Note: To work with the chunpis and ñawis, you have to have undergone the Chunpi Away and Ñawi K’ichay karpay.)

The light within. The light of the self. The lamp of the soul. The metaphors of self-realization are predominantly ones of light. In the Andes, there is a concept of the Black Sun within that also is about self-realization, as related to a concept called kanay. Kanay is not an easy term to define and much of the explication I am about to offer is my own, not based directly on the tradition of the lineage of paqos whose teachings I follow. However, it is infused with the spirit of their teachings.

Kanay means to know who you truly are and then to have the personal power to live as who you truly are. As you know by now, if you have been reading the posts on this website, “being who you really are” is a primary goal of an Andean paqo. But kanay is a fairly ambiguous concept, so let’s explore its meanings by roaming through the terrain of the Andean tradition.

We start  by situating ourselves in the landscape of the energy body (the poq’po), and specifically at the qori chunpi, which is the gold belt at the chest. The eye of this belt, the sonqo ñawi, literally means the “eye of the heart.” This belt is associated with munay, which is love grounded in will, and with kanay, the impulse to know and live as the highest expression of your true human self. The chest area is also the location of your Inka Seed, the energetic “seed” of the divine self that encodes your potential—all that you can be in the fullness of your humanness.

Literally, the Quechua word “kanay” means something like “to suffer intense heat.” That’s rather an odd concept to try to relate to the Inka Seed and heart. But it makes sense if we link it to other teachings indirectly related to the heart.

There is a phrase from the mystical tradition of the Andes—Noccan Kani—that means “I am.” The Noccan Kani—the great “I am” declaration of the self—is visualized as the Black Sun within. It shines its intense light from our hearts.

The black sun that lives within your heart is the light of the cosmic within you. It is your original light. It is your link to Yahweh (YHVH), to use the ancient Hebrew name for God. Leaving aside any religious affiliations, you are a drop of the Mystery—a drop of God that has taken human form. That is who you really are—and it is part of your work as a paqo to cleanse your bubble to help you evolve to the seventh level of consciousness. The seventh level of human consciousness is ineffable. The paqos provide no description beyond the explanation that it is somehow the fully realized consciousness of God in human beings in the material world.

Knowing that this drop of the Godhood exists within in you as your Inka Seed and is also conceptualized in some parts of the Andes as a Black Sun helps you to understand kanay. Achieving kanay is to suffer (in the mystical and religious sense of ecstasy and awe) the intense power (metaphorically, as heat) of this integration of the divine and the human. In addition to other things, a seed needs light to grow. Your Inka Seed is germinated and nurtured by your inner light, and its growth is commensurate with the increasing light of your ever-evolving consciousness.

But why a black sun? That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?

Not if you remember that in the Andean mystical tradition the highest energy vibration is willka, the black light. Willka is considered to be the most difficult energy to master.

If you do the chaupi training of don Andres Espinosa, as offered by Juan Nunez del Prado, his son Ivan, or me and other teachers who have been trained by Juan and Ivan, you will know that willka energy is present in the natural world, but there also is a way to create this energy yourself. It manifests through the melding of the sami of the universe with the sami of the earth within the human body.

In the Chunpi Away, the karpay to weave the chunpis, you pull two cords of cosmic energy into your poq’po—a gold one and a silver one. You move them from the top of your head to the base of your spine.  Then you pull a cord of green energy from Mother Earth up into your poq’po at the tailbone through the eye of the lower belt, the siki ñawi, and pull it up your spine.  You then merge the gold, silver, and green cords to create a single cord of black energy. This is the willka energy. You created it by integrating specific cosmic and earth vibrations in the interior of your poq’po and physical body.

The black sun within is this willka energy at the heart center. Just as your Inka Seed encodes the divine within the human, and just as the merger of certain cosmic and earth energies form willka along the spine, the black sun represent the integration of cosmic and earth energies within the human being at the level of munay, which lives in the heart center.

