how do i find the equivalent path on my server?
You don't find it - you tell it where it should be. Admittedly this is not always practical when you buy a hosting package (which IME are usually badly supported and come with virtually no documentation).
First thing to note is regardless of where / how the code is hosted, you should always use paths relative to the directories configured on the php include path (or relative to the PHP script initially invoked by the browser request - the '.' entry from the include_path cited in the error) - never absolute paths. You can easily find this out with:
<?php
print ini_get('include_path');
?>
Judging from the path cited in the error message, it appears to be a POSIX system. The root of the filesystem as seen by the webserver might be quite different from the root as seen from your FTP or SSH software, but they are probably the same.
Note that if this is a shared host, then you probably won't have access to put files in /usr/lib/php or /usr/local/lib/php - so your only option is to use a relative path - which is going to get very messy -
You could do some clever coding around this - but do have a look at packages such as Dokuwiki and phpmyadmin to see how they organise the include files in a relocateable way without any dependance on manipulating the php.ini settings.
Alternatively you may be able to override the include_path via .htaccess, e.g.
php_value include_path ".:/home/codlife/public_html:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php"
(which would set a base include_path to your document root)
HTH
C.