There is nothing hidden or exclusionary about the Andean Path. It is not a dogma or a doctrine, so you can practice it while holding a multitude of beliefs. You also can happily practice the Andean energy techniques no matter what other practices you undertake. You can be a Hari Krishna, Protestant, Jew, Catholic, wiccan, shaman, yogi, rishi, atheist, agnostic . . . whatever, and the Andean path
welcomes you.

That’s not to say there is not an accompanying cosmovision. But in terms of practice, the energy techniques are simple and sober ways to add to your energetic “toolbag” without conflict with any other practices.

No matter how many traditions you belong to or are exploring, it helps to commit to one path at a time. If you divide your attention, you tend not to learn well. So it’s best to choose to apply yourself to one path at a time and to commit yourself to learning that path and those techniques. For example, I have followed the Andean Path for more than 20 years. But I also meditate, having learned when I was 17. I also have a deep Christian faith and regularly pray. But I fully immersed myself in each tradition, one at a time, because part of every path is devotion.

Intention is the main tool of the Andean tradition. Our “medicine” is inside ourselves already.  Our practice is not about transcending the human to touch the divine, but about empowering ourselves to be fully human and to unleash the divine within ourselves.

When you are coherent within, you can live with integrity; and integrity in this sense means being exactly who you are to the fullest possible extent in this lifetime. It’s about accessing and living your glory, about releasing or shedding illusions about yourself so you can better know and live as who you really are. In this way, the path applies to all human beings, no matter what their beliefs.

Paqos teach no dogmas, but they do encourage “attitudes” that help you journey along this path. Those attitudes are confidence, courage, respect, and love. But most of all, they encourage you to cultivate joy. The word for the sacred work of the Andes is pukllay, which means play. Play is not a dogma! When we flow with our intention and direct our energies, we experience kuyay, the cosmic dance of ayni that is alive with a sober passion (a directed, life-affirming passion, not a wild, romantic impulse). We are at play in the kawsay pacha, in our lives, in our relationships with others, and with the world at large. Spiritual play, as the Andeans mean it, is not fooling around, goofing off, etc. It is living with a spiritual and energetic passion that deepens the appreciation for the gift of life.

The danger of dogmas and doctrines is that they can trap you. If your doctrine is the “truth” then anyone who doesn’t share it is excluded, deluded, or damned. This is third-level thinking. It restricts your world and can even chain you in place. It’s hard to move forward when you have a belief to defend and protect. Fourth-level thinking involves choosing your beliefs (we all have to have them), and neither imposing them on anyone else nor rejecting others who don’t agree with your choice. You are secure enough in our own beliefs to not be threatened by the choices others make. Fourth-level thinking frees us to new options and opens the world to us.

Here’s an example that illustrates this point in a round-about way. While doing an intuitive reading for a woman, I saw that she had been badly abused as a youngster, and I described her wound like a chain around her ankle that stretched out behind her and was attached to a stake in the ground. She believed that she could only go as far as the length of that chain. She acknowledged this as her current condition—chained to the past and to beliefs about what her life could be based on the tenacious hold of that wound. But she couldn’t figure out how to get that chain off her ankle once and for all.

I told her, “You can’t undo what has been done. And perhaps you can’t remove the chain from your ankle. But you can pull up that stake! Once you do, you can go anywhere you want, as far as you want, even though you still have a chain around your ankle.” She looked startled, as if that thought had never occurred to her. Suddenly she knew that even if she couldn’t fully heal the past, she didn’t have to be immobilized by it. Once her belief shifted, so did her life.

The Andean path is sort of like that—acknowledging that we all have a stake in the ground, and even a chain or two around our ankle, but that we can move anyway. There’s more than enough kawsay for everyone. It doesn’t matter what you believe, which other practices you enjoy and find useful, what your personal history is—you can free your energy to propel yourself as far as you can imagine. When you have little to protect and defend from others, you have almost unrestricted freedom of movement and greater peace of mind and heart.

