He is from the Dagara people who live in the nation currently call Burkina Faso. This is an account of a realization that came to him after a Rites of Passage ceremony:

"I n that moment of awareness, I had an epiphany, that the light we encounter on the road of death is our in the act of coming home to itself. I understood that light is our natural state, but that we human beings must help each other as we move toward the shores of light. We must be born and die many times to reach the light, and ten thousand years can pass in a flash. Being in the light is knowing we must get it to others into it. The soul that has already attained perfect enlightment returns to life in compassion to help other souls along the journey." (Of Water and Spirit pg 277)