Ancestral Voices

With the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful and in the Presence of Our Ancestors, Both Seen and Unseen.

December 10, 2002

“When did it become so difficult to worship God?”

When did it become so difficult to worship God? All of this wonderful creation has a way and manner of worship which seems simple yet profound. The birds praise God with their song and flight; they praise God in their being. The animals all live in accord to the pattern of their creation and as such they enjoy paradise on earth, yet man, man stands as the crown of creation but seems to have submitted to his lower dictates. Something so simple as the worship of God has become complex, oppressive, political and dictatorial.
The preachers stand with bible in hand instilling fear of hell and the hope of heaven while he lives in the lap of luxury with money and women. He tells me that I must be a good believer, while he steals money and manipulate women to satisfy his base desires all in the name of God! The Imam stands with Quran in hand and makes sure I perform my ‘wudu’ correctly, while he judges my pronunciation of Quran and checks to see if I have paid ‘zakat’. The Babalawo stands with the Odu in hand, checking the stones in my pot, the items on my altar while all the time he is building his stable of religious concubines and increasing the cost of rituals and initiations. When did it become so difficult to worship God? The Dali Lama must flee for his life and live in exile, Gandhi assassinated, Dr. King assassinated, Malcolm X assassinated, for what? LIVING THEIR RELIGION!? Not to mention the one they refer to as Jesus Christ! And we will not begin to talk about the Catholic Church and the priest who stand with the cross in one hand and a hard dick in the other waiting to molest our little boys!!!

When did it become so difficult to worship God? Now I must pray 5 times a day, fast for 30 days, make Hajj and give zakat or else I will not see paradise. Now I must attend Bible study, prayer meetings, Sunday school and regular church services, I must subject myself to being be rated, dehumanized and abused in order to get into heaven. Even today in some churches I must bring in my W2’s to determine my ability to pay my way to play in the religious playpen with the rest of the children! And yet, I must feed various pots for the Orisha, say prayers, make meals, dress and clean shrines and endure the spiritual dictates of insecure God- parents, all in the name of religious worship. I must seek to learn a new language, new divine geometry, new rituals and ceremonies and be expected to stick my nose up some egotistical leader’s ass, who cannot guarantee me paradise!

Yet, when I an African born in America of Native Ancestry stands and chooses to walk to the drummer I hear, I labeled as crazy. If I chose to just sit at sunset and give simple thanks for life, I’m labeled a disbeliever. I ask when did it become so difficult to worship God?
I say these things not only as a critical observer but also as a one time active participant.

It was the simple life of the seers and sages that allowed them access the higher wisdom of God. Worship for them was simple, they saw God in everything! Yet, we tend to make God in our image, we confine God to our concepts, we personalize God based on our limited understanding and then seek to make others believe as we say. We take sword in hand and say God or death! Today we kill the ambition of the believers, we kill their enthusiasm, here they come to God for salvation, only to find a religious hierarchy which if full of power hungry individuals eager to get their mind into your mind and destroy you. We want people to be our clones, so we can say look at my Godchildren! Look at my flock! Never saying look at what God has done, we always say look at what I have done.

When did it become so difficult to worship God?

For the Quran says, “ That which you worship besides Allah, were a fly to take a morsel of food they have not the power to call it back!
Here I am ruining behind those who cannot call a fly back if it were to take a morsel of food.
This thing is like a circus midway, as you walk down the midway everyone is calling you to come into their tent because they have the best show. Today as one walk through the circus midway of religions, everyone is calling you to come to their meeting or join their religion because they have the sure way to truth and redemption. Nothing could be the farthest from the truth for me, I seek to realize the God of self and walk in the light of those seers and sages who understood that all of creation was a manifestation of God, they looked to the unity of creation and not the diversity of human ideas. They respected all they came in contact with for they knew it was God. Today we seek to have mega religious institutions and shallow people. Everyone is looking to find fault, no one is caring from the heart. Everyone wants credit but few give credit to God! Today, I must dress a certain way, I must pray a certain way, I must walk a certain way, I must fall in line like very one else. Yet, no one can come to me and say for sure if you follow what I say you will go to heaven! When did it become so difficult to worship God?