Of all the sacred traditions I am aware of, the Andean mystical path is the most open and inclusive. So take its illuminating message to heart: there is nothing in this practice that will cause you to exclude anyone, nor can you be excluded. There is nothing that will hold you (or anyone else) back from increasing your human joy and fulfilling your divine nature.

The Inka Empire was called the Tawantin Suyo because it united four previously separate regions into a single state. “Tawa” in Quechua means the number four, and “ntin” is a linguistic convention indicating things are joined together. In the mystical vocabulary, a tawantin takes on added meaning, relating to wholeness, harmony, beauty, and fullness.

A mandal, in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, is a geometric figure that represents the universe, and in its most basic form it incorporates the number four in its design. The Tibetan word for mandala means “that which contains or encircles the center,” and a basic mandala has a center and four gates. A mandala as a symbolic structure mirrors the deep internal order of nature and the cosmos.

The Inka concept of tawantin shares similarities, as does graphical depictions of a tawantin. In the Andean mystical system, a tawantin represents the whole, and specifically the relationship of the parts to the whole. As such, paqos often refer to the tawantin as the organizing principle not only of the outside, but of the inside—of the self.

It’s interesting that when Q’ero paqo don Andres Espinosa built and became the “headmaster” of a paqo school tucked away high in the Andes, behind the main building was a huge square courtyard with a smaller building positioned at each of the four corners and a huge flat stone in the center of the courtyard with a depression in the middle where despachos were burned. We don’t know if the design of this paqo school was intentional, but it takes the form of a tawantin “mandala,” mirroring the organizing principle of the cosmos on earth.

The despacho (hayway to use the Quechua term) is always, at its most basic, a tawantin. To my knowledge, the simplest, more core form of a despacho is the karpay despacho, which consists of shell placed in the center of the paper and topped with a cross, and with four k’intus laid in around it. The shell and cross represent the core yanantin energies of the divine masculine and feminine principles . The four k’inuts represent the four cardinal directions  and honor the four suyu apus (Ausangate, Salcantay, Saqsaywaman, and Wanakauri).  Even if a despacho gets a lot more elaborate, this tawantin mandala is always the foundation upon which it is based.

The most obvious Andean representation of the tawantin is in the chakana, the Andean cross, which has four arms of three “steps” each around a central circle. The word “chakana” means bridge. The symbol represents the constellation of the Southern Cross, which the ancient Quechuas and the Inkas believed was the center of the universe. The symbol or parts of it, especially the three-stepped arm of the cross, is ubiquitous in Inka architecture. While the three steps represent many triads in the mystical tradition, such as the three worlds (hanaqpacha, kaypacha, ukhupacha) and the three aspects of the self (yachay, llank’ay, munay), the symbol in its entirety is a tawantin—the union of these three with the cosmos into a whole.

Just as there is order outside the self, there is also order inside the self. According to Juan Nuñez del Prado and his masters , we also are tawantin. While the harmonious organization of the self in Jungian psychology encompasses the conscious self/ego, the unconscious self/shadow, the united animu and anima/royal couple, and actualized Self, for the Andean masters it incorporates the four main chunpis, or energetic belts. The throat represents yachay/thoughts, the heart munay/feeling, the belly khuyay/passion, and the pelvic area atiy/impulse. When we harmonize these four aspects of ourselves into a whole—into a tawantin— we can best express “who we really are.”

There are also energy practices that are tawantin. They usually involve the yanantin of men and women who work together to move energy in particular ways. One of these tawantin practices has two men and two women in the center, with men and women flowing outward from them, the men behind the men and women behind the women. As they flow energy long these “arms” from the center, this whole human mandala is set in motion, like a giant pinwheel. The flow of this moving energy creates munay.

Another tawantin energy practice involves creating two flows of energy within yourself—a saminchakuy flow of sami down from the cosmos to your Inka Seed and a saiwachakuy flow up from the earth to your Inka Seed. As the two energies meet at this center of the self, taqa occurs—an expansion of the personal bubble and of the self in four directions—to family, to humanity, to the past, and to the future.

