Dear readers;
A narrow path separates two fields. On either side, a man works beneath the same sky, certain that he knows his neighbor. Their friendship has endured for years. Then a stranger walks between them, and before the day is over, each will accuse the other of lying.
Sometimes the distance between people is no wider than a footpath. What makes it difficult to cross is the certainty we bring to it.
We know this distance well. It appears across the dinner table, inside a marriage, between colleagues, and beneath a social media post. We encounter something, form an interpretation, and gradually forget that an interpretation has taken place. What we believe becomes what happened. Anyone who remembers differently begins to look dishonest.
Into that familiar human predicament comes an uncomfortable question: What if I have understood only part of what I have seen?
For a spiritual person, this question can feel dangerous. We may have been taught that faith should be unwavering, that conviction demonstrates maturity, or that questioning a teaching weakens our relationship with the sacred. Yet there are moments when an honest doubt becomes the beginning of a more responsible spiritual life.
Descartes and the Certainty Hidden Inside Doubt
René Descartes gave Western philosophy one of its most recognizable statements:
“I think, therefore I am.”
His reasoning began with the possibility that much of what he accepted could be mistaken. The senses could deceive him; familiar assumptions could fail. Yet the act of questioning revealed something he could not remove: while he was doubting, he existed as the one experiencing that doubt.
“I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am” ….
is a useful paraphrase of this movement in his argument, rather than a quotation we need to place in his mouth.
There is something deeply reassuring here for anyone who has felt ashamed of uncertainty. Doubt does not erase the person who experiences it. You remain present while an explanation falls apart.
Of course, Descartes was pursuing a philosophical foundation for knowledge. A person lying awake at three in the morning, wondering whether to leave a relationship or change a career, faces a different task. Knowing that we exist does not tell us what to do on Monday.
This is where I want to bring his question into conversation with Ifá.
I approach this as a contemporary Babalorisa: someone whose responsibility includes carrying inherited wisdom into lives shaped by crowded schedules, digital noise, complicated relationships, and decisions that cannot wait for perfect certainty. The connection I propose is a practical conversation between traditions, with respect for the differences in their purposes.
Odù Ifá and the Limits of a Single Perspective
For this reflection, I turn to Òwónrín Ògbè, a compound Odù within the Òwónrín family.
A telling published by Babaláwo Awo Ifasola Sangobolade associates Òwónrín Ògbè with the familiar account of Èṣù and two friends. Versions of this story circulate with different details, so the association here follows that particular telling.
Two friends worked neighboring farms and had pledged loyalty to one another, overlooking Èṣù. One day he passed along the path between their fields wearing a cap with a different color on each side. Each friend saw him clearly, but from an opposite position.
Later, they disagreed about the cap. Each trusted his own eyes and accused the other of being wrong. Their argument grew into a fight. When Èṣù returned and showed them both sides, the limitation of their knowledge became visible.
What interests me is the small opportunity they missed before their disagreement became destructive. Either man could have asked where the other had been standing.
That question would have required a moment of doubt.
The story gives us a concrete image for a difficult spiritual discipline: preserving confidence in our experience while remaining willing to investigate its limits. We can have seen something accurately and still misunderstand the larger situation.
When Certainty Becomes a Spiritual Obstacle
Consider the message that receives no reply.
You see that it has been read. Hours pass. A memory of an earlier disappointment returns, and soon silence acquires a meaning: I do not matter to this person.
Perhaps that interpretation will prove accurate. Perhaps something entirely different is happening. At this stage, however, the observation and its explanation are already becoming fused.
The same process occurs in spiritual life. A dream disturbs us, an obstacle appears, or a ritual does not produce the result we hoped for. We may quickly conclude that we have been abandoned, punished, or opposed by someone else’s spiritual actions. Once fear supplies the explanation, every new event can seem to confirm it.
As a Babalorisa, I believe we have a responsibility to slow this process down. Spiritual language carries weight. Used carelessly, it can make an ordinary difficulty feel like an invisible threat from which a person cannot escape.
Before reaching for a dramatic explanation, we can ask what is actually known, what remains uncertain, and what ordinary circumstances deserve attention. This leaves room for spiritual understanding to develop with greater care.
Èṣù’s cap is useful precisely because it brings us back to the position from which we are looking.
The Question That Makes Faith More Mature
There is a difference between questioning because we want to understand and questioning because we have decided that nothing deserves our trust.
The first can deepen a relationship. The second gradually makes relationship impossible.
A mature spiritual commitment allows us to ask how a teaching has been transmitted, which lineage it belongs to, and whether an interpretation fits the circumstances before us. Respect includes the care we take to understand what we receive.
This is especially important when ancient traditions enter the digital world. A short video can present a local custom as a universal obligation. An attractive quotation can circulate without its author. A confident voice can make an uncertain claim sound settled.