If God is in me and I worship and honor me is not that worshiping God?

I ask you when did it become so difficult to Worship God?
The sun rises and sets each day in honor of its Creator, the moon goes through its stages of manifestation in honor of its Creator, the flowers grow and bloom, the plants grown and mature, the animals grow and mature all in honor of the Creator, yet man will not allow other men to grow and mature as God would have them to grow and mature. Systems are set up to determine the manner in which one is to grow spiritually and if you do not fit into any of these systems then you are an enemy and not a believer in God. You mean to tell me because I do not believe in Jesus as you believe that I do not know God? You mean to tell me because I do not know Muhammad as you know Muhammad that I am a disbeliever, you mean to tell me because I do not follow the way you say means that I will not know paradise? Such is not the case, for the God I know is a loving and forgiving God. The God I know is both father and mother and yet stands beyond all gender classifications. The God I know is both Gracious and Merciful, both loving and caring, both protector and nurturer. The God I know is as a mother to its child, providing guidance in a loving manner, teaching me to love unconditionally. The God I know says to me that I do not have to walk this earth in fear. The God I know says that I can open my heart to all of creation and that I can trust that all is working for my very good. The God I know says to me, “ My Child it is I alone that you are to worship and I am all about you. It is I that you should turn to in times of need and pain, also in times of Joy and comfort do not forget me.” It is a God like this that I seek to turn to in humility and give thanks for this life’s walk on this wonderful earth. I thank God for each breath I have. I thank God for being able to see such wonderful sun rise and sun sets, for the songs of the birds and the conversations of the crickets.
I thank God for the tenderness of my wives’ hands and the unconditional love that they both have shown in the raising of our children. I thank this wonderful God for the challenges in my life for it gives me the opportunity to prove my mantel. Yes, I thank God, for life.

I choose not to try and make others believe and see as I see for this life is both a collective and personal experience. While we all have had sex, it is still a personal experience. It is the Divine intercourse with God that allows one to become pregnant with unlimited possibilities. We all should be free to give birth to the glory of God as we experience it without the dictates of others. When we see the color red do we all see the same color or hue? I think not, if we do, how can you determine that we see the same hue of red, you cannot. Such is the same, you cannot determine for me the color or hue of God that I see. I ask that you do not come to me trying to make me into something that I am not.

I am one who has been lost from his ancestral connection and am just now coming back in contact with it. It is to the universe that I seek to open and ask my ancestors for guidance and to forgive me for my arrogance and disrespect. For I have been open to listen to everyone but them. I do not know them. Just as my ancestral homeland has been disrespected and plundered so has my psyche. Everyone has come into our homeland and taken what they want, kept us behind time and cause confusion among our leaders. Such is the same with everyone seeking to come into my mind and keep me for realizing God for myself, they have come with their brand of religion designed to cause confusion in my consciousness. Just as it was not until those leaders in my homeland throw out the foreigners that they we able to get themselves together. I too must throw out all that is foreign to my spirit; all that does not move in harmony with my view of life must go. I must remove all elements that keep me in a stage of depression concerning my connection with God. I must reach back in time and access the humility of my Ancestors and seek to restore the worship of God in a celebratory sense. When was the last time I truly celebrated God in my being? When was the last time I was able to step outside of what someone else has said to me concerning God and truly see God for myself?

This world has had me so tied up in the worship of God for material things. I seek to learn the ritual and spells that will bring me material stuff. I now seek to learn the rituals that bring me close to God, closer to knowing God as me. It was once said,’ God if I worship you for fear of hell cast me into hell, If I worship you for the desire of paradise deny me paradise.” God just let me know you, just let me honor and worship you with all that I am. I know if I become as a trusting child about you then all will be taken care of. I must trust that you have me in your hands, that just as a mother cares for her child you will care for me. As I look at your creation I see that you have placed in the mother all the child needs. The mother has food in her breast, she has love in her heart and she will fight and protect her child. God let me feel that I am your child protected by its mother.

