ORACLE OF IFA

Orunmila is the Orisa of the omniscience and the wisdom, the one that knows the destinies the men and the humanity.  Ifá is the code, the sacred language through as Olorun, Orunmila, the Orisas and the Ancestors makes arrive their mandates at the human beings. Ifa is the dynamic part of Orunmila, the one that interacts with the means, the one that structure the religious system, the one that canalizes the oracles and the transformations. Ifá and Orunmila are two organizations in a single one, is the sacred bipolarity, the old wisdom and Ase'. Ifá lives in Orunmila, and this one lives in Ifá, and both are a same organization. Nevertheless, several points of view exist about the figure of Ifá within the religious context yoruba.

There are some who perceive it of the way exposed in the previous paragraph, there are some that simply associates it with a liturgical system and of divination, and are others it "have humanized" being based on some legend of the rich oral tradition. But for us, the followers of Traditional and/or Ancestral the Yoruba Religion, Ifá exactly represents all the expressed one in the paragraph first. Next we offered one of the legend Yoruba's that "humanizes" and deifies to Ifá, recognizing to him like prophet sent by Orunmila the Earth.

                        Ifá Agbonniregun.

 "It was called Setilu; its sexual father Oroko and, its sexual mother Alayeru. He saw the light like being human of the Earth in a humble one and stranger African village located in a place of the empire yoruba that, many years after their physical disappearance the men would denominate Usi. But great part of the childhood of Setilu passed in another African town that, later would be known by Nupe.  When he came to the material world his eyes did not see, he was born blind and with a deformed body, reason for which their parents,  Before resemblance unfortunate and following the custom of the time, at the first moments had the intention to sacrifice to him clearing the life to him by the load that would represent in a future for the numerous family.

 Nevertheless, although his spirit had incarnated in so imperfect body, reason others to increase the shame and the deep preoccupation of their ancestors, finally in them prioritized the natural instinct ancestor and, these pardoned the life of the boy, gives the opportunity to this one to give happy beginning to its sacred terrene mission.  During the first years of the childhood, its blindness amply was compensated by the transcendental wisdom that by divine inspiration received from Orunmila, deity of which was a spiritual projection between the creatures of Worlds, and in Earth individual. , like obvious human being equipped with a chosen spirit, it was invested with great knowledge that, from very early age astonished all, which allowed him to emphasize on the other creatures of its time. Their extraordinary powers to know the men the future and, to save their own lives before the flagellum of the ups and downs of the destiny and the diseases, On guard placed social very advantageous within the kingdom yoruba to him; thanks to it, with the pass of the years, arrived to be respected and to be venerated by kings, princes, noble and, creatures in general.  

Their words were listened to with admiration and respect by all, because their messages and predictions were fulfilled in totally, by work and grace of the Orisa of the omniscience and the wisdom, Orunmila.  Day after day and, year after year, presented the work the only Supreme Being that has known and will know the men and deities all the universe; it taught his doctrines and it laid the the foundations of the adoration to the Orisas. It structured and it organized the religious system yoruba in all the territories of the empire. Its  predicate made him arrive at cities that would be known later by Owo, Itase and Ado, being in the territories of this last locality where it perfected great part of the knowledge and the practice of the complex doctrinaire system of the Traditional Religion and/or Ancestral Yoruba.

 Finally it extended his work to the sacred city of Ilé-Ifé, kingdom of the Alafín Oduduwa, place where finally it consolidated all his religious work.  Its work in Ilé-Ifé was known and respected by all, and their lessons on the cult to Olorun and the Orisas grew reaching proportions that they overwhelmed to him with great satisfaction. Thanks to these lessons, yorubas learned  to love and to use the Nature in benefit of the community; of equal way the true science of the cult to Olorun was solidified, the Orisas, and the Egungun, Oku Orun or Ancestros. As a result of its sudden appearance in Ilé-Ifé, and of the work missionary who unfolded there, its earthly name Setilu was never pronounced, because most of yorubas they believed direct descendant to him of the Orisas. Nevertheless, in his defect, indifferently it was baptized by his followers like "Agbonniregun" and "Ifá", both names doing reference to somebody equipped with great supernatural knowledge, which corresponded with its work like doctor, prophet and wise person simultaneously. At this last one, it would be deified later by the men after his physical death, when his spirit had left the material world, being fulfilled therefore the prediction of Orunmila, relative to the illegal attributions that take the men when turning deities to resemblances. Ifá was doctor and wise advisor of Oduduwa, Alafín (king) of Ilé-Ifé and main priest of the kingdom yoruba. It made construct his Sacred Temple in the top of the mount Oke Itase, which happened in main place of adoration to Olorun, Orunmila and, the rest of the Orisas.

