative power of concentric circles, interpreted through Falola's ideas, complemented by concepts from other contexts.
Aesthetic Delight, Pedagogical Instrument, ContemplativeTechnology and Mystical Gateway
The circles are colour coded for greater aesthetic force, visual impact and mental penetrativeness, increasing the mandala's memorableness and evocative power.The mandala acts as a tool facilitating the understanding of the ideas it represents as well as stimulating sensitivity to their associative force beyond their immediate configurations.
It can also function as a mystical instrument, a means of reshaping or expanding the mind to grasp the structure and dynamism of existence and the human being's place within it at a level beyond conventional cognitive powers, a level demonstrating perception of or union with cosmic being and becoming.
The pursuit of such integrative knowledge, penetrating to the essence of existence and synthesizing the particulars of being, is my primary cognitive goal, shaping my entire life.
It has been a long journey, inspired by Asian, Western and African thought. I'm not there yet, but my knowledge landscape is continually developed through the quest, even as it shapes my personality and lifestyle.
The Hermeneutic Circle
My creation of the mandala exemplifies the hermeneutic circle—the process by which understanding moves between part and whole, text and interpretation, familiar and unfamiliar. I approached Falola's text with prior knowledge of Yoruba thought, familiarity with mandala symbolism, and personal experiences in sacred groves. These horizons of understanding shaped how I read Falola, and Falola's text in turn reshaped my understanding of my experiences and of comparative symbolic systems.
The mandala does not simply illustrate Falola's ideas but interprets them—selecting certain themes for emphasis, adding the empty center as a structural element, choosing colors for their associative resonances, and drawing connections to Buddhist and Hindu symbolism that Falola's text does not explicitly make. This interpretive dimension requires acknowledgment: the mandala represents one possible visual translation among many.
Methodological Considerations
My approach to creating the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala synthesizes Yoruba and Buddhist/Hindu symbolism—a cross-cultural methodology requiring philosophical justification. This synthesis does not collapse distinct traditions into false equivalence but recognizes convergent symbolic structures arising from shared human engagement with fundamental metaphysical questions. The concentric circle appears across cultures as a primary symbol of wholeness, hierarchy, and the relationship between center and periphery, microcosm and macrocosm. By bringing Yoruba opon ifa symbolism into dialogue with mandala geometry, I honor specific cultural origins while facilitating broader philosophical engagement.
Potential objections to this methodology deserve acknowledgment. Some scholars within African philosophy might question whether synthesizing African concepts with Asian symbolic systems perpetuates cultural appropriation or undermines the specificity of African philosophical traditions. However, this synthesis operates not as appropriation but as comparative phenomenology—identifying structural parallels while respecting cultural particularity. As Kwasi Wiredu argues in Cultural Universals and Particulars, genuine philosophical dialogue requires both recognition of cultural specificity and willingness to identify common human concerns manifested across traditions.
The Universal and the Particular
Wiredu's work Cultural Universals and Particulars provides a framework for thinking about how culturally specific philosophical systems can illuminate universal human concerns. My claim that Yoruba metaphysics has universal applicability resonates with Wiredu's position that African philosophical resources can contribute to global philosophical discourse without requiring abandonment of cultural specificity.
Conceptual Decolonization
Kwame Gyekye's work on conceptual decolonization—the project of articulating African philosophical concepts in their own terms rather than forcing them into Western philosophical categories—intersects importantly with Falola's project. Terms like "metaphysics," "spirituality," and "supernaturality", however, carry Western philosophical baggage that may or may not align with Yoruba conceptual structures.
Falola navigates this challenge by defining terms within Yoruba contexts, reflecting on the politics and possibilities of cross-cultural philosophical translation.Sustained comparative analysis indicates how Yoruba metaphysical categories map onto or diverge from categories in other traditions. My mandala project attempts such synthesis visually, while the verbal exposition in Falola's text develops these comparisons more systematically.
The Ethnophilosophy Debate
Paulin Hountondji's influential critique of "ethnophilosophy" argued that much work labeled as African philosophy merely document collective worldviews rather than engaging in critical philosophical argumentation. While Falola's work does primarily present and interpret Yoruba thought, my response to his analysis avoids the pitfalls Hountondji identified by maintaining scholarly rigor, demonstrating experiential and analytical relationship with the tradition being studied, acknowledging internal diversity within Yoruba thought, and recognizing the constructed nature of any summation of a living tradition.
Explicit engagement with this debate—explaining why documentation and interpretation of indigenous metaphysical frameworks constitutes legitimate philosophical work—strengthen the project's methodological foundation.
2. Demonstration
This part of the essay describes the details of the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala, the image created to visualize Falola's depiction of classical Yoruba metaphysics, enriched by my own additions.
2.1. The Cosmological Cartography of the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala
2.1.1. The Empty Center: Olodumare as Matrix of Infinite Possibility
At the centre of the concentric circles is an empty space. The cosmological category it represents is my addition to Falola's depiction of the structure of endogenous Yoruba metaphysics.
That empty centre adapts the visual image and symbolic possibilities of the empty centre of the opon ifa, where the divinatory instruments are cast to assume patterns. These patterns, known as odu ifa, are understood as the oracle's symbolic response to the queries represented by the casting of the divination instruments, an image of generative processes in relation to the construction of meaning in the context of being and becoming.
Adapting these ideas, the empty centre in this mandala represents the matrix of possibilities, the potential for existence and change from which all possibilities derive.
This matrix is associated with the image of the pot as evocative of the human female womb as well as of the womb of the universe in an ultimate creative source, ideas from Yoruba thought and its derivatives.
This symbolization is significantly influenced by Shloma Rosenberg's description of the name "Olodumare" as known in Lukumi, a diaspora variant of classical Yoruba religion:
Olodumare (One who owns the realm of never-ending possibilities; olo--owner, odu--repository of possibility, mare--from Oshumare, the serpent of infinity).
