In this long discussion with don Juan Nuñez del Prado and his son don Ivan, we discuss willka in great detail. I have broken the discussion into a two-part interview, with this first part addressing willka more generally and then taking a deeper dive in the second part of the interview, which I will post in about a month. I have added explanations, context, and definitions when necessary in square brackets.

Joan: Willka is so central to us, especially since it runs down our spines and creates the yana chunpi. It’s black light energy, and it is said to be the most sacred and most powerful energy. In one of our previous conversations, you said that willka and indeed human energy are different from kawsay. That’s confusing to me, since everything is kawsay.

Don Juan: Human energy is a kind of living energy. A specific kind. Just like the sun is different from the moon, human energy is different from both kawsay and willka. Yes, kawsay is everything, but human energy is just one kind of kawsay. This is the runa kawsay pacha, the world of human living energy. [Runa means people or human being.] In that term, human energy is emphasized as a specific part of the kawsay pacha—the energy specifically related with humans.

Don Ivan: Kawsay is the energy of everything. And human energy is just part of that. It’s one frequency or vibration of kawsay.

Don Juan: Now, the willka—how does the willka energy emerge? It is not naturally in your siki ñawi. It is created when, for example during the Chunpi Away karpay [karpay for weaving the chunpis, or energetic belts], when you pull down the gold and silver cosmic energy along your spine and then you pull up the green earth energy, and you merge them. Together they form willka inside the human body. The whole process is happening inside the human bubble [poq’po]. This is the condition of the emergence of willka, I think. You must realize that this is not something that was explicitly explained by the masters.  

Joan: Ok, and when we talk about the progression of energy—munay, hampi munay,  willka, tawantin—willka is high in the hierarchy.

Don Juan: Hampi munay is close to munay and not yet willka. Willka is the full development of munay.

Joan: What is the difference in quality or effect, if any, between touching munay or hampi munay energy versus touching willka energy?

Don Juan: Hampi munay, which is healing love, is very kind. It’s a tender energy. Willka is very raw, amazingly strong. When you perceive willka, how it moves, you can be smashed! This is the feeling: that there is a raw power sleeping there, that can be awakened in willka. This is my experience. Objectively, we don’t know. This is not something the masters taught, so I am speculating from my subjective experience. The truth is that I don’t know. We have to grasp its meaning, how to work with it, because the masters didn’t teach about it. We have our own experience with it, and we can make assumptions based on our thinking deeply about it. It may be that the mastery of using the willka relates to the fifth level. But we don’t know about the fifth level, because it has not manifested yet.

Joan: You did tell me about one way of working with willka energy, which I won’t mention publicly in case someone tries it, and it was overpowering, it was beyond your ability to handle. It felt like the energy of a steam locomotive, really overpowering. Maybe that’s what the fifth-level energy is like.

Don Juan: When you touch willka, you can feel that force. To drive that energy is probably like learning to how to drive a locomotive! It is something powerful and complex, and you have to be able to handle a huge power. Willka in a certain way is the power of life and death.

Joan: Well. I certainly want to hear more about that!

Don Ivan: Let’s talk about how create willka in our exercises, in our work on the path. It’s a connection of the energy of the earth, which we say is green living energy, and cosmic energy, which is the gold and silver energy you pull down during the Chunpi Away karpay. You merge them inside of yourself. So, let’s ask: What is the energy of the earth? It’s all the power of the material, the power of material things, places, nature. What is the cosmic energy? It’s when we bring down the power of God—it’s like the drink of life. It’s like a trigger of life.

Joan: Creator energy.

Don Ivan: Yes, the Creator is the one who can take matter as it is and make it into a living thing or being. Through the grace of God there is life. So, what you are building with willka, bringing down the cosmic energy into the energy of matter, of the earth, is like using the energy of creation. This is the contact between the two: of the greatest spirit of God with matter. When you create willka you are doing that under the power of your will, by choice. You have that ability! It’s like making this quality of energy in a laboratory! But it doesn’t mean we are the only ones who can do that. Willka is everywhere. It is reality! Many times when we are working with energy, for example when we make hampi munay in the Hampi Munay Muyu practice in our chaupi work, people report seeing the black light! We make hampi munay by bringing down the cosmic energy and pulling up earth energy and running it through ourselves. Similar to how we create willka, and people see the black light sometimes!

Our master said the willka power can take you to the fifth level. That’s because this kind of energy is healing. It is related to munay, because in the Hampi Munay Muyu practice you are choosing, under your will, to take energy in the direction of healing power. This again is the recognition of the creative power. The power of willka can reset your body in a way that you can create yourself again, be healthy again, heal what needs healing at any level of the self.

Joan: The willka energy—we are so full of it! It is the energy of the entire yana chunpi, and in the Master Class we fill our Inka Seed with willka and then imprint that willka energy in all the interior pachas and ñawis. It’s prominent in so much of our work. So, is that like infusing the creative potential throughout our poq’po and body, and directing it toward our growth, our potential enlightenment?

Don Ivan: Yes, it’s like tuning yourself with willka.

Joan: So through willka, we are getting a huge input of creative, evolutionary energy within the self.

Don Ivan: Yes, and in the training many times you will find that you have to be able to tune yourself with something in order to be to keep it. You tune with an energy for a moment, then you relax and that connection goes away. To be able to hold it, to keep the connection in place, to stay at that frequency, that’s the very realization of the fifth level! Again, the masters did not teach this, but we have some experience with working with willka. It is an energy of the lowest frequency but very high power. You shouldn’t take it for granted or play around with it. It is serious. A power that you cannot handle might hurt you or even kill you if you cannot tune and use it. But this is speculation.

Joan: It’s important that people reading this make the distinction between what we know, or what the masters taught, and what we speculate about, so thank you for continually pointing that out. It certainly is very interesting speculation! I think we have enough to do with working with the willka we have after weaving the chunpis. With this form of willka alone we can re-create or reset ourselves, advance our conscious evolution. We will leave working with willka in other ways to the masters . . .