Kanay, then, can be understood as achieving the japu of two yanantin energies within the heart. Yanantin refers to dissimilar energies. In this case the energy of the cosmic self and the energy of the human self. A japu is the perfect integration of dissimilar energies. When you work at the qori chunpi to engage the spirit and energy of kanay, you are, in effect, stoking the fire within so that you can one day realize the ecstatic yet fully conscious integration of your divinity with your humanness. This new cosmic-terrestrial self is who you really are. And kanay is not only knowing that True Self, but having the personal power to be it and live it.

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.

—Farrah Gray, Businessman and Motivational Speaker

In my last post I talked about money and spirituality. In this post, let’s examined discovering the work and service that aligns with your soul.

Your soul’s mission is encoded within you. According the Andean tradition, we each are a drop of the Mystery, and when we are pulled into the physical body through that alchemical process called “life” we come to Earth with an Inka Seed buried deep in the energetic soil of the self. The Inka Seed encodes your potential—your unique combination of capacities, gifts, talents, and predispositions. It is you as “Inka”—in the Andes, the Inka was the ruler, the one who glows—in that it is the repository of your enlightened self.  You already have a soul  mission—to “grow” this Inka Seed, which means to live by expressing its gifts as an evolving human being on the Earth plane in a relationship of service to both yourself and others.

The Inka Seed is your divinity—your connection to the Godhead. As such, it is perfect. It contains no hucha, so you don’t have to cleanse it to access its wisdom. You simply need to become more conscious, although to do that it helps to cleanse your overall energy body (poq’po) so that you are qawaq, one who can “see” reality as it really is with perfect clarity.

Seeing yourself with clarity, of course, is a priority in all aspects of life. It starts with knowing that you are the center of the universe, because you can only know the universe through your senses and energy perceptions. Therefore, you are your first priority! As Jesus said, Love others as you love yourself. You have to know and love yourself before you can truly know and love others. So you are your most important project!

There are myriad ways to know yourself: emotional self-inquiry through psychology, body-oriented self-realization through practices such as yoga or qigong, spiritual self-realization through practices such as meditation and prayer. The Andean path focuses on intense energy cleansing to improve your awareness and well-being. We work the “three human powers” equally. They are yachay (intellect and reason), llank’ay (action, work), and munay (love grounded in will and choice). So by following the practices—saminchakuy, sawaichakuy, weaving the chunpis, opening the ñawis, working with the eight helper spirits, accessing the teqse paqos, and such you increase your capacity for clear-seeing, especially of the self.

What does this have to do with finding joyous work? Everything! The more you know yourself, the better you express yourself. Knowledge may be power, but energetic self-realization is supremely empowering!

You can take all kinds of skill tests and do all kinds of exploratory exercises to discover your personal strengths, you can talk to counselors for hours, you can go to job fairs and find mentors and on and on, but if you are not delving deep within at an energetic level, you might miss the “truth” of who you really are and, thus, what you uniquely are here to do.

I know that is a rather ambiguous answer. It’s not easy to “know thyself.” But, really, how can you do what you love if you don’t know who you really are?

To follow your bliss out in the world you have to first explore the territory within—to touch the bliss of the self. According to the Andean tradition, you don’t have to discover your dream job, you only have to discover your divine self. You do that through growing and fertilizing your Inka Seed. And the entire work of the tradition is directed toward that goal. When you increase your qawaq abilities, you see yourself and the world with clarity—as it really is—with less of the muddiness of projections, ego-based desire, unconscious attachments, false expectations, and such. As your light (sami) increases, you reflect yourself more purely and brilliantly. Everything in your life changes!

I can attest to the changes that happen. My own life is testament to the transformative effects of doing the Andean energy practices. In myself and others, I find that as we become energetically empowered and develop greater qawaq capacities—as we evolve the self—there are three common consequences:

1. A change in the core relationships in your life.
2. A move geographically.
3. A job change or shift into a new profession or way of serving.

These changes happen naturally as a result of conscious evolution. You don’t have to figure anything out. Instead, you heed the call of the divine self encoded in the Inka Seed. You know. You act. You reap the benefits. And so does the world at large, because when you are aligned with your soul the reverberations are felt cosmically.

