To finish our discussion of working with khuyas, this long post continues the question-and-answer format, focusing on using khuyas, especially for healing. If you have not read Part One and Part Two, please go to the archive to access those posts.

Because the majority of the information in this post concerns healing, please be aware that energy healing is not a substitute for certified, professional healthcare if someone has a medical condition. We are yanantin: we have both a mystical body and a physical body. A paqo deals with the mystical body. An allopathic medical professional deals with the physical body. Of course, there is overlap, but our areas of responsibility are different. As don Juan Nuñez del Prado says, “As a paqo we have to be absolutely clear that we are not medical doctors. We don’t do that kind of healing. We are healers of the soul. That is our part, unless you are at the fifth level [the level of consciousness associated with infallible healing]. You can only think in those terms if you are fifth level, and we know there are no fifth-level healers around yet. In the meantime, let the medical doctor do his job and you stay as the soul doctor, which is what the paqo is.”

What are the various uses for khuyas?

There are many ways to use a khuya, a few of the most common of which are focusing a paqo’s attention while moving energy to aid healing, for teaching, and for connecting with a teacher or the lineage. Don Benito Qoriwaman had a large, square, carved khuya that he used to teach the principles of masintin (similar) and yanantin (dissimilar but complementary) energy dynamics. It had four quadrants, with a representation in each quadrant of an object that is considered either of female or male energy. He would test his apprentices by asking them about the various masintin or yanantin relationships among the sybmols.

If we have a khuya that was given to us by a paqo, we can use it to  connect with that paqo, perhaps even to receive mystical teachings through it. And of course, through such a khuya, we also can connect to the entire lineage associated with that paqo, or more generally with the lineage of all paqos. If a khuya comes from a sanctuary or a natural sacred site such as an apu, the same type of connection can be made to the power of that site, which we can pull to us through the khuya

Does a khuya have healing power?

Yes, but not in and of itself. Most paqos who perform healings will tell you that they are not doing the healing; they are channeling or marshaling the power of Mother Earth (Mama Allpa), or of the whole material universe in its feminine representation as Pachamama (Mother Cosmos) or masculine representation as Pachatayta (Father Cosmos), or of a spirit being of nature, such as an apu or ñust’a. In addition, they are channeling their own sami and munay through the khuya. From the fourth-level perspective, they are using intent to move energy in the service of healing, and so they are not turning their khuyas into fetishes. A festish is an object that we think has power or into which we invest our own power, so if we lose that fetish, we have lost a source of power (its power or our own) and are unable to work. Seeing objects as having power in and of themselves is more of a third-level perspective. Seeing them instead as outward symbols or conduits of our inner power (or as objectified channels of a nature spirit’s power) is more of a fourth-level approach. So, in healing it is not the khuya that matters, but our karpay. Our karpay is the amount of personal power we have available at the current time to use to tune energy, and then to do something with that tuned energy, such as sharing it during a healing session. So, for the most part when it comes to healing, a khuya is only as powerful as our own karpay.

How do we use a khuya to channel our power?

The effective use of that khuya as a channel for our own sami is influenced by the quality of our ayni and munay. All healing comes through munay, which is love under our will. When we have cultivated our munay, we can be in deeper and more profound ayni with the person on whom we are performing the healing. Don Juan Nuñez del Prado tells us that when we are in ayni, when we are channeling our energy through munay, then in healing we are willing to touch the other person’s hucha. There will likely be no healing without the willingness to do that. And there is nothing to fear in doing so, as we know that hucha is not harmful, contaminating, dirty, or evil energy: it is just slow sami. Still, we have to be willing to totally and deeply connect with the person, which means touching their hucha and helping to transform their hucha.