Essentially, the names Olodumare and Olorun refer to the same force, but with slightly different shades of meaning.
Olodumare refers to God in His/Her aspect as architect of continuous creation.
The name describes the repository of possibility and circumstance from which each moment is born.
Olodumare is the receptacle for Odu, which are the constellations of possibilities that contain all events past, present and future.
( "Olorun: God in Yoruba Belief", Mystic Curio).
Cross-Cultural Resonances: Emptiness as Creative Principle
Complementing Rosenberg's interpretation of "Olodumare" is Nimi Wariboko's use of the image of the void, of emptiness as creative potential in The Principle of Excellence: A Framework for Social Ethics.
In this context, emptiness implies potential rather than lack or absence, such as the pauses between words in speech and spaces between words in writing.
These verbal forms indicate the creative possibilities of unfolding potential, as speech and writing are made intelligible by the silence and empty spaces between words.
Wariboko thereby incidentally telescopes centuries of development of the image of emptiness, of voidness, as creative force, an idea made prominent by Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and other schools of thought, as described in Bettina Baumer and John Dupuche's edited Void and Fullness in the Buddhist, Hindu and Christian Traditions (Sunya – Purna – Pleroma).
These range from the Kabbalistic En Sof, a reality beyond human conception which yet generates existence, as Dion Fortune depicts this idea in The Mystical Qabalah; the Void of Buddhism indicating a zone transcending human expressive capacities even as it is the source of all being, as Judith Simmer-Brown' Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Experience in Tibetan Buddhism eloquently describes; Christian negative theology in which God, the creator of the universe, is best appreciated through reflection on what the ultimate identity is not rather than on what it is, as dramatized in the poetry of St. John of the Cross; Taoism's emphasis on the ultimate creative power, the Tao, as beyond human expressive capacity, as stated in Lao Tzu's Tao te Ching.
From Transcendence to Immanence: The Sanctity of Every Moment
Wariboko thereby develops an approach to the image of emptiness as evoking creative possibility, taking the idea from the realm of transcendence to that of daily action and the compass of human life as a journey within and across space and time.
Each moment thus becomes a zone of intersection of the immediate and the possible, of the limited and the unlimited, the infinite and the temporal, as the human being journeys towards the "Inconceivable, Absolute Infinity".
This Wariboko formulation may be better appreciated in relation to T.S. Eliot's conception of "spots of time" in Four Quartets in which such transformative conjunctions occur as exceptional experiences, as the human being is enjoined "we must be still and still moving/ into another intensity/ for a further union, a deeper communion".
In Wariboko's conception, however, the innate character of every moment of time is understood as harmonizing the immediate and the limitless.
A similar orientation is incidentally suggested by the Hindu Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, consisting of mental exercises designed to awaken the self to the potential of every moment as a doorway into infinity, into an awareness of the limitless ground of existence, as evident, among other sources, in Paul Reps' edited Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, its translation of that text remarkable for its gnomic and yet lyrical poetic force,
Immanuel Kant's meditations on the relationship between the inner and outer cosmos in Critique of Practical Reason also demonstrates the fundamental realities of human experience as representing a doorway into infinity through the scope of the human mind and the range and dynamism of the universe. He frames the capacity for moral judgement as transcending the limitations of mortality by reaching into the infinite, a complex summation dramatizing the universal human hunger to reach beyond the immediate and the temporal into the infinite and eternal,
The empty centre of the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala thus evokes the source of existence as well as processes for relating with that source.
Questions and Inspiration in Relation to the Empty Centre
Is there truly an ultimate source of existence? If there is, I want to relate as intimately as possible with it.
Beyond the question of ultimacy, however, lies an unending regression of questions.
The idea of a creator of the universe implies the question of the origin of that creator, a question that cannot be adequately answered.
Human reason...is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.
...
It rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves...
The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic.
( Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn)
Ideas about ultimacy remain inspiring however, regardless of their remoteness from the possibility of the questions they inspire being fully answered.
Will I one day encounter ultimate reality, as described in inspiring accounts of such experiences?
I might have approached the edge of such transformative mental states in the past, but could not consummate the experience for various reasons. I hope I'll have such opportunities again and be adequately prepared.
Meanwhile, I live in the inspiration of such conceptions, such as Wariboko's idea of creative potential as defining every moment of life.
2.2. The Blue Circle: Human Consciousness at the Cosmic Crossroads
Visual Resonance
Discussing interpretations of the universe in relation to ultimate reality takes us to the human being, the person interpreting the cosmos, and who may understand themself as an aspect of the universe, as embodying the unity of spirit and matter understood as defining existence.
The human being is represented by the blue circle in the mandala, positioned before the green circle symbolizing the universe, of which the human being is a part and which the human being interprets.
The choice of blue for this circle invites multiple interpretations: the depth and vastness of human interiority suggested by the blue of ocean, ocean blue further evoking the mystery of consciousness itself and the reflective quality of awareness that mirrors cosmic reality, a receptivity that absorbs impressions from both material and spiritual domains, the connection between human awareness and the sky or heaven (symbolized by ọ̀run in Yoruba), or the fluidity of consciousness that allows human awareness to move between different levels of reality, generating harmony in the essential equality of all human beings regardless of surface differences, within conjunctions between all forms of being.
Whatever specific associations one emphasizes, the blue circle affirms human consciousness as central to cosmological structure—not in the sense of anthropocentric privilege but in acknowledging that human cosmological understanding necessarily emerges from and addresses human awareness.
Beyond the green circle is the yellow circle signifying the range and limitations of human interpretive capacities in relation to the cosmos, a totality understood as being beyond full human grasp.
