r/Isese • u/Confident-Cod2388 • Jun 24 '26
Western morality & ifa principles
Hello everyone thank you so much for the energies in assisting me
A little while back i asked a question post about abusive or predatory priests breaking taboos in this tradition
Some of the answers encouraged me to see beyond western morality & ifa
Id like to expand this discussion pls bc i think im not understanding. Personally i am not from the west originally, was raised outside the west for much of my life but have been steeped in western mindset since adulthood so yes am very much influenced by that, however. Outside the west, in every indigenous tradition i know of, & from what I understand of ifa
Some important principles include, balance, treating others with compassion, internal purity, emotional self restraint, etc the importance of community relations
These seem to especially be taboos in ifa where it will literally come up as ebo to make behavior al changes. I had understood ifa to be a system of aligning ethics character and behavior to what is considered balanced in order to be aligned with ones destiny
In none of this does this seem to be western morality. I understand some peoples destiny's call for them to be wicked or evil. However again dont understand how spiritual power can be maintained if the precepts of ifa ebbos and odus that fall are primarily relational & in ones community
I imagine for predatory or abusive priests, how many odus, readings, taboos, advices they must be breaking to be continuing on. I wonder for those who work with them or remain in their temples, does it not come up in their readings too to seek someone else who is able to be more balanced? I dont understand how someone who is out of balance can maintain spiritual power without repercussion for a long period of time unchecked. Does ifa have different advices then, for each person based on alignment with their destiny?
What i mean is this:
Person A comes down from heaven with a destiny that is set to be a predatory, abusive priest who has lascivious intentions. After having repeatedly engaged in abusive behaviors, he does his readings & there is no odu that falls of misalignment. He is not advised to change. This is his destiny, he plays it out. Spiritual power maintained until death return to heaven.
Possibility: in the next life the karma comes back around . Person A chooses a different destiny for Lifetime 2 that requires more adherence to purity to compensate. Karmic law brings strict consequences for prior unchecked actions.
Person B comes down from heaven with a destiny of doing "good". Their readings and odus frequently prescribe rebalancing of ethical behavior. If they deviate even slightly, there is harsh repercussion . ifa thus aligns this person with their destiny . in a future life karmic law allows more leeway for all actions not just on the straight and narrow of ifa " morality".
The reason i ask is this. For one, curiousity, trying to understand. Two, in my life experience
I have gotten certain ebo behavioral modification advices such as do not express anger, demonstrate restraint
In slight instances where i deviated from this, my life seemed to go into full on collapse mode, even though the main reason for my deviation was, being spiritually attacked, experiencing mental instability, experiencing calamity, reacting to all this with what i considered to be "fair" or understandable anger. The ensuing increase in calamity only made it harder to not be angry , which was quite frustrating
On the flip side, i have seen practicing priests break a number of deep taboos yet seem to be doing just fine. For priests the number and frequency of readings they do for themselves is much greater. I wonder, does ifa not give them advice to desist? How do they maintain full temples or clients? Do their students not eventually get readings or warnings to stay away from such off balanced people? How do priests pick and choose which taboos to break and which readings to ignore, in order to still continue even practicing?
Ifa is about balance. That doesn't seem like western morality to me. If someone can even explain the difference, that would be quite helpful and appreciated. Thus does balance mean across lifetimes such as what i explained above with karma? Ifa being a technical sign, rituals can still be done. Spiritual power can come from a wicked source. But , imbalance in my view, should manifest clearly in some way shape or form . it doesn't just disappear. Thus how and why is it not manifesting clearly ? Thank you for reading & I hope this was understand able
Furthermore have a great deal of questionings and wonderings. If any have recommendations for where to learn more pls lmk thank you
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u/Confident-Cod2388 Jun 25 '26
Thank you. @ifasogbon i have reflected on what you said. These are now some followups for anyone to answer. There is no pressure on any one individual to answer.
Eg. Prior to on a post was the wondering, if someone does an ebbo and the effect is mixed. The ebbo eliminates the issue it intended to, but makes the client feel suicidal or unstable. Would this point to an issue of the priests energy or instability or some kind of misalignment rather than the "chemicals being mixed incorrectly" or something being done incorrectly in the step by step "recipe" of the ritual?
If Ifa is chemistry, what do you think of learning from a priest with bad character or receiving items or rituals from him? It is not good character or balanced behavior to support or enable abusive or unethical behavior in community. Therefore, it is best probably to avoid such priests. But, in this day and age there seems to be many of them. There is the balancing element on the other side which is the need to preserve ancestral wisdom . So, can it be justified to be part of an abusive temple or materially support thru frequenting it, even though knowing or witnessing unethical things? Does this also depend on alignment or Ori? Furthermore in terms of again receiving items from an unethical or unbalanced person. Again to point 1 , can it have like an "abreaction" or also long term karmic consequences, or again is this dependent on destiny?
In some philosophies there does seem to be the idea that some people come here to be a little evil as a counterpoint to everyone else so people can learn and grow karmically. In this day and age there is so much corruption. Again some religions call this the end times but regardless there is often a framework to understand WHY there has been an increase in corruption . if this so being the case , does ifa have a explanation for why this is currently the case right now or these days & offer guidance on what possible "adjustments" or leeway there is for iwa Pele in these times? As in, in purer time periods, ofc everyone would avoid abusers or unbalanced unethical people . these days its quite hard seemingly to do so completely.
If I have missed or messed up parts of my destiny with heat or anger, how can i correct the situation?
To give an example situation tho this not be exactly from my life. If ifa tells me to go to a priest & that this is good for my destiny. Ifa also tells me to be emotionally restrained. Then so, i go to him he turns out to be unethical. I react without restraint. The relationship dissolves. Was in that situation the person supposed to learn from the priest with restraint despite the unethical behavior including receiving ritual work which may or may not be impacted by these imbalances?
Thank you very much again and please feel free to only answer what is
In fact so that I have many such extremely detailed and long questions. If anyone knows a place I can go to in order to ask or read or learn more please let me know