 He was not the creator of the Religion of the Orisas yorubas, so and as they believed many, but by work and grace of Orunmila, yes he was his organizer, simultaneously who, messenger and prophet of the wise deity in Worlds of the creation and, in this case in the Earth. He was a Spirit pertaining to the cut of the wise person and powerful divinity of the wisdom; I personify the messenger who comes to Worlds at different times to educate to the creatures in the art to love God and to the Orisas, when the spirituality, the love, and solidarity between the men begins to be debilitated. Between the human beings its mission corresponded with judging and, to stimulate the evolution of the consciences by means of a philosophy without equal. It established the lessons of the mystical rituals and, it elevated the sense of the religious and spiritual morality. Its work also consisted of obtaining that the incarnated souls as human beings obtained the spiritual alignment (Iwa Pele), necessary that it allowed them to reach the state of the divine union, fusing his conscience with the sacred spirit and the moral. It taught to the men how to unify the earthly and celestial conscience, in search of the wisdom and the internal accomplishment, essence first a the one that must return all the souls to obtain a superior degree of improvement.

Of that way, those souls would contribute later to the arduous task of looking for the balance between the other created beings. It looked for to channel to the man towards the mystic and the truly spiritual thing; towards the love, the faith, the disinterested delivery and the devotion, moving away it more and more of the ignorance of the occultism and the forces of badly (Ajogun), that turn aside to the souls of the sacred way of the perfection. In the Sacred Temple of Oke Itase it received from the most outstanding and skilful Orunmila of his lessons; The Sixteen Revelations or Odus, basic body of knowledge that includes the great secret codes of the creation of the universe, the Vital Orisas, Souls or Beings and, the destinies of the humanity that lives in Worlds.  All it served to him to establish the definitive bases of the education, to which after him in this world, they would be the wise priests and/or priestesses of Orunmila (babalawos and iyaonifas), ordered to give continuity to the religious work that in that time It consolidated for the future generations. 

Under the reign of the Alafin Ofiran in the throne of It already heard, initiated the education of his first sixteen disciples, who extended by space of seven years. To each one it specialized in the secrets of the wisdom of each Odu that, before had been divulged him to him by the divinity; therefore, when consecrating to them by means of the act of religious initiation that denominated "Establishment of Ifá or Orunmila", it baptized to them with the respective name of each Odu, in whose bodies of knowledge the future priests had specialized.

As well, these bequeathed their disciples, these last ones to his and, so on of generation in generation, so that, these religious secret asylums were the inexhaustible source of the transcendental knowledge of each priest of Orunmila, in order that these could educate and help to the fellow according to the dictated original lessons to him by the deity during the incarnated life that corresponded to him to live between the men. After its physical death, or of the definitive separation of its soul of the imperfect matter that temporarily occupied, the body of the lessons and doctrines that it distributed, those that as well, to him were revealed to them by the deity, was baptized by the men with the name of "Corpus Ifá".   

In the Ifá Worlds he represented the divinity, because a spirit to his divine service went, but single he was the prophet, the one that transmitted to the men the messages of the wise deity that represented; for that reason, always one will say that Orunmila sublies in Ifá between the men, and Ifá in Orunmila, like a simple servant of this one, there, in the dwelling of the Orisas. 

Anyway, in the received revelations of Ifá like Teacher and Great Organizer of the Religion of the Orisas Yorubas, in them he bequeaths his priests, transcendental knowledge that would have to keep for always like most sacred and pure from their lives, simultaneously that, aspired to that these knew to apply this wisdom in good of the humanity, as well as to transfer it to the coming generations of the future priests ".