In the Andean mystical tradition, the essential energy dynamic is that of the qanchispatañan: the stairway or pathway of the seven levels of human consciousness. It actually is eight steps, since we start at the zero level, that of the purun runa, or the natural, undeveloped self that we all are as infants. We develop physically, psychologically, intellectually, and emotionally, such that we become increasingly self-aware and increasingly free agents of creating “who we are” as adults. Even though we are shaped by many external forces, such as family, culture, environment, and more, part of the developmental process is our ability to self-regulate: to choose our responses to all these influences (that is, if you believe in free will, which many contemporary scientists do not). How we self-regulate places us on a “stair” or “level” of the qanchispatañan.

While we bounce around from level to level on the qanchispatañan depending on our response to specific real-time situations, events, interactions, and such, we can generally identify ourselves as having reached a certain level of development in our overall sense of self, beliefs, behaviors, and other personal characteristics. Space prohibits my detailing the qualities of consciousness at each level of the qanchispatañan—both those deemed to be generally beneficial to our functioning in a sami-filled way (being in ayni, or reciprocity, such that we are supporting our own well-being and that of the people we interact with) and those seen as potentially detrimental and thus causing us to produce hucha, or heavy energy (lack of ayni such that we are more interested in our own well-being at the expense of others). To learn more about the qanchispatañan, please see my post “Birds of Consciousness,” posted on May 11, 2016. However, what is important to understand is that we cannot say we have achieved a level of consciousness until all three of our core human capacities—yachay (intellect/thoughts), munay (love under our will), and llank’ay (actions)—are each developed to that level.

The qanchispatañan is the map of our journey of personal growth, and what we are seeking to develop is the Inka Muyu, or Inka Seed. Inka refers to the male ruler of the Inca Empire, so we could translate Inka Muyu as Seed of the King. For females, the term would be Qoya Muyu, or Seed of the Queen, but this is not a term you ever hear used, so I will use the more common term of Inka Seed, although I use it in a gender-neutral way.

While the energy dynamics of the Inka Seed are primary in our practice of the Andean mystical tradition, just what is it? The remainder of this post will answer this question from several perspectives, some from outside the tradition and some from within it.

First, the Inka Seed is an energetic structure that sits in the middle of our physical and mystical body. The tradition teaches that we have seven ñawis, or mystical eyes, each of which are associated with core human capacities. The four core ñawis are located in the trunk of our body. The eye of the neck—the kunka ñawi—comprises the capacities for yachay (reason and intellect, especially as developed through first-hand personal experience) and rimay (the integrity of how we express ourselves and of how we communicate our personal experience and knowledge). Below that is the sonqo ñawi, the eye of our heart. The connection here is not to our physical heart but to our feelings, especially to munay. Munay usually is translated as love under our will and refers to our ability to make the choice to be kind, compassionate, and loving. Further down is the qosqo ñawi, eye of the naval or belly, which is the center of our personal power and khuyay, or passions. Passion in this sense relates to motivation, to what moves us from intention to action. Khuyay also is related to emotional attachments, to what we focus on and choose to relate to and how we do that in either healthy or unhealthy ways. At the root of our body is the siki ñawi, which is the seat of both our atiy (our ability to take action in the world and the timing of our actions) and our impulses, which are the mammalian aspects of ourselves, including our base emotions (such as fear, dominance, competitiveness, defensiveness) and our core survival needs (such as food, shelter, procreation, nurturing or relationship).

Our Inka Seed sits in the middle of these four ñawis, situated between the two upper ñawis and the two lower ñawis of the trunk of the body. It rules from the center of the mystical self. Or, in the terminology of don Juan Nuñez del Prado, the Inka Seed is the “owner” of our wasi, which is the “house” or “temple” of the Self. When we integrate the sami of our Inka Seed with the munay at our sonqo ñawi (our feeling center), we stimulate the energetic capacity of kanay, which means “I am” and comes from the root Quechua word that means “to be.” Kanay is the capacity of knowing who we are and who we have the potential to become if we choose to grow into the fullness of our humanness.

Second, we situate the Inka Seed at the center of the inner and the outer—of how we relate our inner world to the outer world. So, let’s look outside of the mystical realm for a moment to see what one view from psychology tells us about this aspect of our development. Chris Allen, PhD, in Psychology and Human Relations, provides a useful accounting of the processes that contribute to our forming a wholistic sense of self within and without ourselves. What he has to say correlates well with the three universal human powers, so I will insert those powers into the quotation. Remember, we have to develop all three of our human powers equally to move up a step on the qanchispatañan. Allen writes, “The I first sees itself as an embodied actor in social space [munay and ayni]; with development, however, it comes to appreciate itself also as a forward-looking source of self-determined goals and values [llank’ay], and later yet, as a storyteller of personal experience, oriented to the reconstructed past and the imagined future [yachay]. To ‘know thyself’ in mature adulthood, then, is to do three things: (a) to apprehend and to perform with social approval my self-ascribed traits and roles, (b) to pursue with vigor and (ideally) success my most valued goals and plans, and (c) to construct a story about life that conveys, with vividness and cultural resonance, how I became the person I am becoming, integrating my past as I remember it, my present as I am experiencing it, and my future as I hope it to be.”

This psychological process requires that we develop several core traits at a minimum: increasing levels of self-awareness, an enhanced ability for both introspection and action, an empowered sense of personal autonomy, a refined use of our will, an expanded aptitude for both self-critique and self-acceptance and self-love, and the ability to bring ourselves to the world with integrity.