The blue circle standing for the human being is closest to the innermost circle because the diagram is constructed from the perspective of the human person positioned between the ultimate source of existence and its intersection with the temporal and material structures of the universe.
Human Consciousness in Relation to Cosmic Architecture
This placement reflects a fundamental epistemological principle: any cosmogram necessarily emerges from and addresses human awareness, regardless of how comprehensive its scope or how transcendent its referents.
The human being occupies a unique position in the cosmological architecture—situated between the ultimate source of existence (the empty center) and the intersection of spiritual and material dimensions that constitute the manifest universe. This liminal position reflects the dual nature of human consciousness: embedded within temporal-material conditions while simultaneously capable of apprehending and participating in spiritual dimensions that transcend materiality.
The human person is not merely contained within the universe but serves as a site of cosmic self-reflection—a location where existence becomes conscious of itself, where the interplay of spiritual and material forces can be recognized and engaged. This understanding aligns with Falola's account of Yoruba conceptions of the human being as participating in multiple dimensions of reality simultaneously, neither purely material nor purely spiritual but constituting a unique synthesis that enables conscious relationship with the full spectrum of existence.
The Human Being as Microcosm
Observing himself, the human being could have come to conclusions about his own nature, conclusions correlative with his observations about the universe, conclusions leading to the assertion, in various schools of thought across the world, that he is a compendium of spirit and matter as an aspect of the cosmos which is also composed of this unity. The relationship between ultimate and material existence is thus perceived as composed of the coinherence, the unity of the material and spiritual worlds constituting all of existence, a coinherence also demonstrated by the human person.
Falola states that in endogenous Yoruba thought orun, an unseen, invisible realm, in which the "Supreme Being plays a vital role", " the dwelling place of deceased ancestors and the origin of human existence before birth", in which exist "forces and beings that possess significant spiritual power over humans", "is closely intertwined with the physical world" and that human beings, "while primarily residing in the physical world...possess certain qualities that make them semispiritual and capable of interacting with the invisible realm under specific circumstances".
Ori, the Essence of Self
Such interaction is enabled by
Ori...a metaphysical infrastructure, personalized and unique to each person, that connects humans to the spiritual and physical worlds, acting as a bridge to the supernatural forces, which humans cannot fully comprehend.
...
[ Eniyan is the totality of the self, the human being as a ] convergence... of all the external, spiritual and physical forces that shape and blend into a person. It encompasses all the contexts that contribute to the nature of one's Iwa [ " a person's unique identity].
These contexts then interact through the infrastructure provided by Ori. Individuals acquire their agency and existence by manifesting these elements in their own choices, ultimately forming their Iwa ( xiii).
Endogenous Yoruba Epistemology: From Outer to Inner Vision, from
Oju Lasan to Oju Inu, from Ori Ode to Ori Inu
Yoruba origin epistemology, theory of knowledge, may be described, adapting Babatunde Lawal's "Aworan'', as recognizing a progression from sense perception to intellectual, imaginative and extrasensory perception, possibilities grounded in the embodied identity of the human being.
This embodied identity is understood as the platform for all cognitive journeys, hence the immediate source of knowledge, represented by basic sense perception, is subsumed under " oju lasan", the ordinary eye or vision, and expansive forms beyond that fundamental datum are known as "oju inu", the inward eye or vision and "oju okan", the inward mind.
These possibilities may be understood as summed up as "ori", the human head understood as synechdochal, the part standing for the whole, of the centre of direction for the human person, the visible, physical head in relation to the material form of the human being, ori ode.
The further perceptual possibilities are depicted as "ori inu", the inward, invisible head, the immortal essence of the self, embodying the self's ultimate potential, the primary matrix of the self's activities in material and spiritual universes, "essence, attribute, and quintessence...the uniqueness of persons, animals, and things, their inner eye and ear, their sharpest point and their most alert guide as they navigate through this world and the one beyond'' as described by Olabiyi Babalola Yai in his review of Henry John Drewal, John Pemberton III and Rowland Abiodun's Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought.
Ori inu is itself understood, in one strand within the spirituality, as sharing, in a limited manner, in the identity of the creator of the universe, "the one and only Origun in orun, from which each every ori branches", as stated in the Ifa poem "Ayajo Asuwada", quoted in Akinsola Akiwowo's "Towards a Sociology of Knowledge from an African Oral Poetry".
The totality of perspectives on the human being in endogenous Yoruba thought thus understand the human person as a microcosm of the universe, in being a confluence of spirit and matter, as the universe also is, as well as expression of the source of that universe, a projection of the identity of ultimate reality.
Horizons of Perception
Is it possible to develop forms of knowledge integrating and going beyond the conventionally knowable, unifying and transcending senses, intellect and imagination, in order to address human issues and understand the universe, through integrating knowledge in terms of an ultimate centre of direction, ori in its primal form, seeking the unity of all possibilities as they may unfold within and beyond time and space?
Anenechukwu Umeh, on the related Igbo epistemic concepts "ose naabo", the eye with which one sees the material world, and "ose ora", the eye with which one sees both the physical and spiritual worlds, as described in After God is Dibia, asserts that such integrative and penetrating understanding is possible,correlating those epistemic possibilities with the Igbo concept ''chi'', the Igbo equivalent of the Yoruba ori.
Personal Inspiration
The Self as Cosmic Microcosm and the Self as an Aspect of the Ultimate
The description of the human being as a composite of spirit and matter, a unity emerging from the self as an aspect or expression of the creator of the universe, is one of the most inspiring ideas I have come across.
Falola's explanation of the idea of the human being as capable of interacting with the spiritual world is corroborated by my experiences in various contexts, within and beyond diverse spiritualities.
I have not experienced confirmation of the idea of the human person as an aspect or expression of the creator and essence of the universe, but the idea deeply inspires me.
