Inner Peace Introduction

Quotations from Introduction to Inner Peace

I am so deeply and passionately in love with this book. It is a really easy read, but it digs at the deeper places in your soul so it requires more than one read. The pictures painted in this book really connected with me and pulled at me as it relates to our dependence on nature. The interesting this in that it helped me to have a different understanding of Spirit in nature. I realize now that they are one in the same. There is a vibration or a piece of Spirit in everything. Spirit even dwells in those things that we would refer to as inanimate objects such as the rocks the Iya Osun smoothes over with her waters or the sand that has be crushed and carried by Olokun and Yemoja. I feel much more connected to nature, because I now that I depend on it.

This book also spoke to me in other ways, but in two major ways that affect me directly. The concept of the Elenini is one that I had never considered before this book and it has been life changing as it has removed all my punk excuses. The book also removed my judgments of people not “doing Ifa correctly”. This was really important because my husband and I are under the tutelage of different teachers.

“Resistance to change is the source of what Ifa calls Elenini, or self-generated demons that have no existence outside of our imaginations.” pg 19 Introduction, Inner Peace

My Elenini were few in number but strong and determine to stay. Growing up in church I am familiar with the idea of demons or spirits riding or attaching themselves to you. People would pray for your deliverance and by the end many times you would end up looking like a greased pig at the county fair, but with little or no result. I have put money on altars, anointed myself, been anointed, told that this trinket or that trinket would help, called on Jesus and tarried until sunrise and all to no avail. What was wrong? Why didn’t it work? If you look at the way the issue was handled I was in a very helpless passive position.

Ifa does not expect us to be passive. These Elenini are my little bastard demon children. I am the only one that can get rid of them. They are totally under my control. Although I must admit, it’s hard to get rid of things that you are accustomed to even if those things are harmful. My oldest and strongest Elenini was fear. Every time I was asked to do something outside of my realm of comfort I would shake, sweat, and sometimes even cry. I would seize and be unable to think clearly. I have only been made aware of the severity of it sense beginning this path of Ifa. Why? I think that it is more obvious because Elenini know Ifa and they know me so they more aware of their impending destruction.

I realize that Elenini will try to return and even more may be revealed or created, but know I know the source and what to do. I am know equipped with the tools and the knowledge to handle them before they get too established. I am able to change the course of my family by teaching my children to take responsibility for issues that they have created for themselves. I am in control and that knowledge is a step toward change.

“The result is that no two Ifa communities look the same…” pg20 Introduction, Inner Peace

This was very important for me to learn because my husband and I in official terms have two different teachers that teach in two different ways. In the beginning I kept feeling like he was doing things the wrong way or out of order etc. Now I know that things will sometimes look different. That is fine because Ifa gives to each community, lineage, and individual what they need. I believe that in total wisdom knows that what we need will not always be the same just as we are not the same. That is what makes this walk so beautiful. It is individual and collective at the same time.