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Who Am I? Invocation of Teme-Órú and So: Kalabari Philosophy at An Intercontinental Nexus: Adapting The Work of Nimi Wariboko
Who Am I? Invocation of Teme-Órú and So: Kalabari Philosophy at An Intercontinental Nexus: Adapting The Work of Nimi Wariboko
Compcros
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
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Cover Image
A example of the Japanese art form Ensō, by Peter Cutler, dramatizing the
balance of creative spontaneity and controlled creativity in shaping a circle
through the movement of a brush.
I am using the image in suggesting the open ended yet disciplined creativity
vital for maximizing life’s opportunities as demonstrated by the philosophy of
Nimi Wariboko.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/enso-zen-circle-15-peter-cutler.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enso
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Abstract
A dramatization of the existential significance of the philosophy of Nimi
Wariboko through the dialogue of a person with himself.
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Contents
Visual Framework
Cover Image 1
Abstract 3
Contents 4
Introduction 5
Invocation 6
Method 10
Central Concepts 10
Sources 12
References 15
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Introduction
A power intimate but distant, throbbing within but ever receding, deliciously
inspiring but remote from material and social contexts, enigmatic but
compelling, calling from the vast distance of “an ocean without shore and a
shore without ocean” as the Islamic mystic Ibn ‘Arabi puts it in his 'Anqā'
Mughrib, The Book of the Fabulous Gryphon, yet ablaze within the self
withdrawn into itself.
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Invocation
Who am I?
Where do I stand
Where do I stand
in the context of
possibilities
actualized
unactualised
excluded
infinite
unknown
known?
or imagine
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My innermost person
as an individuation of the force or energy
that enlivens creation and beings at all levels of existence?
My essence
as a demonstration
of that which accents the interconnectedness
of everything in the universe?
My inward flame as
a revelation
of the spark of light animating consciousness?
My deepest interiority as
an expression
of the multi-leveled layers of consciousness
existing in all things
on all levels of being?
My ultimate depth
as embodying
the ability of forces of nature to communicate with each other
the ability of humans to communicate with forces in nature?
My radiant core
as a thread in the fabric which binds the universe together
giving the cosmos a sense of spiritual unity?
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the creative power
the inexhaustible ground of creativity
ecstatically overflowing into human activity.
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guiding all this concrete reality towards the light of the spirit.
I salute Spirit
teme, ultimate reality
the divine presence internal to world process
the groundless ground of human existence
the divine creativity coursing through modes of human sociality
the all-encompassing Spirit
manifested in my thinking, sensuous, and willing body
networked in the inside of a human:
sibi-bio oru, the spirit or god inside my head, brain and mind
the center of thinking, representing, interpreting, and reflecting
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Method
These schools are Awo Fa’lokun Fatunmbi’s Yoruba Ifa philosophy, Hindu
Trika Shaivism and Negritude, the latter as expressed by Abiola Irele’s
translation of strategic lines from the central Negritude theorist and poet
Leopold Sedar Senghor.
Central Concepts
The framing ideas in this invocation are the Kalabari concepts Teme-órú and
So.
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Teme-órú and So are correlative, though not in an exact manner, with the
concepts “transcendence” and “immanence.” The transcendent is that which is
above existence as accessible to human beings. The immanent is what
constitutes existence as it may be experienced by humanity.
Wariboko’s total body of work, across several books and some of his essays,
may be understood as the exploration of So and so, of transcendence and
immanence, and the traffic between them.
I also perhaps come closer to the idea of building a unified system of prayer,
reflection, ritual and application from these contributions in consonance with
other systems.
Like the deeply impactful Golden Dawn, and the even more influential Indian
Upanishads where ideas about the intersection of self and cosmos are
developed with particular beauty and power, I aspire to compile or create, or
a combination of both, expressive forms that can be appreciated for their
imaginative stimulation, their lyrical dramatization of humanity’s loftiest
aspirations, even if those who engage these projections do not identify with all
or some of the ideas articulated.
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Sources
Wariboko’s thought may be seen as emphasizing the character of the self and
even of the nature of the divine as unfolding through action.