It is a primary inspiration in my daily life, feeding a daily practice of prayer and contemplation, as I reach out to the divine presence I find inspiration in believing is within me, seeking guidance in life's activities, listening to the inward voice and contemplating symbols created for facilitating that interaction between the everyday self and the self described as constituting one's essence, an essence that shares in the identity of the creator of the cosmos.
The Numen Within
Even though I have not had the privilege of experiencing my self at the depth claimed by those who depict the essence of the human being as an expression of the creator of existence, meditation on myself inspired by those ideas has awakened something within me, something beyond humanity as socially constructed, something grand but remote from conventional human identity, something glorious but distant from the familiar contours of a person as a part of human community, something whose only need is knowledge, and which drives me incessantly in pursuit of its ultimate good with the intensity of a ravenous beast, so much so that addressing my other needs as a human being is a challenge, orientations more fitting in a hermit retired from society, seeking ultimate reality in solitude, but my own compulsion is not so extensive as to desire complete withdrawal from society, leaving me to struggle with the balance between otherworldly hunger and more regular human and social necessities.
" A strange and terrible numen that used me as its tabernacle'', Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language's example of the use of the term ''numen'', evokes this bewildering, painful yet inspiring experience. Google defines ''numen'' as ''the spirit or divine power presiding over a thing or place''. Collins describes it as '' a guiding principle, force, or spirit'. The Nova Roma site, centred on ancient Roman religion, describes it as '' a sacred force, and impersonal but divine power''.
The numen that is my driving force does not so much use me, as in the first example of the term above, but is my foundational identity, a personality often out of step with the social drives of environments I live in, which are often directed at more immediate or socially approved orientations, while the needs of this indwelling force are more abstract and reconfigurative, reaching beyond established possibilities to new horizons.
It inhabits a version of Falola's description of classical Yoruba thought's account of the spiritual universe as fantastical and magical. It actualizes his picture of the unique configuration of each person's ori. This force constitutes me but is inadequately understood by me. It reaches ravenously towards ultimate reality in terms of a hunger after knowledge as a matrix for understanding that beyond knowledge but to which knowledge may serve as a means of approach, the calabash of totality woven by the fire of mind, adapting Mazisi Kunene on Zulu epistemology, theory of knowledge, in his Anthem of the Decades.
Image and Text
Owusu Ankomah's Microcron Begins - Micra - Genecode
A magnificent evocation of the cosmic location of the human being at the intersection of intimations of cosmic scope and unity evoked by the circular rhythms of the cosmological circles in circle-universes in universe-the figure is gazing at as a cognitive aspiration.
This aspirational image is amplified by the circular harmonies of the myriad circles composing the symbol network shaping the space where the human form is positioned, suggesting interpretive range represented by humanity's efforts across space and time to make meaning of the universe through symbols.
Spatial and figural grandeur supervenes, as the music of colour, space and form cohere, ultramarine blue vivified by a bright palette of colours.
Recurrent in this visual symphony are Akan and Gyaman Adinkra symbols, the zone from where the artist began his quest for meaning through varied symbol systems across space and time, in the context of trying to understand himself, humanity and the cosmos, as he states in the edited volume Microcron Begins.
2.3. The Green Circle:The Coinherence of Spirit and Matter
Interpenetration
The green circle enclosing the circle depicting the human person represents the cosmos as enabled by the generative force evoked by the empty centre. The cosmos is understood in this model as a unity of matter and spirit. In classical Yoruba cosmology, as Falola explains, the material world (aye) and the spiritual realm (ọ̀run) are not separate domains but interpenetrating dimensions of a unified reality. Matter is not divorced from spirit; materiality represents a particular modulation or expression of spiritual reality. This non-dualistic framework positions the physical universe not as separate from or inferior to spiritual reality but as its manifestation—matter infused with and sustained by spiritual forces, spirit taking concrete form without losing its essential nature.
The term "coinherence"—the mutual indwelling of apparently distinct realities—captures this relationship precisely. Spirit and matter do not merely coexist or interact; they interpenetrate so thoroughly that each contains and expresses the other. The material world is spiritually charged; spiritual realities manifest materially. This understanding dissolves the mind-body problem, the conflict between religious and scientific worldviews, and the dichotomy between sacred and profane dimensions of existence.
Colour Symbolism
The color green evokes multiple associations that support this symbolism: life, growth, vitality, and the natural world—domains where spiritual and material dimensions visibly interweave. In ecological terms, green suggests the biosphere, the living membrane of Earth where spirit becomes flesh, where abstract potential assumes concrete form while retaining connection to immaterial source. Green also represents balance, harmony, and the creative synthesis of complementary forces—apt metaphors for the unified spiritual-material cosmos.
Ethical, Ecological and Epistemological Implications
This understanding has profound implications for ethics, ecology, and epistemology. If matter and spirit are fundamentally unified, then the body cannot be a mere prison for the soul, nor can physical needs be treated as less important than spiritual aspirations. Embodied existence is inherently sacred.The natural world cannot be treated as spiritually inert resource, available for unlimited exploitation. Nature is suffused with spiritual presence and deserves reverence.Knowledge cannot be compartmentalized into purely empirical versus purely contemplative domains. All knowing becomes a participation in the unified field of spiritual-material reality, requiring integration of multiple ways of understanding.
Animistic Panentheism: A Cohesive Hermeneutics
Classical Yoruba thought recognizes the pervasiveness of ase, life force issuing from the creator of the universe, enabling existence and change. It also understands consciousness as emerging in animate and inanimate life forms, in natural forms as well as in human made structures.
The best description of this cosmology might be animistic panentheism, integrating various accounts of this world view. In this animistic panentheism, ase suffuses the universe, imbuing each existent with individual creativity and in some cases, with consciousness. Through ase the power of the creator of the universe pervades the cosmos yet that creator transcends the cosmos.
