The Andean tradition is not complex. In fact, it is simple. Like life.

Life is pretty simple: We choose happiness.

Happiness encompasses everything. Health, safety, shelter, food, clothing, career/work, prosperity, family, friends, community, creativity, passion. . . How can we truly be happy if one of the primary areas of our human expression feels lacking?

Happiness does not mean our lives are perfect. We would be bored silly if there were no challenges or opportunities for personal growth. A core aspect of our humanness is to reach beyond where we are, even as we engage from the “now.”

Some spiritual traditions and schools of psychology tell us it is not our circumstance that make us unhappy, it is our reaction to our circumstance. They say happiness is a state of mind. You can be happy no matter what is happening if only you choose to be. True. But not likely, at least for most of us. We are just not “there” yet.

So how can we get “there”? The ways as are varied as each of us. However, certain worldviews and spiritual cosmologies seem to have a lock on simplifying our complexities. The Andean tradition is such a worldview and cosmology.

The Buddhists ask, What is the meaning of life? Their answer is awareness. The Andean mystics would concur. What is so useful about the Andean mystical worldview, however, is that the goal is not to cultivate awareness so that you can leap beyond the human, experience satori, reach nirvana, or escape the wheel of karma. Instead, the Andean masters would say that our mission is not to release suffering but to be joy. It’s not our state of mind that matters, but first and foremost the state of our energy.

This is a shift in focus that counts! The Andean way is not the Buddha under the Bodhi tree contemplating life, it’s the laughing Buddha fully engaged in life.

Andean mystics believe our true nature is joyful, but that we have forgotten this truth. Theirs is a path of remembering that we are beings of joy. It is that simple. Everything they teach propels us forward toward that singular end: To remember who we really are and to live as who we really are—happily ever after.

In the Andean mystical tradition, the hummingbird is the messenger of the metaphysical God and the symbol of the conscious evolution of humanity. Like the paqos (practitioners of the Andean mystical tradition), they love sweetness and impart joyousness.

My name is Joan Parisi Wilcox. I have studied the Andean sacred arts for two decades and written a book, Masters of the Living Energy: The Mystical World of the Q’ero of Peru, about the tradition, preserving core aspects of it in the words of the masters themselves.

In this blog, my goal is to share the grace and power of this tradition and to let you know about opportunities to learn the Andean sacred arts. I welcome your comments, insights and questions.