From the second stanza beginning “Where do I stand” to the 12th stanza, “My
essence as a demonstration,” is an adaptation of Wariboko’s expositions, often
using his own words, except for my efforts at personalizing his depictions of
general philosophical ideas.
From stanza two to stanza 9, the latter beginning with “alternatives not
currently available to me” are adaptations of ideas laid out with particular
explicitness in The Depth and Destiny of Work, chapter one, “Theory of God,”
particularly the subsections “Knowledge of God” and “God as Set of All
Possibilities,” pages 39-49.
Stanza 10, opening with “Can I build on ideas of my spirit” adapts and quotes
from Ethics and Time, page 77, penultimate paragraph.
Stanza 11 adapts and quotes in the last two lines from Ethics and Society in
Nigeria, page 69, paragraph 2.
Stanza 12 adapts and quotes in the last two lines from the same location.
From “My inward flame” in the 13th stanza to “My radiant core” in the 16th are
adapted from Awo Fa’lokun Fatunmbi’s philosophy of Ifa, the Yoruba origin
system of knowledge, in “Obatala:Ifa and the Chief of the Spirit of the White
Cloth” quoting his description of central concepts in his thought.
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The 17th stanza, beginning “Spirit as depicted in Christianity” is an expansion
of a quote from Ethics and Society in Nigeria, page 69, paragraph 2, by adding
the Indian Spanda concept and the Christian idea of Spirit, the latter also
central to Wariboko’s thought, and personalizing the passage by addressing it
to the individual.
From the 18th stanza, opening with “My interior abyss” to stanza 22, beginning
with “My most intimate interiority” is a reworking of the description of the
Hindu Trika Shaivite school’s concept of Spanda from the website of the
Spanda Foundation, a summation distilled from various specialist texts on the
school.
Stanza 24 opens and continues with my own expressions up till “the only one
who can follow his devotee on a distant journey without turning back” which
is a quotation from “The Importance of Ori”, an ese ifa, an Ifa literary form,
anthologized in Landeg White and Jack Mapanje’s African Oral Poetry and in
the website Oral Poetry from Africa, continuing with a quotation from a
version of the 3rd Atrium initiation in the Western esoteric order The Ancient
Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross.
From stanza 25, initiated with the personalizing “I salute Spirit,” my own
formulation, to stanza 29, “thinking, feeling, willing,” is composed of
quotations from Wariboko’s summations of the expression of Kalabari
metaphysics in terms of the constitution human life in general and of the
individual human person in particular.
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Line three of stanza 25 “the divine presence internal to world process” quotes
The Depth and Destiny of Work, page 44, paragraph one.
The next line, “the groundless ground of human existence” quotes page 238,
paragraph one, of the same text.
The following line, “the divine creativity coursing through modes of human
sociality” quotes page X, paragraph two, of the same book.
The next line, “the all-encompassing Spirit” quotes Ethics and Time, page 77,
penultimate line.
The next two lines, “manifested in my thinking, sensuous, and willing body”
and “networked in the inside of a human” quote the last line on the same page
of the same book.
The following stanzas, beginning from “bala, the life cord and power center”
till the last stanza “all working together” quote, with slight adaptations, the
same book, page 78, paragraphs one and two.
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References
Kalabari
Nimi Wariboko
Ethics and Society in Nigeria: Identity, History, Political Theory. Hope Avenue,
Rochester : University of Rochester Press, 2019.
Islamic
Ibn ‘Arabi, 'Anqā' Mughrib, The Book of the Fabulous Gryphon, quoted by
Stephen Hirtenstein in The Unlimited Mercifier: The Spiritual Life and Thought
of Ibn ‘Arabi. Oxford : Anqa, 1999. 16.
Awo Fa’lokun Fatunmbi, “Obatala:Ifa and the Chief of the Spirit of the White
Cloth”. No publication date.
“The Importance of Ori” in Oral Poetry from Africa. Compiled by Jack Mapanje
and Landeg White.Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1984. 124-128.
Rosicrucianism
The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites and Ceremonies of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn. Ed. Israel Regardie. St Paul:Llewellyn,1988. The
version I am familiar with.
Integrative
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