In the wachuy exercise of recapitulating your life and returning to the moment of your birth, or even to your conception, there is an energetic flow that centers on the Inka Seed but that encapsulates your male and female aspects and your itu and paqarina. The itu and paqarina relate to the spirit beings of the place where you were physically born and also represent the male/female aspects of yourself. In this exercise, your male/female aspects (including the yanantin of your biological parents) and itu/paqarina form the tawantin.

As you can see, the concept of the tawantin runs deep within the Andean mystical tradition, creating an Inka mandala that is both physical and energetic, both personal and universal.

My last few posts have been about kawsay and how it supports your intentions to live as your grandest self. In this post I want to focus on kawsay in relation to moral and ethical frameworks.

Because most of you reading this post have been raised in a Western or Westernized culture, you likely have incorporated into your life, implicitly or explicitly, two core values or beliefs (among a host of others):

1. Scarcity is the norm: There’s not enough for everyone, so if I get more, you get less.
2. Riches and material possessions are valorized as emblems of success, but wanting material things is shallow and not spiritual.

According to the Andean tradition each of those values or beliefs is false. To live by them is to misunderstand the nature of the kawsay pacha and deny yourself its blessings. Here is what the Andean masters teach.

Abundance is the norm. The true nature of the kawsay pacha is that light living energy is overly abundant. There is more than enough for everyone. Kawsay cannot be depleted, so you can have as much as you want.

Absorbing kawsay is never selfish. In fact, it is your natural propensity. Kawsay is the fuel of life and evolution. You can’t do anything without it. Your ability to “push” the kawsay to manifest your intentions is directly proportional to how much sami—the most refined kawsay, the “nectar” of the universe—you have in your bubble and thus at your disposal. So it is always to your benefit to fill yourself to the brim with sami.

Your having more of anything does not mean anyone has to have less. The kawsay pacha has no accountants on duty, tallying up the books to see if you have taken more than you are due. It also has no referees, because there is no need for competition. There are no spiritual scorekeepers awarding you bonus points because you have lived ascetically or squelched your worldly desires.

Of course, the condition of your heart is as important as the condition of your energy body, but your morals and ethics are independent of the kawsay pacha as a fount of sami. We are social creatures, and to live in harmony we have to have rules and agreements. We seek to foster well-being at all levels of our lives, from our family to our community to our nation and the world. Because we live on the material plane—on Earth—it is to our benefit to take care of our planet and use our resources wisely and for the benefit of all of us, not just some of us. As humans we can accumulate hucha, and we often do because of we don’t live according to the “golden rule.” But at the fundamental energetic level of the kawsay pacha, everything is available to us, whether we know it or not, accept it or not, or partake of that abundance or not.

Remember, energy is just energy; it has no moral overlay. Since kawsay is the raw material of everything in the universe, then everything that is created from it in the material realm is devoid of moral labels. From an energetic perspective, the desire to live in a mansion or drive an expensive sports car are not “less than” the desire to build an orphanage or farm a field of organic vegetables. A diamond ring is the same energetically as a sacred book. There is no energetic difference between a diva’s fur coat and a Tibetan monk’s robe. Energetically, the universe will just as soon support your efforts to accumulate a mega bank account for security in your old age as it will to fund your non-profit to help people in need or right a social injustice.

You can have anything you want. While you are the arbiter of what objects and endeavors mean to you and thus whether they are worth attracting into your life, those things themselves are readily available and energetically equivalent. You can deny yourself or fill yourself to the brim, and the kawsay pacha has no judgment either way.

I leave you with two quotations that I hope will inspire you to both take abundantly and give abundantly, to both fulfill your grandest desires and to live with meaning, fully and deeply.

“Whatever we do in life starts with us. To be replenished, we need to keep emptying ourselves to receive more. In that way, we become vessels, holding up one hand to receive the blessings and then opening up the other hand so that we become channels, letting those blessings flow into the lives of others.”

