In their conception of an immaterial energetic cosmos that has no beginning, is without end, and underlies All that Is, the Andeans join the great philosophers of history. Let’s look (in grossly simplified terms) at what a few of those philosophers have to say so that we can see how the Andeans sit alongside these giants of thought.

The word ylem, from the ancient Greek, refers to the primordial, foundational “substance” (although it is immaterial) of the cosmos, before the cosmos took actual form. Most philosophical traditions that concern themselves with the origin of the cosmos have concepts similar to that of ylem.

The Greek Anaximander posited that the universe arose from a “substance” he called Aperion, which was limitless, unknowable, and unobservable.  The Aperion, which can be translated to mean “the boundless” or “the indefinite,” is not itself material but from it all matter arose. Part of the Milesian school of philosophy, Anaximander and his cohorts surmised that the primary underlying energy of the cosmos was simply the “Source,” also called Arche. From this Source, all things come and all things return. As such, he has a notion of space and time that is subsumed within the immaterial infinite.

Another pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus, saw the universe as “power” or “force,” a moving energy that he metaphorically associated with both fire and water. He ascribed to this energy a “logos,” or a rational structuring principle that controlled, arranged, and ordered the cosmos. He was a major proponent of the ontological philosophy of “becoming,” believing that while the Whole is ordered, beneath it everything is always changing, moving, in flux and flow. In this sense, he, like Anaximander, saw “becoming” as arising in relation to space and time. He also articulated a law of transformation, which some misunderstand as a law of opposites, by which things flow from one state—for example, hot—to their counterpoint—cold. Unlike Anaximander, Heraclitus believed in a creator.

The Eleatics, a school of philosophy founded by Parmenides, based their purely ontological philosophy on the notion that Being is the only reality. According to this school of thought, the foundation of the universe is “the One,” which in its fullness is unchanging and immutable. All change is illusion. This philosophy shares similarities with some Eastern concepts, so let’s  switch from the Western view to briefly take a look at Eastern ones.

We start by going to the Hindu Rig Veda, which says that the nature of the cosmos is neither Being nor Non-being. The primordial substance is either unknowable (beyond even our ability to grasp) or is pure consciousness. Switching to the Vedic philosophy of the Upanisads, ultimate reality is beyond perception; it permeates all things but is not those things. This ultimate reality cannot be touched, seen, or otherwise grasped through physical perception, but can, nonetheless, be experienced.

In Daoism, a Chinese philosophy, the Wu is cosmic non-being, seen as the matrix from which everything arises while being beyond any conception of “thingness” itself. In one of its many senses, the Wu cannot be separated from nature, because it is a metaphysical or transcendent “first principle” that cannot be separated from that which arises from it. This immanent creative force both underlies and infuses nature. It also is always changing, giving rise to the concept of yin-yang. Yin-yang is the polarity aspect of nature and being, where things are inseparable but complementary in their relation to each other, such as the polarity of male-female and light-dark. Bringing balance to the two poles creates harmony.

There are many other philosophical traditions we could look at, but this brief glance at a few prominent ones allows us to see that the Andean cosmovision deserves to take a seat at the philosophical table. Here’s the Andean view in brief, which can see even from this broad overview holds its own alongside some of the most esteemed philosophies of the world.

In the Andean view, which aligns philosophically with some of the Greek views, the universe is immaterial, comprised of  animating energy, and called the kawsay pacha. It is the primordial “living” energy from which all matter arises. It is First Cause, the immaterial and infinite moving energy and the energizing principle that fuels creation and evolution. From it arose all matter—called the Pachamama, which is the entire material universe, including space and time. In fact, the word pacha means both space and time, as inseparable aspects of the one Pachamama. Like Heraclitus, Andeans believe that there is a creator, one of whose names is Wiraqocha, which means something like “foam of the sea,” the sea perhaps being the vast expanse of the flowing energy of the cosmos.  Kawsay, as this living energy, is beyond human moral overlay. There is not good or evil energy, not angelic or demonic energy. Energy is just energy.

Unlike some of the philosophers mentioned above, Andeans would not say that change is an illusion, but they would agree with other Greek thinkers that the primordial nature of energy/kawsay is to move. It’s nature is to move unimpeded in the boundless expanse. Therefore, Andeans also share a notion of “becoming,” which they call ayni. Ayni is energetic reciprocity between everything in the material universe and the immutable living energy of the kawsay pacha. Ayni is a driving force for evolution, as evidenced through the ceaseless change and flux of the Pachamama (material universe). In the Andean concept of aynillan kawsaypas, which is related to ayni, “beingness” (life) is subject to a natural cycle: all things come from the kawsay pacha and all things will return to it. We did nothing to deserve our lives. They are gifts from the kawsay pacha. Part of our goal here in human form is to consciously evolve from undeveloped human beings (at birth) to fully realized human beings, and then at our physical death to return to the kawsay pacha with a greater fullness of being.