God let me sit still in your love and know that you are God. I pray that you will bring peace to humanity and that we all can experience your love without all of the political motivations. I your child am hurting and it is only you who can heal me. So if I choose to sit here on this hill and wait for you, I ask to be left alone. I have been blessed to see another day and it is on this day that I offer myself to thee.

I ask you, when did it become so difficult to worship God?
Here you take the Bible, a book, which is based on African tradition and philosophy, you give it a European slant and tell me it’s the word of God! Yet, you change the translation, interpretation and interpolation whenever you chose. Now when I begin to read it and I give interpretation to it based on my cultural understanding you jump and raise hell, telling me that I am not qualified to do so!

Please tell me: when did it become so difficult to worship God?
You take a Black Man paint him white make him the son of God and then in his name you commit all kinds of devilish acts! You tell me that it is only through your Jesus Christ that I can know salvation, yet would you really seek salvation from Jesus if you accepted the fact that he was a black man as history tells us he was? It is not my desire to turn this into a political historical debate for that has been handled by scholars. My concern is when did it become so difficult to worship God? All the lies, all the false information and yet you go along living our lives in the shadow of gross hypocrites.

Today we take a traditional African religion adopt it’s practices, yet modify it to suit our western indoctrination. We take Godchildren make them our slaves; we commit spiritual incest with our Goddaughters and charge enormous fees for initiation. We take the simplicity of worshipping God and make it mysterious and difficult. You mean to tell me that God does not hear me unless I speak another language? Then why did God allow me to incarnate as I am? You mean that I must go to another country and accept another culture in order to be acceptable in the site of God? No, No, I am a child of God as I am and where I am! However you chose to look at it, I was born in American of African and native American blood, here on this land, in this country is where I will find God and enlightenment. The same God that is elsewhere is here, here in this land, in my heart and will speak to me.

I ask you, when did it become so difficult to worship God?

Here you take something as simple as the ‘sweat lodge ceremony’ and begin to conduct them for yourself and everyone is coming asking who authorized you to conduct sweats, or whom did you sweat with. Everyone wants to take God’s gifts and claim them for themselves. We act as if ritual and ceremony is our exclusive property and one is trespassing if you adopt the rituals and ceremonies. Even when it comes to accepting a religion we get all up in arms. If a white person accepts a black religion then we are screaming. I a black person go to a white church then the church is in an up roar. Everyone is running around pretending to be holy and righteous, putting on these false faces of piety, while all the time committing the worst act towards humanity. We have made God a politican in the worse sense. It is just like the democrats and republicans, I can’t vote for you because I am a democrat and you are a republican never mind that you are the best qualified, the fact that you belong to a different party means I cannot vote for you. We do the same thing with God, I cannot like you or respect you because you are a Christian and I a Muslim, you are Yoruba and I Akan, you are Hindu and I a Jew. We have all of these labels and have forgotten at a very fundamental level we are all HUMAN BEINGS!

You seek to kill me in the name of your God and I seek to kill you in the name of mine! We all seek to keep women and minorities oppressed in the name of our God and yet we put a face up to the world as if we are saints. I ask you when did it become so difficult to worship God?

In the name of God we wage wars, we enslave people, we pollute the air, rape the earth and make life a living hell.

Here you have simple men and women who lived in caves and owned nothing but the loincloth on their backs and yet they have come forth with profound wisdom that is changing our lives. Simple men and women who teach to get beyond your desires, control your thoughts, watch your diet and most of all they teach that the God you seek is in you as you. Yet, this is labeled as ‘new age crackery’. You have taken great spiritual teachings institutionalized them in capitalistic clothing and now you want me to fall in line like everyone else!