I find this model attractive because of its inclusiveness in addressing the breadth of possibilities demonstrated by nature, taken to include anything that is a feature of the universe, including the animistic, which is also represented by my own experience.
This model also integrates the capacities of my own self as a human being. These capacities are best explained in terms of the unity of matter and the mysterious quality of life. Life understood as mysterious because it is unexhausted by material interpretations.
This model of the unity of spirit and matter integrates the complexity of nature, its order and progression, its openness to scientific interpretation in terms of scientific cosmology, evolutionary theory and other materially focused conceptions.
These empirically directed, material interpretations may be complemented by spiritually oriented viewpoints as two halves vital to adequate appreciation of the variedly composed but unified complexity of the universe.
A spiritually inclusive world view could understand scientific explanations as subsumed by spiritual reality. In such a context, the apparent self subsistence of the material universe, its seeming self direction and self created order, operative without reference to a directing intelligence, may be seen as enabled by an invisible awareness and power, a consciousness inexplicably enabling cosmic processes, an intelligence and power "present everywhere and visible nowhere", as one view describes the presence of God in the universe.
Such a position could be more speculative and imaginative, more reliant on faith than purely intellectual, but it could also be strategic for satisfying a person's need for a comprehensive interpretation of reality.
Image and Text
Symbols of Cosmic Unity in Classical Yoruba Thought
''[In the classical Yoruba cosmos] religious forces and persona are continually moving, intersecting, cross-pollinating, challenging, and energizing one another (and humans) across a myriad of celestial and earthly spheres. Human and sacral worlds, in short, are conjoined'' ( Suzanne Preston Blier, "Cosmic References in Ancient Ife", 2).
The interlace motif on the opon ifa above, a recurrent image on opon ifa, may be adapted in terms of the idea of cosmic interweaving and dynamism. The face of the deity Eshu, embodiment and enabler of cosmological cross-fertilization, an invariable motif of opon ifa, looks up from the top of the divination tray and cosmological symbol. The circular form may be interpreted as emitting a silent music, the rhythm of the spheres, of being and becoming, held in balance by the generative matrix suggested by the empty centre.
''The most obvious characteristics of [ the world created by the Yoruba novelist D.O Fagunawa] is its fusion into a comprehensive theatre of human drama of the natural and supernatural realms. He has created the universe of his novels directly out of the African,and specifically Yoruba, conception which sees the supernatural not merely as a prolongation of the natural world, but as co-existing actively with it. Given such a cosmology, the role of the traditional artist has consisted in transposing the real world in his work in such a way as to reveal its essential connection with the unseen, in giving to the everyday and the finite the quality of the numinous and the infinite.
The significance of his work is thus inherent in the symbolic framework and connotations of his novels. A simple but valid interpretation of the pattern of situation in his novels suggests that his forest stands for the universe, inhabited by obscure forces to which man stands in a dynamic moral and spiritual relationship and with which his destiny is involved; in short,a mythical representation of the existential condition of man as expressed in Yoruba thinking.The tremendous adventure of existence in which man is engaged is dramatised by the adventures of Fagunwa's hunters who go through trials and dangers in which they must justify and affirm their human essence.''
( Abiola Irele, "Tradition and the Yoruba Writer:D.O.Fagunwa, Amos Totuola and Wole Soyinka",The African Experience in literature and Ideology, 1981,179-181).
2.4. The Yellow Circle: Cosmos as Inexhaustible Mystery
The outermost circle, rendered in yellow, represents the cosmos as ultimately exceeding complete human comprehension. This acknowledgment of mystery does not constitute intellectual defeatism, anti-rationalism, or an excuse for abandoning rigorous inquiry. Rather, it recognizes that reality extends beyond the reach of analytical understanding, regardless of how much empirical knowledge accumulates or how refined conceptual frameworks become.
The yellow of this outermost circle suggests illumination, enlightenment, radiance, the solar principle—yet an illumination that reveals the presence of what cannot be fully illuminated, light that makes visible the existence of what transcends visibility. This paradox captures the essential character of cosmic mystery—it is not hidden in darkness but shines in plain sight, perpetually available yet perpetually exceeding complete comprehension.
Yellow also evokes warmth, life-giving energy, and the consciousness-expanding quality attributed to solar symbolism across cultures. The cosmos as mystery is not cold, distant, or indifferent but warm, present, and inviting—beckoning us toward ever-deeper understanding while simultaneously reminding us that complete comprehension remains asymptotic, an infinite approach rather than a destination to be reached.
Perspectives on Mystery in Classical Yoruba Thought
What forms of mystery are evident in classical Yoruba thought?
Existence as the Unfolding of a Mysterious Story
One sense of mystery is developed by Falola in Yoruba Metaphysics in terms of human limitations of understanding, generating helplessness in the face of the cosmos. This is summed up in the image of existence as a great story in which the human being finds themself involved, without any idea of choice before that involvement or means of finding their way out of their existence as characters in a story ultimately shaped by more powerful entities of whom they have little or no awareness.
This is a story in which humans have limited agency, classical Yoruba thought being centred on exploring the scope of this agency and how to handle it, an agentive capacity in which, within limits, human actions may shape the outcome of the story in which the human being finds themselves locked:
We exist in a universe that is not fully comprehensible to us. Some forces and beings possess significant spiritual power over humans.
...
In Yoruba mythology, humans are portrayed as characters in a masterfully constructed story.The authors, superior beings, create these characters as having no awareness of their true purpose.
When the storytelling is skillfully executed, the characters influence the plot, and the plot, in turn, shapes the characters.Although the characters' paths are predetermined, their decisions and behaviors bring the narrative to life. If they fail to follow the plot, they are unable to justify their existence and consequently cease to be". (xiii-xiv)
This is an insightful interpretation of the conventional understanding of the dominance of destiny in human life as understood in classical Yoruba thought.