It’s important to understand that hucha does not cause disease. Illness is often caused by a purely physical vector: a virus or bacteria, exposure to toxins, genetics or the immune system gone awry, and the like. The virus, bacteria, and genes are pure sami: they are living, natural energy. There is no moral overlay onto them, because they are just doing what they do—what nature designed them to do. Our health habits and other personal choices can open us to infection by these natural agents, and our genes and immune systems are subject to influence by our thoughts, emotions, stress levels, repressed energies, and the like. These mental and psychological influences are what most often cause us to create hucha for ourselves, which may keep us from dealing well with our health or other challenges. Thus, there almost always is an emotional component to experiencing illness: heaviness can arise because of fear, anxiety, conflicted feelings and ideas, and the like. None of those emotions or mental states automatically creates hucha. These emotions may be perfectly appropriate responses to something happening to us. But when they become chronic or are inappropriate to or misdirected beyond the immediate situation, then they can create hucha. As paqos, we are working on a person’s mystical body, and we can use many different methods, from focusing mostly on their poq’po (which we can see as their psyche) to working to clear hucha from the  ñawis. As a result of improving a client’s energy field by reducing their hucha and increasing their sami, the disease also may be affected in positive ways. Remember, sami is the life-force energy, so increasing it—regardless of which method is used to do that—is a way of indirectly working on the disease itself.   

If we don’t need a khuya to perform a healing, why use it all?

All of the factors explained in the above paragraphs influence why we (working from a fourth-level perspective) tend to see khuyas as not having powers of their own, but as serving, if we so choose to use them, as externalizations of our internal state. We don’t need a khuya to perform a healing, but we can choose to use one to help direct our intention and energy. We can use it as a focal point for our attention, intention, and personal power rather than as an instrument of healing power itself. In this regard, don Juan says that “working with khuyas is a creative endeavor.” He reminds us that sami is always moving, and through a khuya we can remember that and so better channel, direct, and use that sami energy. We can use a khuya to help us focus and connect to sources of power, both within ourselves and outside ourselves, such as with a spirit being or our yanapaqkuna (personal helper spirits). Then, as don Juan says, “How you use that power is up to you.”

More importantly, our clients may need us to use one or more khuyas, or even some other object of “healing power.” Clients, especially those new to energy work, may have a psychological need to see some kind of outer action or ritual in order to believe anything is happening and, thus, to consciously or subconsciously engage their own self-healing capacities. For this reason, we may choose to meet their expectations and provide that “healing experience” for them. We are not duping or manipulating them. We are simply undertaking the energy work just as we always do—which is invisible work, marshalling and channeling our own sami and munay, our own personal power and intent, or channeling that of a spirit being—but we can do that while also creating an outward display that meets the emotional needs of our client. There is one “must do” I tend to tell people who ask about healing through an outward ritual: the important stance is not that we do what we always do or were trained to do in a rote manner—such as always using the same methodology or ritual for each person—but that we always, first and foremost, meet the other person exactly where they are and creatively adjust what we do and how we do it to meet their individual needs.

How do we work with khuyas or other objects, such as our misha, if we choose to use them in healing work?

For brevity, and assuming most readers of this blog have been trained in the techniques of saminchakuy and saiwachakuy, and understand the mystical anatomy, I will provide a list of ways we can channel energy while choosing to use an externalized representation such as a khuya.

Saminchakuy/Pichay and Saiwachakuy

We can perform a pichay, which means “sweeping.” This is a saminchakuy during which we move the khuya, or our misha, over the person’s body and through their poq’po with the intention of pulling in sami and sweeping hucha down to Mother Earth. It’s always a good idea to follow this practice with a saiwachakuy, which is pulling up sami from Mother Earth to empower the person. During the pichay, the siki ñawi is the ñawi to spend a lot of time on because, for almost all of us, it holds the most hucha.

Khuya Karpay

A khuya kaypay, says don Juan, is “learning to work through structure.” In this case, the practice is a structured or organized way of using a khuya to focus our intention to release hucha from all of a person’s ñawis (mystical eyes), one at a time, and then after the hucha cleansing, to empower each ñawi by bringing sami from Mother Earth up and into it. We have some flexibility, as energy artists at the fourth level, to decide how we do this: 1) we can do the full cycle of cleaning and then empowering each ñawi, one by one, or 2) we clean all of the ñawis first, moving down the body, and then move back up the body and empower each ñawi in two separate sweeps.  

Either way, usually we start the process at the top of the body, at the qanchis ñawi, the seventh eye, and then move down the body. If we are using the first method, we would perform a pichay, sweeping hucha from the qanchis ñawi and then empowering it with sami from Mother Earth in a saiwachakuy. Then we would work on the two physical eyes, which are ñawis, repeating the process. We skip cleaning the sonqo ñawi because it has no hucha, and we just empower it. We continue to move down the body to the qosqo ñawi, and we end at the siki ñawi, where we tend to spend the most time since it usually has the most hucha. If a person is lying on their back, work on the siki ñawi through the root, which is at the front of the body, rather than the eye, which is at the back of the body.