—Bear Heart, The Wind Is My Mother

“There is only one way to be prepared for death: to be sated. In the soul, in the heart, in the spirit, in the flesh. To the brim.”

—Henry de Montherland, “Explicit Mysterium,” Mors et Vita

 

In my last post I urged you to live your grandeur. Sounds good, but I know—and you know— that is easier said than done. So I’d like to explore that topic more in this post.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore, Dream, Discover.

– Mark Twain

Couldn’t have said it better myself!

The trouble is, most of us hear sentiments like this, feel their truth, resolve to take action, and then go right back to doing what we’ve always done and being who we have always been.

We live in such small worlds.

There’s no need to. There’s a whole universe of possibility for each of us, but we choose to tread circles through the same familiar terrain until we’ve made ruts instead of, like Huck Finn, kicking the gate of the self open and lighting out for the territory.

I had a coaching call the other day with a gentlemen who faced just such a dilemma. He’s quite an accomplished professional. He’s smart, and even wise. He is self-aware and articulate. One hour into our conversation, after yet another bout of intellectualizing what was going on in his life, he broke down in tears. We were quiet for a few long minutes, and then I told him what he already knew. “That was the most real moment we have had in our conversation.” He agreed.

The gate to his heart had unexpectedly burst open. The voice of his soul was declaring that no, despite all his seemingly astute analysis, the structure of this incredible life he had constructed for himself was not built from the bricks of his true nature.

I don’t know what choices he ultimately will make. He just wanted to talk, and has not committed to further coaching. But my prayer is that he will acknowledge that his heart and soul were literally crying out to him. As I told him, “This is a seminal moment in your life. Don’t mistake it. Don’t miss it. Don’t dismiss it.” He let me talk for quite a while, offering some insight, and then he thanked me and ended the call a bit abruptly. I have no way of knowing if that haste was about his closing the gate on what those tears revealed or about his eagerness to listen deeply. One thing I do know—his choice about what do will make all the difference to the rest of his life.

We all have such at-the-edge-of-the-cliff moments.  I know I have had plenty of them, and quite a few around Peru. I won’t go into them, except to say that one thing the Andean tradition has taught me is that “spirituality” both descends from the heavens and grows up from the dirt. We grow our Inka Seed using both sun and soil. It’s not that our heads are always wrong and our hearts are always right. It’s that we tend to listen—and live—too often in mono instead of stereo.

If there is one thing a paqo learns, it’s that there’s an overabundance of kawsay. We can take all we want. It’s troubling that most of us take so little of the life energy available to us.

There’s a story Juan told from one of his trips about kawsay. His group was ending an exhausting day at the Cave of the Moon. It’s a long hike down and a long hike back up. But the challenge was made worse because Juan had lost track of time and they had only one hour to get back to the bus. The hike up would take at least that long. One older woman in the group was especially worried. She didn’t think she could make it. Was she ever surprised when Juan told her she would be at the front of the line of hikers, setting the pace. She panicked further upon hearing that. Then Juan explained that she would have help. As she climbed she should pull kawsay up from the earth and into her poq’po. And everyone in the line behind her would be feeding kawsay to the person in front of them, all the way up the line to her. She would have a ton of kawsay helping her climb.

She took the lead, skeptical. But it worked. They made the climb with plenty of time to spare. Needless to say, the hike was a moment of truth for that woman. What she found inside of herself was beyond her expectations, and she found it with the help of the kawsay from the heavens above and from the dirt and stone beneath her feet. She also found the kawsay within herself and as a gift from the community.

The lesson, the inspiration, is that if we all drank freely from the kawsay pacha within, without, above and below, then exploring, dreaming, discovering, and living who we really are—as our grandest self—would be the norm, not the exception. When we feel the tears or fears—the eruption of our true self rising up from the shadow of the self—we would not ignore or dismiss that call, but catch the trade winds and set sail!