That view, however, may differ from other interpretive possibilities in endogenous Yoruba thought, such as discussed by Adegboyega Orangun in Destiny: The Unmanifested Being,which emphasize human agency more robustly—such as those which interpret destiny (ayanmo) as a flexible framework rather than rigid determination.
It can also be fruitfully contrasted with related conceptions of relationships between human life and destiny in endogenous Igbo thought which seem to place greater emphasis on human free will, which Chinua Achebe's novels Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God explore with ironic force and as Wariboko's scholarship demonstrates of Kalabari philosophy and spirituality.
The Complexity of the Enigmatic Story
As bleak as the life-as- narrative image might seem, I find it fascinating in terms of the scope of freedom it could suggest for the human being.
In this context, the story understood as ultimately shaped in terms of a configuration beyond full human understanding may indicate exciting mystery, the unanticipated and unanticipatable, the non-deterministic within the limits defined by birth and transition.
Along with the idea of the human being as implicated in cosmic structure but is significantly uninformed about the ultimate purpose of his existence, existing as a character within a story he does not fully grasp, the unfolding of which story he does not fully control, is another view, also present in endogenous Yoruba thought.
In this view the human being shares, in a limited manner, the identity of the creator of the universe, "the one and only Origun in orun, from which each every ori branches", as stated in the Ifa poem "Ayajo Asuwada".
The totality of perspectives on the human being in endogenous Yoruba thought thus understand the human person as a microcosm of the universe, as well as an expression of the source of that universe.
In that context, how could the life- as- story motif be interpreted? Would the human being still be understood in terms of the relative helplessness described by Falola?
Or one could explore the value of the Hindu, Buddhist and Western esoteric conceptions of the human person as capable of progressive expansion of awareness into the limitless scope of cosmic consciousness, increasingly operating as a co-creator with the creator of the cosmos, as Vera Stanley Alder's The Initiation of the World and Paul Twitchell's The Spiritual Notebook describe for the Western context and Santideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra does for Buddhism, summed up in Santideva's resonant declaration, " as long as space abides, as long as the world abides, so long shall I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world".
Within such an interpretive framework, the individual ori, the essence of self, a branch of "the one and only Origun in orun", increasingly grows in awareness of the scope of the ultimate creative power it derives from, possibly increasingly cultivating greater effect on the story of which it is a part.
Wonder at Cosmic Being and Becoming
Wole Soyinka performs a similar foregrounding of classical Yoruba thought in "The Credo of Being and Nothingness" in terms of the image of the void before the emergence of the universe, in contrast to the development of metaphysical schemes to explain realities observed or speculated upon by humanity, his analysis eventually foregrounding endogenous Yoruba thought.
He describes the origins of drama as a response to the ''profound...elusive phenomenon of being and non-being...the bewildering phenomenon of the cosmic location of [ the human person ]. The fundamental visceral questioning intrudes, prompted by the patient, immovable and eternal immensity that surrounds him. We may speculate that it is the reality of this undented vastness which created the need to challenge, confront and at least initiate a rapport with the realm of infinity.
It was-there being no other conceivable place-the natural home of the unseen deities, a resting place for the departed, and a staging house for the unborn. Intuitions, sudden psychic emanations could come, logically, only from such an incomparable immensity.
A chthonic realm, a storehouse for creative and destructive essences, it required a challenger, a human representative, to breach it periodically on behalf of the well-being of the community.
The stage, the ritual arena of confrontation, came to represent the symbolic chthonic space and the presence of the challenger within it is the earliest physical expression of man's fearful awareness of the cosmic context of his existence. Its magic microcosm is created by the communal presence, and in this charged space the chthonic inhabitants are challenged.
( Myth, Literature and the African World, 2-3)
Mystery and Concealment
Susanne
Wenger, in various texts, such as A Life with the Gods in their Yoruba
Homeland, interprets mystery in terms of concealment which yet enables
the maturing of sensitive realities, analogous to how yam ripens while buried
in the earth, the dark and gritty yet nurturant soil in which it is
concealed generating a rough and dark texture in the exterior of the yam in
contrast to the ripe, white interior, nourishing for those who eat it,
akin to "sacred force which ripens in the heart of matter", the
shrines created by herself and her New Sacred Art collective described by
Wenger as a means of incubating sacred force, spaces where the gods may
experience rejuvenation.
Mystery as Enchantment
Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold presents the Ifa system of knowledge and divination, a pivot of Yoruba metaphysics, as an unending exploration of the cosmos as mystery, mystery understood as enchantment, as suffused by values both inspiring and mysterious, a configuration navigated through a mapping of the universe using narratives interwoven with accounts of sacred figures configuring the character and dynamism of the cosmos:
Ifa is about approaching everything as mysterious. Whether the mystery is great or small, Ifa invites us to marvel at its beauty as we grow in wisdom. Mystery is encoded in all things that silently reveal how everything is connected in a dance around polarities which mutually affirm one another and move the world onwards.
Whether it is the mystery of life, creation, God, a plant, or a technical problem which we seem unable to figure out, we are touching Ifa. It is about approaching all things and every situation with curiosity, beceause everything is encoded in mystery and riddles. Ifa is the key which enables us to decode these riddles and mysteries as they appear in our lives, in nature, in all realms of being and existence.
( Ifa: A Forest of Mystery, 2016, 7)
The Sublime and the Numinous: Mystery Within Immediate Experience
Crucially, this sense of mystery, particularly of the kind described by Frisvold, encompasses not only information beyond current human grasp but also aspects of existence within the conventional range of experience. Mystery inheres not merely in distant cosmological phenomena or quantum-level strangeness but within immediate, accessible dimensions of reality that resist complete reduction to conceptual categories.