Another form of a khuya karpay is to receive the assistance of the teqse apukuna—universal spirit beings—who are associated with each ñawi. In this variation, we might place a khuya on or near each of the seven ñawis. Then we work down each ñawi, one by one, from the top of the body to the root. As we do, we call in the specific teqse apu associated with that ñawi and use the khuya we have placed there to work with that spirit being to do a pichay at that ñawi, sweeping hucha from it. (Except at the sonqo, which has no hucha). Once the hucha release is done at a ñawi, together with the helper spirit, we pull up earth energy (in a saiwachakuy) to empower that ñawi and its capacities. Then we replace that khuya and move down to the next ñawi, using the khuya placed there and calling in the spirit being associated with that ñawi and repeat the process. And so on down the body.  

The ñawis and their related teqse apukuna are: upper three eyes have no specific helper spirit, but we connect to the cosmos through them, so we can call on the assistance of Pachatayta, Father Cosmos. At the kunka, the spirit being is Tayta Wayra, Father Wind. At the sonqo, Tayta Inti, Father Sun (for empowerment only at the sonqo). At the qosqo, Mama Allpa, Mother Earth. And at the siki, Mama Una, Mother Water.

There is no fixed way—and no right or wrong way—to perform a healing or empowerment, so we can be energy artists and change things up, perhaps even receiving inspiration and counsel from the teqse apukuna. For example, the empowering sami might not come from Mother Earth, but be directed into the ñawi directly from the spirit being itself, as each is a source of pure sami. What matters most is that in some way or another, each ñawi be cleansed of hucha and then empowered with sami.

Increasing a Client’s Access to their Inka Seed

This is a way that I see we could productively undertake a slightly different kind of khuya karpay. It is based on a teaching from don Ivan Nuñez del Prado. As he so eloquently discussed in one of our conversations, we can see the various ways we carry hucha as different kinds of screens or filters that prevent us from fully accessing and expressing our human capacities and, thus, our Inka Seed. If we have a lot of hucha, as we go to express our Inka Seed or any of the capacities of our ñawis, the energy emerges and flows but then hits one of our emotional screens and that energy reflects out as hucha rather than the pure sami of our Inka Seed. So, I have adapted the khuya karpay to focus on cleaning these hucha screens from each ñawi (except the sonqo), focusing our healing intent on the human capabilities that may be diminished by those hucha screens. After clearing some of the hucha that is acting like a screen around each ñawi, we can empower the ñawi and that capacity by bringing up sami from Mother Earth or, if we are working with the teqse apukuna, allowing the spirit being that is associated with that ñawi to empower the ñawi and associated capacities with its own sami. In this kind of khuya karpay, the process is the same as the process described previously, and the difference is in our intent, which rather than focusing on a general hucha release is purposefully directed at moving the energy around any emotional screens that may be affecting each ñawi and its capacities.

The capacities are as follow. The three uppermost eyes are associated with qaway: the ability to see the reality of ourselves and this world as it really is while also developing mystical vision. So, qaway relates to being able to simultaneously bring awareness to both the material and mystical worlds so that we can know the whole of ourselves and the whole of reality. At the kunka ñawi, the capacity is yachay (experience and thoughts) and rimay (expression). There is no hucha at the sonqo ñawi, which is the seat of the most refined feelings and of munay. Even though there is no need to perform a hucha release, we can work here to bring in more sami, helping the person more easily access and express their highest feelings, especially munay. At the belly, the capacity of the qosqo ñawi is khuyay, the ability to use personal power to take and sustain action in the world and to make healthy emotional bonds with others (and with beliefs, values, causes, etc.) At the siki ñawi, the capacity is atiy, bringing our impulses under our conscious control, and measuring and marshalling our personal power to act in the right way at the right time.

These are some of the core methods of working with khuyas, especially in healing. No doubt there are many others, but, to my knowledge, most are some form or another of the basic healing practices of saminchakuy and saiwachakuy. (I deliberately am not discussing hucha mikhuy, because we wouldn’t need or want to use a khuya or misha during that practice.) Of course, anything we can do for another person, we can do for ourselves. So, we can use any of these techniques to heal, improve, and empower ourselves.