Orisha: The Evolving Forces of the Santeria, Lucumi, Candomble, IFA, and West African Tradition
A new look at the Orisha religion and Ancestral worship.
By HRU Yuya T. Assaan-ANU
copyright 2012 HRU Yuya T. Assaan-ANU
This article series is my humble attempt to offer my own perspective on, what I feel, is an often misunderstood/misinterpreted concept called "The Orisha". The Orisha concept was developed in the West Africa although the idea of cosmic entities governing evolutionary process was one that was common to all of the African continent.
I will be providing more information on the "Seven African Powers" (often known as, Elegba, Obatala, Yemoja, Oshun, Oya, Ogun, and Shango); including herbs, crystals, astrological designations, chakra locations, temperament, spiritual invocations, and much more information in regards to the "Seven African Powers". These various spiritual gifts are to be used to not only invoke the Orisha energies but, to also open up your understanding of how they maintain the evolutionary process of the cosmos.
Although the Orisha are cosmic forces, more applicably, they are formulas that give rise to any and every corporeal reality desired. These celestial formulas are present for the sole purpose of bringing all beings on the planet in possession of a soul to the highest pinnacle of their spiritual consciousness.
The key to understanding these particular forces is to approach them from the interior to the outer. The Orisha are powerful thought forms that should be perceived as various aspects of your own spiritual makeup, not eternal titans waged in a struggle of "good vs evil". These spirit forces do not function under the same moral code as a flesh being would. The Orisha deal purely in polarities (Light or Dark, Male or Female, North or South, Water or Fire, Electric or Magnetic, etc...).
The Orisha sustain and develop the natural functions of planet earth and the universe as we see it but, those extrinsic processes are only but a specter reflexion of what is occurring in your own intrinsic body/mind/spirit. No thing occurs outside of your body that doesn't inside. If you approach the study of esoteric, occult, metaphysical, or traditional African religion in this way, you'll open up your own awareness 10 fold and swiftly move light years beyond your current ceiling of perceptual awareness.
In now acknowledging that these Orisha are power forces that represent and interlock with your own internal power matrix, it would stand to reason that as you evolve, they do concurrently. As you go through your process of corruption or devolution, they follow you into this place as well. More significantly, your perception of what an Orisha looks like or behaves like must change based on the ever changing times. Envisioning something walking through the heavenly body with flowing robes draped around it would probably be a conjuration of religious dogma and programming. In the same instance if the Christ were to be murdered in 2012 by the parasitic forces that be, would he hung on a cross? No, he'd be placed in an electric chair or given a lethal injection. So, people would wear those emblems around their necks and those images would adorn churches around the globe as the cross currently does.
Now, imagine how the Orisha would present themselves in modern times...
There are forces of
The sea (Subconscious)...Olokun or Madre De Agua or Yemoja
The Forest (The underworld)
Fresh water (Congregation)...Osun or Erzulie Freda or Lakshmi or Het-HRU
Wisdom (Omnipresence)....Obatala or Damballah or Tehuti or Orunmila
Cross roads (Opportunity)....Esu or Elegba or Hermes or Mercury