When did it become so difficult to worship God?

According to Swami Rama, in his book , “Spirituality, Transformation within and without ,” page 110, he states:
“The Ego related to the realm of spirituality is more subtle and injurious than the ego arising out of one’s worldly success.”
In the west we find the manifestation of inflated ego associated with worldly success. If you are popular, wealthy, or etc, the ego tends to be inflated, the greater your status in the western world the more inflated your ego is. We are a society of ego-tripping adolescences boasting in our material opulence, we are identified by our possessions. It is so epidemic until it drives us to live beyond our means in an effort to belong and impress others. Now take that same western ego arrogance and add it to the realm of spirituality and you have a very volatile mixture which is exploding all over the country. Ego driven so-called spiritual leaders who are causing havoc in the lives of others, here we bring the same western arrogance to Ifa. If one had a paternalistic attitude towards Africans born in America before Ifa and spirituality then it may be the same but at a much more subtle and insidious level. At the subconscious level I ( Africans and Whites) have to validate this religious experience for the non-understanding Africans born in America. Then you have the Mr. or Mrs. super conscious and spiritual Blacks who feel that they must validate this religion for their blind , death and dumb brothers and sisters. They stand as all knowing individuals who have not the power to call a fly back if it took a morsel of food. Yet they want to dictate someone’s life and make it difficult and complicated. If God has placed you in my life to teach me and show me the way then do that, however do not try to dictate my reality.

When did it become so difficult to worship God?

Dear One:
So you think it is difficult to worship God? Yes, it is when you are trying to worship two masters. This world of illusion has you so hypnotized by its pomp and glitter until you have identified material things as blessings of God. You look to this world to validate you and give you status, when in reality it is God who is the author of it all. So here you are trying to worship God through the glitter of this world of illusion, thus in essence your worship of God is nothing more than an illusion. This is the reason you continue to search for healing, because with all of your material things you still have emptiness in your soul that you are trying to fill.

Dear One: it is not difficult to worship God, however it does require work, work that many are not willing to do. Yes, some are required to pray five times a day, fast and etc., others are required to do something else, yes it is work, however it should be a labor of love. It only becomes difficult when you add the human element to it, when man begins to try to change things for personal benefit. Here you have a God that is so merciful and gracious, a God that gives and gives unconditional love, it should not be hard to worship a God like that. Think of it, when you are in love with someone, it is not difficult to do for them, it is not difficult to love them and enjoying being in their company. Such is the same with God yet at a much higher level. Once you personally know God; you have no problem praying 5, 10, 145 times a day! Once you personally know God you have no problem fasting, attending to pots, cooking meals and whatever is required, yet the important point here is, PERSONALLY KNOWING GOD!

Dear One, we say to you that you must get to know God for yourself and not how someone else has said God should be. God has never left you and God does not want this life to be difficult for you. However, your world of ease, and modern technology has made you lazy and you want something without having to work for it. You, want it placed at your feet and you do nothing, nothing at all for it. You think God owes you something, and you only pay lip service to worship of God. How committed are you to God, how dedicated are you to God? The quality of your life should tell you the answer to that question. When we say quality of life, we do not mean material possessions, we mean are you living your life like you want? Is your life full of faith in God? Is your life reflective of God’s grace? Are you walking in the manner that you chose to walk or are you walking to the cadence of someone else? Dear One, we say to you that God is a loving God, a God that you should not fear but a God you should know. God is always here waiting to love and care for you yet, you get so caught in the energy of this world until you forget this simple fact. You are God’s creation and God gave you free will to walk as you chose, now you must look at the way you have chosen to walk. Dear One, do not blame God when things are not right in your life, look at the choices you have made. Have your choices been is accord with God’s laws? If they have then things in your life are fine, not matter how they look to others. However if the choices have not been in accord with God’s law then your life is full of confusion and discord. We say to you turn to God and seek to make your choices in accord with God and nothing more.

