If I am not mistaken, Chief Adeyemi Olusola Lawson is the first person Jacob Akindele may like to see when his inner eyes open in the luminous gardens of the ethereal spheres of creation on his way home to Paradise. I say so, despite recognitions that about 90 per cent or more of all persons who regularly relate with one another in diverse ways on earth may never meet again in all eternity after they discard their earth bodies. Even then, after I wrote the words “luminous gardens of the ethereal spheres”, I pinched myself on the nose to wonder if I have a definitive say on such matters of someone who had gone ahead of us coming to welcome us to a continuation of life in the so-called beyond. Nevertheless, I am advised of three conditions which may confer such privilege. One is that we must have suffused each other or one another with true love while we were all here and strengthen the bond after some of our loved ones had passed over. Another is that true friendship existed and continued between us or among us after some of us had gone. Finally, we must all have been in pursuit of a comon, high goal germane to the purpose of our existence on earth and in any part of creation.
If I may digress a little more and be definitive, many husbands and wives may never meet again unless under the afforestated conditions or karmaic threads weave them together once more. In like manner, siblings may never meet again. Ditto children and parents. For, indeed, such matters as Chief Adeyemi Lawson being the first person his spiritual sons and daughters could sight when they cross over depend on one hand on the departed soul and the works of his or her thoughts, words and deeds on earth which accompany him or her and such others as could welcome him into the ethereal sphere. On the other hand, we stand the immutable laws of creation which enforce the Justice of The Almighty Creator and Ruler of all the Worlds. I re-assured myself that I was human, was myself as a creature subject to these laws,and could only wish my departed friends what I had been wishing myself for about 30 years… that Chief Adeyemi Lawson should be the first person I see when I leave the earth.
For readers of this column who are not familiar with such terms as “the luminous gardens of the ethereal spheres”, I was wishing a dear friend who had just left the earth “journey mercies” on his way back home to paradise, and those “luminous gardens” may be described as mid-way between the earth and our home in paradise. As an adherent of THE GRAIL MESSAGE, he did not believe that, upon the demise of his earth body, he has to stay in a grave until a judgement Day. The appearance of Moses and Elijah with the Lord Jesus at His tansfiguration already taught Jacob Akindele that anyone who leaves the earth could awaken to Joyful life in the Vineyard of their Creator, rather than bind themselves to religious dogmas and be confined to slothful and suffocating “rest” in a grave when their environment is bubbling with service and life. Did the Lord Jesus not also inform us that Elijah had returned to the earth?
The “journey” from the earth to paradise could be as short or as long, sometimes spanning thousands of years, depending on what anyone makes of it. Our earth belongs to the region of “ dense cross matter”. This region comprises everything we can experience with our physical senses including what the telescopes of today and tomorrow will discover. Above, it is the so-called Astral World. Above that is “Medium Cross Matter”.Yet above that is “Fine Cross Matter”. Each of these spheres of existence is so vast that earthly conceptions of time and space cannot comprehened it. Each sphere has different habitations we may call cities, towns or villages. People of a like nature live in each one. These homogenous persons may be thieves, kidnappers, bandits, murderers, gossips, slanderers, intimidators, inquisitors, noise makers, power mockers, e.t.c. Souls are sorted out into appropriate habitations depending on their strengths or faults, good or evil volition, some evils probably taking 100 of years to outlive before they are sent elsewhere to purge themselves of another evil. That is how many of us on earth today have spent thousands of years roaming about in the universe incarnating on earth several times to cleanse ourselves up before the earth is taken away as the Lord Jesus forewarned.
The region of the “Luminous garden” in the ethereal sphere is a crucial region for human souls coming down from paradise to the earth or returning from the earth to paradise. Beyond it, is” the Ring of Animistic Substantiality”. The leaders of the beings which produce what we call nature such as oceans, seas, the suns and the stars, like their workers who produce fire, water, air, earth, plants, rocks, e.tc. come from different zones of this region. Above this region is our home, paradise where jubilation breaks out whenever wonderers in the world below like Jacob Akindele or any of us return home. That was what his friends and well wishers encouraged him to do when his earthly remains were interred in the garden of remembrance on Grailland, Iju Hills,on October 10, 2024, four days after he departed the flesh. That was my wish for him in hoping that he would rapidly move through the spheres to the Luminous gardens, strengthen on by his spiritual father, Chief Adeyemi Lawson.
Kings College
Jacob Akindele and Chief Adeyemi Lawson met when Jacob was at Kings College, Lagos.He was among other young boys, senior or junior to him or his classmates who included Sam Peters, Seyi Dosekun, Folarin Balogun, Rotimi Dosekun, Segun Bella, Ade Martins, Seinde Odimayo, Kolapo Lawson,son of Adeyemi Lawson, and Abayomi Aiyesimoju. They were thirsty for the knowledge of Life and Creation that seemed unavailable wherever they had turned. They were luckier than I was because I did not meet with Chief Lawson until December 1978 when I was 28 years, although carried deep within a similar burning longing since my first out of Body Experience (OBE) at 24 in 1974.
