Empowering Belief System

I am always interested in how people make sense out of life and how their philosophies help them understand the world.  I was reading about the Yoruba religion of West Africa in the book God Is Not One.  The Yoruba believe that we have two souls, one related to breath, which reminds me of the yogic idea of prana, the life force, and the other related to destiny.  They have great faith that we can create our path for ourselves.  When we are given breath for a new life on earth (reincarnation is part of the belief system), we are allowed to choose our destiny: our personality, our occupation, our measure of good and bad luck, and the day we return to heaven.  But when we are born, we forget our true purpose, and we wander through life, distracted on all sides by social expectations, work, and even love.  Our task is to remember our destiny so we can do what we were actually created to do–for both for ourselves and for the world.  A “diviner”, a Yoruba holy person, is unlike many religious figures in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Far from taking a power position, this is a person who says, “You know the mystery,” and helps us remember who we are.