Andeans would agree somewhat with the yin-yang aspect of Chinese philosophy or Heraclitus’s concept of transformational opposites. In the Andean conception of energy there are really only four core energy dynamics, and they are pairs of polarities: light/refined energy and heavy energy (although lightness and heaviness run along a spectrum) and compatible and incompatible energy (in relation to your own energy body, the poq’po). Awareness of these flows helps us to manage them and, thus, to avoid creating hucha (heavy energy) and to increase our sami (refined or “light” energy).

Like the philosophy preserved in the Upanishads, Andean would say that while ultimate reality cannot be known while we are in human form, it can be experienced. In a slight amendment of the Hindu view, Andean paqos would say that the energy of the universe (kawsay), while immaterial in its origin, can be perceived in its flow through the Pachamama (material world). In fact, a paqo’s training is mostly about learning to perceive kawsay, and to move it and tune it.

As you can see from only this brief description, Andean cosmology is developed to a level equivalent to that held by of some of the greatest philosophers. When you learn the Andean cosmology through a deep dive, rather than this quick overview, you will feel as if you have received a PhD in energy dynamics! So, when you are practicing the Andean energy techniques and improving your capacities as a paqo, know that you are putting into living practice ideas that stand on their own merit alongside the ideas of some of history’s deepest thinkers.

Last two pictures are by Lisa McClendon Sims, copyright 2016.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel and, in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.
—Jim Morrison, The Doors

In my previous post I talked about how a paqo can approach the current political environment from the fourth-level. In this post, I want to talk about one of the ways that we can continue to evolve to reach the fourth level. Our voices might unite to

I recently gave a talk on the power of our stories, because getting to the bottom of your stories is one way to deepen your knowledge of “who you really are.” As Jim Morrison says, the revolution starts inside. It is individual before it is collective. The Andean mystical system says the same thing. One of our main goals is to know “who we really are” and to have the “personal power” to live as who we really are. So if we want to help foster positive change in our political situation—or in any other situation—we would do well to take a self-inventory of our own inner “stories” before, or at the same time, that we are marshalling energies to change our outer world. Doing so is a fourth-level way to shift the energy both inside and outside the self or our national story.

At tax time you take an inventory of your financial situation. For a job interview you take inventory of your career. But how often have you stopped and done a thorough self-inventory of your stories? If you haven’t, then there is a good chance you don’t know who you really are.

We all have stories, multiple stories. We are experts at telling our stories and at knowing which story slots into which area of our lives. For example, you have one story about who you are when you are at a job interview, another when you are stepping out to a nightclub, another when you are sitting with a group of other parents as you watch the kids play, and so on. You are quite literally a different person depending on the situation you find yourself in. That’s not to say that you don’t have a stable core personality, belief system, point of view, and so on. You do. But you parse the facts of that inner landscape and, just like a novelist, play up one aspect of the self at the expense of another depending on the needs of the present moment. Your career path highlights different facets of the self than does your dating style than does behavior at a family reunion. So one way to take a self-inventory is to examine the stories you tell about yourself, where and when you tell which story, and how stories shift according to your emotional state.

The reality is that you are not the sole author of your stories. Three aspects of the self start writing your story shortly after your birth, and your story is pretty much stabilized by the time you are ready for elementary school.

Psychology outlines a fairly universal path of human development, and it starts just after birth with the development of the id, the first author of your story. The id is a largely unconscious aspect of our mind that is concerned with life and death. It’s the way an infant gets its needs for food, warmth, safety, nurturing, and love. So the id is about me, me, me, and now, now, now, and pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. The id tends to be illogical, unreasonable, self-indulgent, fantasy-prone, and even chaotic and irrational. Still, the id is crucial to your survival when you are an infant, and you don’t grow out of your id—you just learn to, more or less, control it. It is a core part of your unconscious mind, and in later life turns its survival focus to sex, aggression/protection against threats, and such, even as the infantile imprints remain.