So, if you are not happy with what you are doing, take that energetic and psychological unrest as evidence that your Inka Seed is stirring within. It is calling to you to grow your soul self. At the very least, do saminchakuy every day. Be clear in your intention to live as your enlightened self, because according to the Andean cosmovision energy must follow intention. It cannot do otherwise. In addition, because of the law of ayni, the kawsay pacha—the living cosmos—will send energy to you, which can take many forms. You might meet a person, receive an offer, hear about an opportunity that will transform your life. The circumstances for change are endless, and the kawsay pacha is infinitely creative. Because of anyi, you have to both direct your intentions and also listen and watch for the clues from the universe. Those cosmic messages might be in direct contradiction to your current intentions. Or they might be so surprising and even crazy that you hesitate or even reject them. You do so at your own peril. (For a great example of this ayni exchange, see Michael Singer’s book The Surrender Experiment. You can read more about it in my post “Waltzing with the Universe.”)

In my experience, the Andean energy practices are the most efficient way to consciously evolve.  So my question to you is this: Why waste another day or minute ignoring your unrest and unhappiness? Begin cleansing this hucha and increasing your sami right now! Sami is the food of the Inka Seed. You just might be surprised how quickly and vigorously that seed grows a totally new life for you.

If there is one persistent belief in the metaphysical community, it is that money is not compatible with spiritual pursuits. From an energetic perspective, nothing could be more untrue. Material wealth or possessions may be way down your list of priorities within your ethical belief system, but there is nothing unspiritual about material bounty from an energetic perspective.

We can all agree that money is an energy, just as everything is. But if you have any conscious or unconscious limiting beliefs, it’s worth your while to take a look within to see if you are confusing your ethical beliefs with your spiritual beliefs or beliefs about energy. You can be a mega millionaire and a fantastic paqo with no contradiction! In fact, your goal as a paqo is to grow in all ways—material, spiritual, energetic.

You might think that in the Andean tradition the exchange of money for services, goods, or work is ayni, or reciprocity.

It’s not!

It’s ch’allay. And it pays to know the difference between ayni and ch’allay (pun intended!).

• Ayni is a selfless exchange, such as helping a friend in need or offering a prayer. Ch’allay is a self-directed and self-interested exchange, such as making a purchase in a store or trading a massage for a bag of fresh produce from a neighbor’s garden or a monetary payment.
• Ayni is “spiritual” reciprocity that extends beyond the immediate return, although by definition it guarantees a return, so you often receive in greater measure than you gave. Ch’allay is a mundane, mercantile exchange. A shop owner marks a book for sale for $19.95, and that’s what you pay.
• Ayni in its fundamental spirit, as the evolutionary force of the natural world and the energetic law of the cosmos, includes the material world and extends beyond it. No matter how small the act of ayni, it is cosmic in its reverberations. Ch’allay is rooted in the material world, limited in its effects to the people involved in the exchange.

The point is that the service you offer, whether in a healing clinic or a boutique, is offered for the exchange medium of the marketplace, which in our society is money. It’s a ch’allay exchange. As a human being with human needs—food, shelter, clothing, etc.—you need money to survive. You may have a family to support, and you certainly want to take good care of them. You also may want to create such abundance that you can freely assist others, support worthy causes, and have the leisure to enjoy life in all its wonders.

While the trade of goods and services for money is ch’allay, that monetary payment is not all that is involved in such an exchange. There is also the spirit in which you offer your goods or service—fairness, kindness, good value, caring and compassion, etc. That spirit has its own energetic value, separate from the material value. It is an energetic exchange beyond yourself and your material needs, so it is ayni. In this way, you can see how ayni and ch’allay are correlated—the actual goods or services and the spirit by which you offer your goods or services go hand in hand.

There is absolutely no shame in making a living from your gifts—and not just an adequate living but a phenomenal one. According to the Andean tradition, the cosmos of living energy—the kawsay pacha—is overly abundant. There is more than enough for everyone. You can take whatever you want and it is given freely according to your personal power, which is your energetic ability to push the kawsay to follow your intentions. The fact that you take a lot does not ever mean that someone else has to get less. That is a falsehood perpetuated by scarcity thinkers. Energy is just energy. It has no moral overlay. Your ethical and moral system guide you in choosing what you desire and how much you want to manifest. But make no mistake about it—energetically you can have as much as want.