The meeting with Chief Lawson by any-one was never a chance meeting. His encounter with ABD-RU-SHIN IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH THE GRAIL MESSAGE (hereafter referred to as THE GRAIL MESSAGE)was not happenstance either. Chief Laswon was a leading member of a Nigerian Anglican Episcopal delegation to a Lodon Church conference in 1966. From the meeting, he went to Forbes, his favourite bookshop to shop for books. Somehow, he forgot himself in the lift until he found himself on the last floor. His absent mindedness was a blessing in disguise. The lift door opened, and, his eyes fell on a pack of books in the corridor.The title was… ABD- RU- SHIN IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH THE GRAIL MESSAGE. He could not take his eyes off the title, and asked for the price. The publishers had not fixed it. Chief Laswon asked them to enquire. They did, and advised him. He replied that he wished to buy several copies but did not have enough money on him. Could the book shop give him a credit for 100 copies for which he would pay from Nigeria? The bookshop had not encountered an intense customer like him. Nevertheless,it passed the enquiry on to the publishers in Austria. The publishers asked for his name. He turned out to be a person they had been waiting for. Actually, the author had seen him as a boy walking on the streets of Lagos, anchored at his own duty post for yet another jubilant working together on earth, and written him a letter which was to be delivered to him whenever he came to Austria,even if they did not personally meet. So,without any protocol, the publishers instructed Forbes to give Chief Lawson the number of copies he wanted. He brought 100 copies home and began to give them as gifts to his friends, including Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Chief Awolowo confirmed this to me when I went to his home in Ikenne to give him one of my two copies of Raymond Moody’s Life After Life, taking with me for him a set of the three volumes of The Grail Message. Chief Awolowo at his last birthday party during which he announced he would soon leave the flesh asked any Nigerian who had a copy of Life After Life to give him for a cash gift of #5,000, alot of money in the 1980s. I gave him the book free, in gratitude for his free Primary education programme which made me able to read and write and reason logically. I believed that The Grail Message would extend for him the knowledge of existence after earth-life.
First Cross Bearers
Jacob Akindele, Kolapo Lawson, Abayomi Aiyesimoju, those young boys mentioned earlier and more were among Nigeria’s first Cross Bearers, as adherents of The Grail Message are known till today. Abayomi Aiyesimoju, insightful, calm, and humble, would later vacate his job as a neurologist at the University College Hospital (UCH) at Ibadan to become Chief Lawson’s Deputy Country Leader of Grail Movement-Nigeria. Every Sunday, they left the boarding house for hours to spend time with Chief Lawson who schooled them in the new knowledge on the face of the earth. Some parents took exception to this. Abayomi Aiyesimoju’s father, one of them, withheld support for him in medical school, but one of two schoolarships filled the cap. Chief Lawson filled a cap of the parent at his wedding reception.
Soon, more of the early Cross Bearers graduated from school and from Sunday Hour of Worship in the re-modelled car garage of Chief Lawson at 25, Marine Road, Apapa. Among them were Sola Faboya (1970) Charles Akintobi (1972),Tunde Soleyi and Oladele Odimayo.
Jacob Akindele’s story touches different persons in diverse ways. I have a three-view of it. The first is that we humans are inter- connected, according to our aspirations and karma. The Yorubas say OMI Ni ENIA (humans are water), implying that humans flow everywhere like bodies of water. The second is that a mightier hand than ours is always shaping and re-shaping us into finer tools for work in the vineyard of the Lord. Finally, it is best for us never to be agitated or to trade a “tooth for a tooth” or an “eye for an eye” when we are hit by so-called vicissitudes of existence which, really, are blessings in disguise for the spiritual refinement, strengthening and development and progress towards maturation for admission to luminous gardens of Paradise.
Regarding the inter-connectedness of persons, I was at Igbobi College in 1969 for my Higher School Certificate (HSC) but did not know about what was going on at Kings College, which was our arch rivals in academics and in everything else, including “ big boy” contests for girls at Queen’s College, Methodist Girls High School, Reagan Memorial e.t.c. My ‘O’ Level was at Oliver Baptist High School, Oyo. Something brought me to Lagos and to Igbobi College from where, in 1971, I connected with the Daily Times newspaper and I got into journalism. I am an Ijebu man. Oyinlade Bonuola, my longest professional acquaintance from 1971, moved from his village School in Kishi, Oyo North, for HSC education at Ijebu-Ode Grammar School(JOGS). Interestingly, I had choice of JOGS but chose IGBOBI for mine. Both of us did not know each other by the time we arrived at the Daily Times Sub Editor’s Desk for sub-editing training, he in February and I one month later in March 1971. Both of us did not know about Jacob Akindele until about 10 years later in the Daily Times newsroom. I had gone to university. In the class-rooms block about one-minute walk from mine, a Reading Circle of The Grail Message met every Sunday. I knew nothing about it, probably because I had not matured for it irrespective of the longing for creation knowledge.