Our task as contemporary practitioners includes restoring context. We owe our elders careful listening, and we owe those who come to us explanations that distinguish inherited practice, personal interpretation, and what we have yet to establish.
Faith becomes more substantial when it can survive that honesty.
Listening to Orí When Your Thoughts Keep Arguing
Orí, understood in Yorùbá spiritual thought as the inner head and intimately connected with personal destiny, deserves more attention than the passing intensity of a feeling.
In contemporary spiritual culture, we often hear the instruction to “trust your intuition.” Yet an immediate impression may contain many things: experience, desire, fear, fatigue, or an old injury that has recognized something familiar.
Listening inwardly therefore takes patience.
When a question troubles you, allow enough time to notice how it changes under different conditions. What seems unavoidable after an exhausting evening may look different after sleep and a calm conversation. A decision that feels exciting in company may feel strangely empty when you sit alone with its consequences.
I encourage readers to consider whether a possible choice can withstand honest examination. Can you explain your reasons without exaggerating? Can you acknowledge what you might lose? Does the choice require you to conceal information from people directly affected by it?
These questions give inward listening a practical form. They help us bring feeling, responsibility, and observable circumstances into the same room.
Doubt in Love, Family, and Working Life
In relationships, doubt becomes damaging when it turns into an investigation with a predetermined verdict. Every delay becomes evidence; every explanation sounds like an excuse. The other person gradually loses any possibility of being understood fairly.
The story of the two friends invites a different conversation. Instead of beginning with an accusation, we can describe what we observed and ask what we have missed. “When this happened, I understood it this way. Can you help me understand your experience?” leaves space for information that certainty would have excluded.
There will also be situations in which doubt points toward a real problem. Repeated dishonesty, broken agreements, and disrespect deserve to be taken seriously. A wider perspective includes the evidence of a pattern, together with the words someone offers about it.
At work, uncertainty can serve a similarly useful purpose. Before agreeing to a partnership, accepting a role, or committing money to a project, discomfort may reveal a question that has not been answered. Bring that question into the conversation. Ask for the missing detail. Give yourself permission to understand the commitment before making it.
Then establish a point at which you will decide. Endless examination can quietly become a way of avoiding responsibility.
A workable decision often rests on sufficient understanding, clear values, and a willingness to respond when circumstances change.
Iré and Òṣogbo: What Doubt Can Become
In divination, an Odù is interpreted in relation to the person and circumstances, including whether it comes with favorable indications, often described as iré, or with difficulties and adverse conditions, described with terms such as ibi or òṣogbo, according to lineage.
For this newsletter, I am using that distinction as a reflective lens rather than announcing a personal divination for every reader.
Under a favorable expression, doubt makes us teachable. It encourages us to verify an assumption, seek competent counsel, or apologize before an argument causes lasting harm. Its benefit appears in the quality of the action that follows.
Under a difficult expression, doubt becomes suspicion or paralysis. We revisit the same question while rejecting every possible answer. We seek another consultation because the previous one did not remove the discomfort of choosing.
Here the essential question becomes: Is my questioning helping me respond more wisely?
If it is making you more attentive, fair, and capable of action, it may be doing valuable work. If it continually narrows your life, the way you are engaging with uncertainty needs care.
When to Seek an Ifá Consultation
The themes explored through Òwónrín Ògbè are particularly relevant when disagreement has hardened, when trust is being damaged by assumptions, or when you keep returning to the same unresolved decision.
You do not need to arrive at a consultation claiming that this must be your Odù. Let the consultation establish its own direction.
A useful starting question might be: What do I need to understand about this situation, and what is my responsibility within it?
That question allows room for guidance that may challenge your preferred explanation. It also keeps your conduct in view. Whatever another person may be doing, there remains the matter of how you speak, what you promise, and which actions you can stand behind.
Ọ̀rúnmìlà offers the central spiritual reference for the wisdom of Ifá; Èṣù, in the story we have considered, draws our attention to communication, perspective, and the consequences of neglecting what connects us.
Returning to the Narrow Path
Descartes found that doubt could not remove the presence of the one who doubted. The story of Èṣù’s cap asks us to consider the responsibilities of that presence among other people.
We stand somewhere. We see from somewhere. Our words travel beyond us and affect lives we can only partly understand.
Remembering this can make us gentler without making us passive. We can investigate what troubles us, maintain a boundary, and make a decision while remaining open to correction.
You may be questioning a belief that once gave you comfort. You may feel uncertain about a relationship, a vocation, or the direction your spiritual life is taking. Allow yourself to examine the question with care. Seek knowledge where it is available, acknowledge the limits of what you can establish, and take responsibility for the next step.
The two friends had a path between them all along. Before certainty turned it into a boundary, it was a place where they could have met.
May your Orí sustain your judgment, and may your questions lead you toward greater clarity, generous understanding, and the courage to act.
Baba Tilo de Àjàgùnnà
DAILY IFÁ