So, strive for and expect success at both levels of being—material and energetic. It is up to you both to value yourself enough to prosper bountifully in the material plane and to consciously evolve as a human being to increase beauty and joy in the immaterial plane.

“You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7 X 10^18 joules of potential energy—enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.”
―Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

How’s that quotation for a statement of your energy potential! You have the force of 30 hydrogen bombs within! Bryson is talking about the energy contained within your physical body. When you add in your poq’po, your potential energy is unlimited.  In the Andean mystical tradition, you learn how to both liberate and harness your “personal power,” but Bryson’s question remains: What “point” do you wish to make through your energy exchanges?

In other words, Why are you a paqo?

Have you ever asked yourself this question, never mind definitively answered it?  I mean, what’s the point of choosing to practice this tradition if you have not ever wondered, “Why this and not that?”

Without at least meditating upon this question, you are likely following a whim, because there can be no commitment to that which you don’t consciously choose. Practicing as a paqo presupposes not only having a commitment but also following through on it.

It’s perfectly okay if you are exploring the mystical terrain. A little Andean romp today, a foray into Buddhism tomorrow, a detour into Celtic magic next week. Roaming the inner landscape without a map or destination can be fun, and occasionally it’s even useful. It’s perfectly desirable to satisfy your spiritual and metaphysical curiosity. But making a commitment is making a point. You expect a result. And you undertake that practice to benefit from that result.

So what’s the point of your Andean practice?

If you don’t have one, you might want to spend some time deciding upon one. Or two or three. . . .

If I had to declare one overall goal of the tradition, I would say it is:

• Perceiving, experiencing, and become a master of your energy body so that you can direct your intentions to drive energy consciously and with predictable outcomes.

Encapsulated in this thematic statement are all the subgoals of the tradition:

• Learning ayni (reciprocity), which is the organizing force of the universe.
• Consciously evolving to become a more fully realized (enlightened) human being.
• Fostering well-being in your own life and in the lives of others. Living with greater joy, health, creativity, awareness and whatever else you deem necessary to your well-being.

If we reduce each of these statements down to a single word, it would be ayni. Ayni is the “golden rule” of the universe and, thus, of human life. Don Benito Qoriwaman said that we don’t have to wonder what Christ will say to us when he returns in the Second Coming. We know what he will say because the metaphysical God has always given humankind the same message no matter what guise he takes when he makes a physical appearance in our world. That message is ayninaquichis, or “Practice ayni.” Making ayni is not only a results-driven materialistic undertaking, but a spiritual pursuit and an energetic practice.

Ayni is an energy exchange. Energy is driven by intention. So we come full circle back to the question of what “point” you want to make in your practice—of the Andean tradition or any other mystical or spiritual tradition. I can’t answer that question for you, but I do urge you to spend some time thinking about it. Here are some questions to help you drill down to your underlying desires:

• Why did you choose the Andean tradition over other traditions?
• How committed are you to the practices of this path?
• What results do you expect from your practice? Your intentions drive energy, so examine if your intentions are coming to fruition.
• Are you experiencing those results? If not, why not?
• What in yourself and your life is still “heavy?”
• If there is hucha (heaviness) in yourself or your life, where is it coming from? What are you doing about it?
• What in yourself or your life is “light”?
• If there is sami (lightness) in your life, where is it coming from? What are you doing to maintain or increase it? Where else do you want to bring that light?
• What about the tradition or its practices don’t you understand? Where can you find answers to your questions? Do you trust the answers?
• What are the most compatible (masintin) relationships and energy flows in your life?
• What are the most incompatible (yanantin) relationships and energy flows in your life?
• Is there hucha around the yanantin relationships and energy flows? If so, what can you do to get that stuck energy going again? Do you know the practices that can help?
• How are you consciously evolving? If you track the evolution of the self, what are the most significant changes you have experienced? What within you or your life is not evolving? Do you know what to do to re-energetize your inner evolutionary process?
• Do you have an ayllu (community) to share your practice with? If not, how can you create one?

These are only a few of the many questions you can ask yourself about the “point” of your practice. At the launch of this new year, I invite you to do some internal housekeeping about your Andean practice and your life in general. The benefits can be enormous not only for you, but, since we are all connected energetically, for your family, community and the world as well.