From the youth service Corps camp at Uyo in 1977, I shopped for esoteric books at Edeke’s Bookshop. None from Lobsang Rampa’s series, to The Charlots of Fire and Secrets of the Atomic Age satisfied my quest. I asked the shop girl,Rita Andrews, if they had other books, and she brought out all three volumes of the Grail Message. I literally fled back to camp for money and back to the store and purchased the books, an advertisement of which I had read in The Sunday Times back at Nsukka during my degree exams. I returned to Lagos the following year to become a Cross Bearer. I immediately gave a copy to my closest colleague, Oyinlade Bonuola. While he was reading it, I discovered Prince Tony Momoh, our editor, was a Cross Bearer.
Soon, I would notice Jacob Akindele in the newsroom at Agidingbi every Sunday afternoon in lawn Tennis paraphenelia. I believe he was bringing articles to Martin Iriabuchi, the new editor, for publication. He was an economist, tennis coach and player and highway management consultant. Meanwhile, Lade Bonuola became a Cross Bearer. Lit up by goodness, the Darkness hisses, gets the upper hand until a final resolution of any conflict since mankind initially gives it stronger patronage. Political troubles sent Lade Bonuola out of The Times to The Guardian, where he invited me to be his deputy. The name The Guardian is significant. It reminded us of responsibility of guardianship not only of the newspaper or industry but, also, of our own readers. That was well taken care of in news reports, ethics conduct and discipline in the newsroom. Control was difficult with opinion articles in which writers reserved the right to publish anything, including, for example, that Creation was happenstance and that an Almighty Creator did not exist. As Managing Director, Lade Bonuola had responsibility to protect the readers. Thus, in 1993, he brought in Dr. Okey Ikechukwu, a Cross Bearer and a phyilosophy teacher at UNILAG, to the Editorial Board to provide enlightened opinion with academic verve. Dr. Ikechukwu rejected a more paying bank appointment for The Guardian’s. Soon, Jacob Akindele joined the team of writers. Balance was coming to the Editorial Board. The contributions of the other members with academic backgrounds was not in doubt. The missing balance in the old editorial board was that, while they looked at events From Below Upward, relying on mortal human intellect, schoolarship and erudition, some others, in child-like (not childish) simplicity and humility examine the same subjects from Above Downwards with lmperishable superior wisdom of intuitive perception!
Jacob Akindele’s articles were free of guile, they were explorative, broad-sided, delivered in the simple, humble mien of the man without any ars hanging about him. In the late 1990s, Jacob Akindele became more introspective.Upon him where some of the make or break opportunities for newer or higher degrees of inner refinement for further strengthening of the spirit. I learned from him to not thread “an eye for an eye” or a “tooth for a tooth”in confrontation but to learn the lessons they bring for use in one’s calling. I believe some of the lessons he learned are what crystalised in his now familiar speech and public lecture series titled LOVE. He taught us that we earth men are split parks of God’s love and we are therefore, to love and to be loved. Love is not restrictable to wife, husband and children, siblings, but is meant, also,for animals, other creatures, Nature, events and even work and nation! I will ever remember this gentleman.
Concluding, I would tell a story about Chief Adeyemi Lawson Jacob Akindele told me…they were sitting behind the publisher’s office on Grailland. A woman and her son walked by on that tiny road which connects the Canteen enclosure axis to the main road axis from where the Temple’s Bell Tower can be seen. They greeted Chief Lawson. He called the boy and gave him some money. The boy thanked him. A few meters on, the mother asked her son for the money. He declined. Chief Lawson asked Jacob Akindele: “who owns the money, the mother or her son?” He was wrong in three answers. The money belonged to neither mother, son nor Chief Lawson. It belonged to Almighty God, like the entire Creation. Whatever we own, we are only privileged to hold in trust for Creation, use some for ourselves, and the rest for the well being of other persons.
Any wonder that Grailland came about as A Place of Spiritual Refuge for mankind? Any wonder that Chief Adeyemi Lawson became a spiritual father to a whole generation of us Cross-Bearers? How I wish I was more mature when he invited me to be a Chronicler of Grail Movement activities in Nigeria. I thanked him for leading me by the hand in spirit to the sunken Continent of Atlantis I was writing about. I will like him to be the first person I would see whenever I am called away. I wish Jacob Akindele the same.