The id is what says to you, “You have been dieting for three weeks. Go ahead, treat yourself to that chocolate cake. It won’t hurt to have one piece.” The id is what says, “Gosh, I have been working so hard. I am going to tie one on tonight!” The id is what says, “I love those shoes, and they’re on sale! Another $50 of my credit card is not going to break the bank. Those shoes are mine!” The id inserts itself in your life in all kinds of ways, and it pays to look for its voice in your stories. The id tends to surprise you, even ambush you. It’s what we tend to call “losing self-control.” The id is a great companion when you really do need to cut loose and lighten up, stop being so serious or overloaded, and need to take a break. Pleasure is fine. Self-indulgence within limits is healthy. But if your id has taken over the writing of any portion of your story, it’s worth a look at why, how, where, and when so that you can bring yourself back into balance.

As you grow past infancy, you start to learn autonomy, and one of the first challenges is how to negotiate the often wide divide between self and others. Your story begins to be modified by your environment—your physical environment and your relational one with parents, caregivers, siblings, playmates, and others. As the outer world presses in, you begin to develop an ego. Your ego helps you make sense of the world and others, helps you negotiate the world and relationships, and helps you learn the rules, mores, and norms of that world. The ego helps to keep your id in check, so that you learn some measure of balance, the value and even necessity of delayed gratification, the consequences of selfishness, and so on.

The ego is both conscious in that it is designed to help you learn to think things through, understand cause and effect, and develop plans and strategies; but it also has an unconscious part to it. When you run into trouble with the world and relationships, there are going to be parts of yourself that you reject, deny, and even repress. These aspects of the self—that you learn or believe are not acceptable to the world or others—get stuffed down into the “shadow self.” They are alive and well there, below the threshold of consciousness. Part of the path of self-actualization is to return these denied aspects of the self to the light of awareness, acceptance, or understanding. The methods of doing that are too complex and numerous to discuss here, but they include identifying your emotional triggers, taking back your projections, probing for the emotions and wounds fueling the story, and gaining access to as yet unexpressed gifts and talents. The ego and the shadow are the main author of our stories, so it’s almost impossible to write the story of “who you really are” without doing shadow work.

Between the ages of three and five, you are also developing a superego, which has two parts to it: the conscience and the ideal self. Your conscience is what keeps you in line with your own expectations and those of others, your culture, your religion, and other influences. It expects you to be the good boy or girl. The good student. The gifted athlete. The kind daughter or son. The loyal friend. When you fall short of those expectations, you feel “less than.” You may feel that you are a failure, stupid, lazy, guilty, shameful, and so on depending on the situation and expectation. Bottom line is that you feel you have let yourself or others down. Your conscience also stirs you toward living up to the concept of your ideal self: toward expressing compassion, empathy, good deeds, etc. Your ideal self is just what it says it is: the “perfect” you. Your belief about what constitutes perfection is heavily influenced by your families, friends, culture, mass media, religion, and so on.

Even though realistically you can never live up to your ideal of perfection, you waste a lot of psychic energy trying to. And as you fall short, your superego can judge you harshly: you’re not pretty enough, thin enough, rich enough, thoughtful enough, talented enough, etc. Or, to put it more harshly, your superego tells you that you are ugly, fat, poor, self-centered, stupid, a loser.

You can see why it is important to probe into our stories to discover how our ego and superego are helping our id to write those narratives. It’s only when we learn to integrate all aspects of our psychology (move toward greater self-actualization) that we can be more of “who we truly are.” Until we get there, we are a hodgepodge of fictions with a little non-fiction thrown in for good measure.

One of the primary fictions is that your stories are all your own. They are not! For instance, many of your core beliefs about yourself and the world are projected onto you, and you accept those projections. Who you are as a child may be the figment of others’ imaginations! As a child, your parents projecting their own beliefs, judgments, and stories onto you, and you take all of that on as if it were really who you are. Maybe you were labeled the quiet one, or rebellious one, or smart one, or athletic one, or stupid one, or mouthy one, or kind one. Chances are that the way your parents saw you is the way you see yourself at the unconscious shadow level, and those beliefs rear their unruly heads in your adult stories, no matter who much you try to edit them out or revise them.

I have barely scratched the surface of what it means to examine our stories in an effort to take a self-inventory. But doing so is a giant step in managing a successful “self-revolution” that can help each of us climb the stairway of consciousness evolution and make a more positive impact in the world. We certainly can work toward change in the world, but we have to concurrently  delve deep into ourselves. As Vedic wisdom tells us, “You are not in the world. The world is in you.” And part of that world inside of yourself are the stories you tell to yourself and about yourself. It is liberating to stop, breathe into them, and see if they are really true for you now, as an adult and as a paqo.

As I travel around the country teaching, I hear over and over how angry, worried, upset, even sick to their stomachs people are with President Trump and his administration and how much fear they feel imagining what the next four years holds for our country.