(Note: To work with the chunpis and ñawis, you have to have undergone the Chunpi Away and Ñawi K’ichay karpay.)

In the Andean tradition, intention drives energy and words have power. Rimay is the energetic capacity that sits at the throat center—the kunka chunpi—and that infuses your words with power. It is “right speech” in the sense that you speak with truth, clarity, and integrity. But it is more than that, too. Rimay is a vibration that can affect the material world.

When you are using your capacity for rimay, you are speaking from personal experience and knowledge, not from second-hand experience or knowledge (called willay). You speak what you know, you express your true nature, you articulate lucidly and precisely. Rimay is not about being polite, socially or politically correct, or overly positive  and inspirational. It is about personal power and energetic integrity. Rimay is an energy that perfectly expresses verbally who you truly are, moment by moment, no matter what the situation or what you are feeling.

Your words have more power when your intentions are clear. If you know who you are and what you believe, then your intentions and spoken words are in alignment. There is little room for ambiguity or misunderstanding.

And, since words have power, rimay can also mean knowing what not to say or when not to speak. Holding your tongue can be an art!

If you have a lot of hucha at the kunka chunpi, your words will not have power. Or they will have a power in opposition to your intent. To discern your own capacity for rimay, pay attention not only to your thoughts but to what comes out of your mouth. Do you tend to be pessimistic? Negative? Judgmental? If that is the vibration you are sending out into the world—if that is the way you are pushing the kawsay through speech—then that is the world you will experience. It is the law of ayni, or reciprocity.

So, pay attention to your verbal tendencies. Do you find yourself saying, “I can’t. . .,” “That won’t work. . .,” “It will never happen. . .,” “I’ll never. . .,” and other self-defeating statements? If so, then you know that you have hucha accumulated in your poq’po, and probably a lot of it at your throat center.

Andean paqo Fredy “Puma” Quispe Singona once told me “Words are beings. Be careful who you are calling to sit in council with you.” Those are wise words. Are you calling in the beings of “No,” “Can’t,” “Won’t,” and other potentially defeatist beings?  If so, begin a deep saminchakuy of your poq’po, working especially thoroughly at your kunka chunpi and its mystical “eye,” the qolqe ñawi.

Rimay is not false speech, so it is not about being falsely positive. If you feel down, blue, discouraged, disappointed, angry, it’s in your energetic truth and integrity to express those feelings (without dumping them on others). You have to be who you truly are in the moment, and occasionally that will be someone who is impatient, hurt, troubled. The key here is to be “in the moment.” To get the energy out of you in a timely way so it doesn’t become stuck and create hucha. The problems arise when self-defeating words become a habitual pattern. You can quickly become blind to your habits and, as a result, lose your qawaq ability—the capacity to see yourself and reality as it really is. When that happens, you get stuck in a rut, lose coherence in your energy body, and accumulate hucha.

When you cleanse your poq’po and especially your kunka chunpi, speech and verbalization can be infused with almost miraculous power. Juan Nuñez del Prado tells of walking in the marketplace with one of his teachers, don Melchor Desa, who was carrying a package of goods he had purchased. A thief bumped into him, grabbed his package, and ran off. Don Melchor stopped and directed his voice toward the fleeing man, blasting a sound toward him. The thief stopped, frozen in place. Don Melchor walked up to him, took his package back, and then touched the thief on the shoulder. He immediately become reanimated and ran off. This is an example of a master of rimay!

If you have spent any time exploring shamanic and mystical traditions, you have heard a thousand times that words are sacred or that words have power. Too often these sentiments are put into practice through affirmations or incantations, as if it is the words themselves that carry the power. They don’t. It is your energy that empowers the words. Words are one of the vibrational materializations of your energetic self. They can only carry the power that you have to give them. If you have accumulated a lot of hucha in your poq’po and especially at your kunka chunpi, you can say affirmations until the cows come home but they will have only a weak or negligible effect on your life. Pay attention to the state of your energy body, and then as one part of your work see how that condition effects your capacity for rimay. As always, if you don’t like what you find, cleanse, cleanse, cleanse. Saminchakuy is always your go-to practice.