You are so much more than you may think you are. You are so much more than others may think you are. Your grandeur is beyond your most exaggerated imagining. The world needs you—and it needs the grandest you possible.

“These are the times. We are the people.” This is how Jean Huston puts it when referring to the conscious evolution of humanity.

As a transformational coach and a teacher and practitioner of the Andean mystical tradition, I second Jean’s statement, and I up the ante by asking you to own your grandeur.

Nearly thirty years ago I wrote a long poem, the ending of which I have taken to be my life’s motto (although in practice the feeling of the “need to know” has become  the more conscious “choose to live”)

I need to know my life sparks light

and that my fleeting dance across the dark

sends a shower of shooting stars

quivering like a kiss

along the universal spine.

I repeat this to myself during those inevitable times when I get small and stuff myself back in the box. It’s my mantra, my song, my call of the wild to break out again, kick up my heels, whirl like a banshee, and sing at the top of my rock-star lungs that I am here, in the world, and I not only matter but the world needs me! No one can bring what I can to the world. Just as no one can bring what you can to the world. We are each a necessary, vital, and irreplaceable part of the kawsay pacha. That is what the Andean mystical tradition teaches. That is why we are paqos, and I urge you to not forget it.

The goal of our work is conscious evolution. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” That process of deep inner and outer change is engendered by our refining our energy body and growing our Inka Seed, which is our connection to the Mystery from which we came and to which one day we will return. Our most sacred ayni is to return to the Mystery more fully realized than when we came to this Earth. By growing grander selves, we contribute—each and every one of us—to the rise of the New Humanity and the dawning of a New Age.

If you are a paqo with any other goal, let it go! Resolve right this minute to settle deep and comfortably into the heart of the tradition, a heart that pumps the blood of you and me and him and her through the veins of the universal body.

The Andean energy work both empowers you and strips you to the bone. It helps you to discover who you really are. But to see your true self you first have to peel away the many disguises you have acquired throughout your life—the disguise of less than, not good enough,  not worthy, false modesty . . . And also the disguises of conceit, arrogance, judgment, exclusivity . . .

The other day someone reminded me of a story Juan Nuñez del Prado told at one of his trainings. I have heard this story many times, but had forgotten it. Hearing it again inspired this post. It goes something like this:

When he was a relatively new apprentice to don Benito Qoriwaman, Juan went to the marketplace in Cuzco and bought a poncho and some traditional Inka clothing. He showed up at don Benito’s in his new garb, looking like a proper Andean paqo. He sat outside the little adobe building that served as don Benito’s clinic, waiting for don Benito to call on him to assist in the healings. This was their normal procedure, and usually Juan was continually being called upon to assist. On this day, hours went by with no summons. Don Benito walked by Juan many times but didn’t so much as acknowledge his presence. Juan was extremely patient. But by afternoon, he was angry. Why was don Benito ignoring him? Finally, out of exasperation, Juan stopped don Benito the next time he walked by and said, “Master, I have been here all day, waiting for you to call me to assist. Why have you ignored me?” Don Benito looked surprised, like he barely recognized this man before him. All he said was, “I did not know I had an Indian apprentice.”

Juan got the message. Be yourself. Don’t try to look and act like someone you are not. Don’t put on a disguise, because the world needs the real you.

Fredy “Puma” Quispe Singona tells the story of a paqo who goes into a cave overnight during an initiation. Many spirits arrive, and they ask him, “Who are you?” He replies with his name. They ask again, “Who are you?” He thinks for a moment, then replies by giving his parents’ names and saying he is their son. Still the spirits are not satisfied and ask again, “Who are you?” He gets an inspiration and eagerly declares, “I am a paqo.” Again, his answer in unsatisfactory. Finally, the spirits tell him, “See, even you sometimes do not know who you really are. But we know.”

Spirit always already knows. Now it’s up to you to “know thyself.” It might not be easy. But when you do, I am confident you will find that you are a wondrous being through and through. Are you ready to show up in the world as who you really are?