Examples of such mystery within the immediate are represented by experiences of beauty that cannot be fully explained by the intellect, such as encounters with the Sublime and the numinous, as Immanuel Kant and Rudolph Otto depict these terms in The Critique of Judgement and The Idea of the Holy respectively.
Kant's notion of the Sublime describes encounters with vast, powerful, or complex phenomena that overwhelm our capacity for comprehension while simultaneously drawing us toward them. The Sublime involves a peculiar pleasure mixed with awe—we are confronted with something that exceeds our ability to grasp it fully, yet this very excess fascinates and attracts us. Examples include standing before a towering mountain range, contemplating the vastness of the night sky, or experiencing the power of a thunderstorm. These encounters reveal dimensions of reality that transcend our conceptual frameworks while remaining phenomenologically immediate.
Otto's concept of the numinous extends this insight specifically to religious or spiritual experience. The numinous represents the experience of the "wholly other"—that which is fundamentally different from ordinary reality yet palpably present. This experience evokes what Otto termed the mysterium tremendum et fascinans: a mystery that is both terrifying (tremendum) and fascinating (fascinans), that makes us tremble while simultaneously attracting us irresistibly. The numinous cannot be fully captured in rational categories or moral principles; it represents an irreducible dimension of reality that must be encountered rather than merely understood.
Sacred Geography: Personal Testimony of Mystery
My favourite experiences of the combination of the Sublime and the numinous are with sacred groves and sacred forests, such as the now destroyed Ogba forest in Benin and the still visible Oro Grove in the Osun forest in Osogbo, environments defined by an emanation of beauty beyond the physical qualities of the space. This is a beauty amplified by a sense of presence, an invisible but palpable identity, suggesting not merely a psychological projection but an objective quality of the environment that multiple visitors could perceive. This beauty emerges within a silence so potent it seems to assume a personality, a quietude that is not merely the absence of sound but a positive presence that fills the space and shapes consciousness.
These experiences demonstrate that mystery also dwells, not in remote speculation but within accessible sacred geography, available to those who approach with appropriate receptivity. They also illustrate how mystery can be encountered through beauty—not beauty as mere aesthetic pleasure but beauty as an opening onto dimensions of reality that transcend ordinary perception.
Image and Text
Forest as Cosmos
Picture by myself
Forest as Cosmos
Drawing on Yoruba philosophy, the concept of forest as cosmos frames the forest not merely as a location, but as a microcosm of the entire spiritual and physical universe. It is a living, interconnected entity, filled with divine and spiritual energies and serving as a crucial link between the visible and invisible worlds.
The Forest's Role in Maintaining Cosmic Balance
Just as the wider Yoruba universe depends on balance, the forest's role as a cosmos is to maintain harmony between opposing forces. This dynamic balance is represented by several key relationships:
Nature and humanity: The forest provides sustenance and resources for human life, including medicinal plants and water. However, it also requires human respect and responsible stewardship to prevent ecological and spiritual consequences.
Order and chaos: The forest is an untamed, mysterious space, resistant to complete human encapsulation, but it is also a structured and ordered ecosystem. Its complexity mirrors the balance between mystery and knowledge.
Knowledge and mystery: The forest is a source of esoteric knowledge for hunters, herbalists, and diviners. Navigating the forest reveals the secrets of the universe, balancing what is known with what remains mysterious.
( Google AI on ''Forest as Cosmos'')
3. Integration
This section of the essay integrates all the others-theoretical foundations, phenomenological encounter and visual imaging in terms of a metaphysics and epistemology of narrative adapted from Falola's life-as-story motif, a narrative theory described in terms of the Ifa system of knowledge and divination as developed in Yorubaland.
Cognitive Systems: Ifa as Navigational Knowledge
Mapping the Narrative Structure of Existence
Opening his or her eyes on entering the world, the child observes that they have entered into an unfolding story in which they are one of the characters. Where has one come from and where is one going to? No one has a universally convincing answer to those questions. Why do we exist? Why does the cosmos exist? Compelling enquiries, driving religion and philosophy and deeply shaping the arts, but diverse responses of no universally compelling force are all everyone has to offer. Thus, everyone proceeds from the unknown to the unknown.
Hence Falola describes endogenous Yoruba metaphysics as depicting the human person as a character in a mysterious story, a character created by more powerful beings of whom little is known, a story the outcome of which the human being can affect to a degree.
A Hindu myth of the God Shiva and the Goddess Parvati playing a game of dice is traditionally interpreted as representing the oscillation of polarities creating the universe ( Richard Smoley, The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates the Universe; Don Handelman and David Shulman, God Inside Out: Śiva's Game of Dice).
Richard Adams' Watership Down tells a story of a rabbit community kept by a farmer who occassionaly removes one of the rabbits for his dinner, to the consternation of the rabbits, who know nothing of the farmer or the circumstances of their existence, their artists, philosophers and religious thinkers composing ideas to help them cope with the uncertainty of their lives.
Plato's Republic depicts the human being as a prisoner facing the back of a cave to the floor of which he is chained without being able to look anywhere except at that back wall, watching the shadows thrown on the cave wall from the light of the sun outside and thinking those shadows are the totality of reality.
Various schools of thought tell a similar story. The human being is implicated in something that transcends his existence, something he does not fully understand. Diverse techniques have been developed for breaking out of this circle of ignorance, like the prisoner who escapes from jail by constructing a key based on his understanding of the lock of his cell, the mechanism of which corresponds to the geometric structures of his Islamic prayer mat, which he studies in his daily prostrations in prayer on that mat, as narrated in Idries Shah's Thinkers of the East.
Falola describes Ifa as a method of communication between characters in the story in which the human being finds himself, this communication being in codes understood by those grounded in this style of mutual address. Can Falola's presentation of the life-as-story motif in relation to Ifa be adapted to exploring connections between the various narratives shaping existence as a whole? Can this be described as done through symbolic stories and poetry used in mapping the possibilities of humans and other forms of existence?