I say, take a deep breath. Calm down. Let’s look at the situation from the perspective of a paqo.

Let me say upfront that I did not vote for Trump, and I don’t support most of his platform or approve of many of the people he has surrounded himself with in his staff or Cabinet. But from a perspective larger than that of his personality and his administration’s policy, I am rather upbeat about what his election means for our country.

It’s out with the old and in with the new. A renewed activism on the part of the people—and let’s admit it, for the past few decades most of us have been missing in action on the political front. A renewed time of caring what happens in politics—at the local, state and national levels—instead of apathy or the “let someone else take care it” or “there’s nothing I can do” attitude many of us have shared. A renewed time of self-reflection to determine personal opinions, beliefs, and boundaries. A renewed sense of civic duty and purpose. A renewed demand that our elected officials have to give up partisan power plays for a return to good old-fashioned statesmanship.

The times, they are a’changing. . . And Trump is the alarm clock that has rudely awakened many of us from our peaceful and rather oblivious slumber—perhaps just in time!

If collectively we are individually and collectively awakening to a renewed sense of civic duty, we had better pay attention to how we wield our power. I propose that it’s never been so important to integrate our political beliefs, words, thoughts, actions and emotions with our Andean work as paqos. Here’s why:

The Tariypay Pacha

According to Andean prophecy, we are living in the midst of a cosmic transmutation, a period during which we can individually—and collectively—consciously evolve. But a chick isn’t born without cracking its eggshell; a snake doesn’t grow without shedding its skin, and a butterfly doesn’t exist unless a caterpillar first unmakes itself. In other words, change isn’t easy. And during change, there can be a messy transition as the old morphs into the new.

So, if as paqos we strive to “see reality as it really is,” we have to start by perceiving that we are in the midst of potentially messy change. We need not resist this change, but see it for what it is—an opportunity to remake ourselves. We are at the cusp of—or, rather, in the midst of—an opportunity for significant conscious evolution, with a stress on the word conscious.

The Quechua noun and adjective hamutaq applies here. It means to be a thinker, one who can reason and reflect. For me it means we would be smart to apply our reason to what’s happening around us, but not to forget to reflect on ourselves.

I remember something author and change agent Marianne Williamson said: You can’t march for peace if you have war in your heart. When I see people at all these town hall meetings with their elected officials roiling over with anger, shouting, and fist-waving, I think of her words. I also think of something Wayne Dyer said: “When you squeeze an orange, what do you get?” Orange juice, of course. Exactly what you would expect. In other words, the quality of your “beingness” is commensurate with the effect you can have in the world.

So a potentially insightful question to ask yourself is, “What do you get when Trump squeezes you?” Anger so rampant that reason can’t gain a toehold? Worry so deep that hope or optimism is flagging? Hatred or rejection of Trump and others that exactly mirrors (when stripped of your self-righteousness) what you perceive to be their problem? Activism so strident that it becomes an excuse for acting out rather than reaching out?

You certainly can have an opinion. But you have to take responsibility for how you express it. Are your actions and words adding hucha to the situation? How can you redirect your passion so that you increase sami? The answers to those questions really start with your state of mind and energy. So practice hamutaq to shift your inner world and more positively help change the outer world.

The Individual and Collective Shadows

It is no surprise that anger, and even hatred, are rearing their potentially ugly heads. If you step back and look at this from a larger perspective, what you see happening is a collective evolution, and as Carl Jung said, the “gold is in the dark.” To heal emotionally, one way—a very powerful way—is to descend into your shadow self. It’s the place within where you stuff everything you reject, dismiss, ignore, dislike. To be whole you have to own not just your light but your shadow. We usually don’t dive into our shadows unless forced to. Donald Trump can be the impetous for many of us to dive into—and begin to own up to and heal—our shadows. He can be seen as the perfect foil to force us to inquire about and explore our individual and collective shadow.

We have to do our shadow work—for our individual and collective evolution and for that of our planet. After all, with technological connectivity and economic and humanitarian globalization, we are a bunch of caterpillar nations that are morphing into a collective butterfly. So let’s thank Donald Trump! If we understand how he can serve our conscious evolution, we will celebrate the dark night of the soul we are being forced to traverse, individually and together. Hopefully, with self-reflection, civility, and creativity, we can eventually emerge into the light all the better for our difficult journey.  All mythic journeys involve a hero/heroine and his/her nemesis. Both are equally necessary. Don’t lose sight of that. . .