Dear One, take a look at how out of control your ego is. Here you are thinking that God, the Great Mother, Orisha and Ancestors have turned from you! No, it is you who have turned from them and then you turn back and think they owe you something. Have you ever stopped to understand the value of this life that you are living? Here God has given you a chance to come to earth and live your life that you might get it right and here you are running after things of this world. In fact if you do worship God it is out of the desire for the things of this world. You are secretly hoping in your heart that God will bless you live like the rich and famous. We say to you stop and take a look at your motivation for seeking to walk this path. Do you really want God or do you want what God can give you? Many of you only turn to God in a time of need, other than that you have no need for God, so you think. However, God is so very close to you, God is you. When you realize that you and God are one and seek to live your life in accord to that then your life will be so much better. You are running around here trying to be better than someone lese, trying to have status, wealth, power and etc. When in reality you are here to use all of that for the glorification of God in your being. Glorify God in your very being, let your life be a testimony to God’s grace and love. Dear One, this is your chance to get it right, this is your chance to give back to the universe the same love that brought you into existence. Yes, rejoice for God is with you and will never leave you. Turn to God, seek God in all that you do and your life will turn around for the better.

Seek not to get caught in the ego of others, get caught in God. When they come to you seeking to pull you into their illusions and you know that it is an illusion then turn quietly away and seek God’s assistance. Dear One, most are so hungry for God realization until they will follow anything and anyone, therefore personal experience of God is so important. This life is open to you if you would but just take time to experience it. Stop for a moment, check to see if you are living life or is life living you? Now what do we mean? Life is living you when you are trying to live to the standards set by someone else, when you are running after the things of this world in an effort to try and get over! Many of you have been given opportunity after opportunity and you have not taken advantage of it. You come asking for initiation and are given the opportunity for it and will not finish it, yet you want God to give to you! You come to sit and hear yourself talk and talk and when the conversation is over you are still in the same condition, all mouth and no committed action towards living in the light of God.

Dear one, turn to God and sincerely seek God’s assistance, for this world has you so duped until you bring European values to African religion. You are looking for magic, you are looking for it all without having to put forth any effort. It requires work, commitment and dedication to walk this path. We say to you if you are not willing to make the commitment, if you are not willing to be dedicated to God, then it is best that you remain if front of the Television whishing you could be what you are not willing to work towards. Television entertains the mind while it seeks to kill the spirit. Dear One: open, open this day to God and allow yourself to surrender to God’s grace and love.

Now, please understand it is not hard to worship God, yet it is hard to follow the confusion of other than God. No matter which path you chose, be it Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, native American, African or etc, worship of God is not difficult, in fact it should be a joy. Now, give yourself to the path that you have chosen and never judge another’s path for that is the road that God has placed them on. Just make sure you are walking your road to the best of your ability. We forget that while there are many streams and rivers, they all flow into the ocean and it is all water! There are many paths to God, they all should be respected for they all seek to worship God. Dear One, never allow your steam, your river back to God to become polluted with the egotistical dictates of other men. Allow your river to flow pure with your own personal experience of God, Dear One if you allow your river to flow pure then many will drink from it. Yes, study the works of others, walk the path with others, follow others, however make sure your experience of God is personal, that you know God for yourself. For experience is the best teacher, without experience you have nothing but shallow information which gives birth to empty theory.

Dear One, as you walk this earth honor all that you see, walk in peace and give love , unconditional love always. Starting today make a conscious effort to worship God, make it the number one priority in your life. The more you love God, the more you worship God the more you will find your life full of love and light. Once you see the light then always seek to walk in it, let God’s light always direct you. Do not go into the darkness of your own misery. Dear One, in the dark days of depression take the light of God with you that you might see your way out. In those times of loneliness open your heart and fill the universe all about you, fill your own spirit, fill the spirit of your ancestors, fill God all about you for you are never alone.

Dear One always remember, it is never difficult to worship God.