Ifa narratives are organised in terms of categories known as odu ifa, described by such a view as that of babalawo- Ifa priest- Joseph Ohomina, in a personal communication, as connoting all possibilities of existence, spirits about whom little is known but who represent everything existing or which may exist, from material forms such as stars to human emotions such as love.
Narrative Themes
What are the themes of this cosmic context? What qualities unfold at this intersection of self as cosmos? The universe as an unfolding narrative shot through by mystery- the mystery of unknowing, the mystery of transcendence within immanence, mystery pointing to the power and limitations of human consciousness, mystery inspiring wonder at cosmic being and becoming, from the smallest to the largest scales, the microbe to the cosmos.
Ifa as Epistemology and Ontology
"Ifa [ is ] a method of divination and a vast repository of knowledge for comprehending reality", Falola states, through exploring relationships between self and cosmos. "Ifa and Ori", the knowledge system and the essence of the self, he asserts, "must be [ understood as] integrated concepts... interdependent, interconnected [operating] cyclically, with none being complete without the unquestionable complementarity of the [other] (xii-xiv).
In this model, Ifa may be seen as both epistemology and ontology—a method of knowing that mirrors the structure of being itself-existence as narrative. Falola describes Ifa as integrating ori (inner essence) and Ifa (knowledge of the cosmic order) as complementary principles.To know oneself (ori) is to participate in the quest for totalistic knowing ( Ifa ).
Comparative Contexts
This narrative philosophy and spirituality is akin to other systems in which storytelling is strategic, as in Zen Buddhism, which uses stories to provoke sensitivity beyond literal understanding, as described, among numerous sources, in Paul Reps edited Zen Flesh, Zen Bones and the narrative spirituality of Judaic mystic Nahman of Bratslav, in which stories complement prayer as imaginative approaches to the divine, as evident, amidst the library of publications on Hasidism, Nahman's school, in Yaffa Eliach's edited Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust and Arnold Band's edited Nahman of Bratslav: The Tales.
4. Conclusion: A Living Symbol for Contemporary Engagement
The Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala demonstrates the continuing vitality and relevance of indigenous African philosophical frameworks for contemporary metaphysical discourse. By translating Falola's verbal articulation of Yoruba cosmology into visual form, this mandala makes accessible to diverse audiences a sophisticated understanding of existence's multi-layered architecture.
The journey represented by this mandala—from scholarly text, to personal experience in sacred groves, to the creation of a cosmogram—embodies the integrative quest for knowledge: a pursuit that seeks to unify sense, intellect, and spirit in the endless, wondrous attempt to comprehend our place within the great mystery of being.
The synthesis of Yoruba opon ifa symbolism with Hindu-Buddhist mandala geometry creates a cross-cultural contemplative instrument that honors specific cultural origins while facilitating broader philosophical dialogue. In an era of increasing interest in epistemological diversity and the decolonization of knowledge systems, such tools serve multiple crucial functions: they present African philosophy in forms that reveal its sophistication and universal applicability; they provide practical instruments for spiritual development rooted in African traditions; and they demonstrate possibilities for intercultural philosophical engagement that respects difference while recognizing shared human concerns.
As both intellectual framework and contemplative practice, the Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala invites ongoing exploration. Its concentric circles map not only cosmological structure but the journey of consciousness itself—from immersion in mystery (outer circle) through recognition of spirit-matter unity (green circle) and acknowledgment of human perspective (blue circle) to encounter with the creative void from which all possibilities emerge (the center). This journey can be undertaken repeatedly, each traversal revealing new dimensions of meaning, each contemplation deepening understanding while opening awareness to what lies beyond understanding.
In this sense, the mandala lives—not as static diagram but as dynamic invitation to participate ever more fully in the mystery it represents, the cosmic wholeness within which we perpetually dwell yet must continually discover anew. It stands as testament to the enduring power of indigenous wisdom traditions to illuminate fundamental questions of existence while offering practical tools for transformation. Through such visual-contemplative technologies, the profound insights of Yoruba metaphysics continue to speak to contemporary seekers, offering guidance for navigating the complexities of existence while maintaining awareness of the sacred mystery that permeates all dimensions of reality.
The Falola/Adepoju Opon Ifa Mandala serves as one such contemplative tool: a visual synthesis of metaphysical concepts designed to stimulate reflection, facilitate meditation, and potentially enable consciousness to approach ultimate reality. Whether viewed as analytical instrument or mystical aid, it represents an attempt to make visible the invisible structures that shape existence and to honor the profound questions that define human spiritual aspiration.
Human reason may be unable to resolve ultimate metaphysical questions, yet the pursuit of such understanding remains among our most characteristically human endeavors—the journey that shapes personality, lifestyle, and the ever-expanding landscape of consciousness itself.
A genuinely religious mind, far from being driven by sectarianism or blind faith, is a mind guided by both wisdom and knowledge at the same time-wisdom considered as the essence of mankind's timeless metaphysical teachings, and knowledge considered as the fruit of the exacting canons of inquiry brought to the world by the attitudes of and methologies of modern science and scholarship.
To read Corbin is to learn what it means, at the level of thought, to take the wisdom of the east [emblematic of what is beyond intellect] and the knowledge of the west [ representing intellect] as the basis of the search for truth.
(Jacob Needleman, ''Foreword'', Henry Corbin, The Voyage and the Messenger: Iran and Philosophy, 1998, x).
This synthesis of wisdom and knowledge, of indigenous insight and scholarly rigor, of personal experience and systematic thought—this is the aspiration that animates both Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics and my visual response to it. May this mandala serve those who encounter it as both mirror and doorway: reflecting the cosmos we inhabit while opening pathways toward dimensions of reality we have yet to comprehend.
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