Moving back to the mystical developmental journey, we will find that as we bring increasing mastery to our ability to be who we are right now (kanay), we simultaneously increase our ability to express more of our potential. So, third, we can think of the Inka Seed as a kind of information field that encodes within it all that it is possible for us to express—the full measure of what is means to be a human being. As we work to consciously develop ourselves, we can think of each level of the qanchispatañan as an increasing ability to express more of our human capacities—to access and express more of our Inka Seed. The way I like to describe this evolutionary process of conscious development is that as we climb the qanchispatañan, we are not better than we were at a lower level, we are more than we were.

How far can we develop? How much more can we be? This brings us to the fourth point about the Inka Seed—it also encodes our metaphysical self and is equivalent to our Spirit. At the moment we are conceived, we are created both from the DNA of our parents and from the energy of Spirit, or for convenience’s sake what I will call God. As don Juan terms it, we are a “Drop of the Mystery.” Literally, whatever “God” or “Creator” is—everything that It is—is held in potential within our Inka Seed. I express the promise of this aspect of the tradition by quoting Sri Aurobindo, who was the developer of Integral Yoga. He said that we humans are where “God-Spirit meets God-matter” and “divinity is in the body.” Through the Inka Seed, we literally are God-Spirit in the flesh, for the Andean mystical tradition tells us that the full expression of our humanness is to express God-like capacities while in the body and in this world.

That we are ranti (energetically equivalent) to God is why the Inka Seed is pure sami—it is always and only the light living energy. It has no hucha, or heavy energy. Our Inka Seed is always connected to, and being fed by, a stream of this “God energy” through the pukyu, a small energetic opening at the turn of the top of the forehead. So, the Inka Seed literally is both a repository for and a source of the light living energy within us. As don Juan says, it is our capacity to one day express our God Within. If we so choose, we can consciously develop ourselves by removing our filters and screens (hucha) so that we block none of the light living energy that is flowing into our Inka Seed and we also block none of the light living energy emerging from our Inka Seed. The flow of sami is both into us and out from us to the world and our fellow human beings. We seek to allow ourselves the full measure of sami so that we can express our kanay—who we really are.

Until we express the fullness of our Inka Seed, we are functioning as a reduced or partial version of ourselves. This is what karpay means. While this word can be translated as “initiation,” it more accurately means how much personal power we have available to use at any given moment. Personal power is comprised of our yachay, munay, and llank’ay and the quality of each of these three core human capacities. Stepping up the qanchispatañan means we have more of our capacities available for our use and that each of these capacities is more highly developed or refined. So, to summarize this point, another way to understand the qanchispatañan is that our place on it reveals the measure of our power, or karpay. With each step up, we have accumulated more personal power; we have increased our karpay. We have done so because we are living more from our Inka Seed. Our increased personal capacity means we can be in ayni—making conscious interchanges with the living universe, spirit beings, and our fellow human beings—more effortlessly and with greater efficacy.

If we reach our full karpay, this means we have ascended to the sixth level of the qanchispatañan: we will be perfectly expressing both our human nature and our God nature. We will be “enlightened” human beings. But we still will retain our unique expression of Self, our unique expression as a Drop of the Mystery. We would each be an individual expression of the enlightened state. Buddha and Jesus were both considered enlightened human beings—they had fully developed Inka Seeds—but they were decidedly different manifestations of the enlightenment state, and there is no mistaking one for the other.

Thus, it is not too grandiose to say that we each are a unique expression of Creation. In Islam, Iman Ali was credited with saying, “Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form / When within thee the universe is folded?” As don Juan has said, if we are not living our kanay—if we are not each individually expressing who we really are—than we are leaving our part of Creation unrealized. The metaphor I use is that we each are a thread in the tapestry of Creation, and if we are not fulfilling our individual expressions of our Inka Seed, then we are leaving holes in the fabric of the Whole.

How can we think of the Inka Seed—this tiny energetic structure—as being of such enormous importance, of containing within it such enormous potential? To answer this question, I make the comparison to DNA. DNA is a tiny energetic structure that is a huge information field. It encodes within an infinitesimal physical container the mind-boggling complexity and grandeur of the human body and psyche. In the same way, the Inka Seed is a tiny energetic structure that encodes the astounding beauty and power of the physical and metaphysical expression of ourselves.

I will conclude Part I of this discussion by reminding you of two core metaphors of the Andean tradition—wachu and phutuy. In the Andean tradition there is the concept of the kawsay wachu, which can be translated as “field of living energy.” A wachu is a furrow in a field in which seeds are planted. For those of us using the techniques of the tradition to develop ourselves and climb the qanchispatañan, the metaphor shows how we each are a seed (Inka Seed) planted in the metaphysical field of living energy and in the material realm of Pachamama. Our impulse, just like the impulse of all living things in nature, is for phutuy—for life, for growth, and literally in this metaphor for “flowering.” We are seeking to germinate our Inka Seed and grow to our full potential. The living universe provides the sami—the nectar or water—that feeds our Inka Seed through the pukyu so that it can flourish: so that it can germinate, grow, and blossom to reveal each of us in all our glory.

How do we engage with our Inka Seed and stimulate our growth? That will be the topic of Part 2 of this discussion, which will be posted next month. Here, I leave you with a question from “The Summer Day,” a poem by Mary Oliver, that brings together the points made in this post and provides a teaser for what will come in next month’s post: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”