The Seven Levels of Consciousness

According to the Andean tradition, there are seven levels  of human consciousness. Most of the world is at the third level, and we as paqos hope to operate most of the time at the fourth level. But if I had to place Donald Trump on the stairway of seven steps, I would say he is at the second level. (If you don’t know the levels, see my post of May 11, 2016, “Birds of Consciousness.”)

As a paqo, you know that when you are interacting with someone, or devising a strategy to communicate with someone, it pays to know or discern as best you can what level of consciousness they are at. You cannot reason at the fourth level with someone on the second level. It’s like talking French to a Hindi speaker. So don’t waste your energy. You would be better off trying to deeply understand where that person is—and where you are—and acting from the level you are on rather than descending to the other person’s level (as so many protestors are). Better yet, find a fourth-level way to communicate at the second level so that person will hear and understand.

Same goes for tactics. In our activism, if we are fourth level, our activism should display that. There is no place for attack rhetoric, insults, outbursts fueled by frustration, or violence in word, thought or deed at the fourth level. Resistance can be non-violent, communication powerful but respectful, emotion tempered by virtue and compassion, and action for change motivated by community-building rather than enemy-bashing. Civic vigilance doesn’t have to descend to second-level political us-versus-them judgments. The best defense is a great offense—at the ballot box. Resolve to work to encourage fourth-level people to run for office, and then get out the vote for them.

Hucha and Sami

Don’t hate the hucha you feel while creating more of it. Generate sami.

In terms of Andean prophecy, the condor was the totem of the old times, when there was an extravagance of hucha. The condor, after all, is the eater of hucha. It has plenty of work to do.

For the new times, the totem has changed to the hummingbird, which is a producer of sami. While there is still plenty of hucha around, the focus has shifted from eating hucha to making sami—and that’s a seismic shift.

If you are having trouble dealing emotionally with Trump, understand that you are in touch with an incompatible energy. Incompatible energy is not bad, but it can increase the probability of creating hucha. But that hucha creation is not a given. Start by divesting your own energy body of hucha. Then return your focus to sami—focus on creating sami, not increasing the hucha, as you express your political views.

What does not creating hucha look like? Well, for starters, it means being a hamutaq: a thinker as well as a doer. In the mystical system, a hamutaq is one who uses discernment in determining not only what’s “out there” but also what’s “in here.” A hamutaq considers both what is happening out there in the world that is affecting the self and others, but also owns how his or her own actions (and words, emotions) affect the self and others. It’s vision coupled with personal responsibility. It is not knee-jerk reactive. It is “feel what you feel, then act from a higher place.”

This stance doesn’t mean you turn a blind eye or mute your voice. Absolutely not.  But a hamutaq values virtue over vitriol. Compassion and consensus over conquering. Bridge-building rather bridge-burning. It’s about being a chakruna—one of a group who, rather than tearing down bridges, seeks to build them between traditions or groups. You don’t only engage  with those with whom you have a common cause, but you simultaneously work to find common ground with the people you can hardly stand being around and who can hardly stand being around you.

Working to increase the sami in an already hucha-filled field doesn’t mean you won’t be distressed by the words and deeds of Trump and Bannon and others when they espouse discriminatory and even hateful views or try to pitch lies and half-truths as policy. But it does mean that you don’t do similar things—such as shout vile slogans or get emotionally overheated by your own rhetoric. The stance of the paqo is that we do a personal mast’ay—we organize ourselves. And once we do, then we can contribute to the collective mast’ay. A mob cannot create a state. But a group of individuals who are doing their own inner work—and doing it as a paqo within the field of the Taripay Pacha—can come together and fuel an incredible transformation in the public body.

We can be paqo protesters! God knows we need our voices to be heard. We just have to remember that our emotions can fire us up, but a fire can just as easily burn a house down as heat and light it. . .

Each department of knowledge passes through three stages. The theoretic stage, the theological stage, and the metaphysical or abstract stage.
—Auguste Comte

When people are new to the Andean mystical tradition, I like to introduce its richness by distilling the tradition down to five words. To me, they encompass the core of this metaphysical tradition. These five words are: energy, intention, invisible, efficient, and universal.

Energy

Most spiritual traditions and cultures discovered that underlying the material world there is an energetic one. The Andeans were no different. However, their unique take on the kawsay pacha—the world of living energy—is impressive in its relevance to modern science. For instance, the word pacha means, among other things, both space and time as two aspects of one field, just as modern physics discovered with the fourth dimension, that of the space-time continuum. The kawsay pacha is an immaterial energy field, but from it arises the landscape of space-time—the Pachamama, which is the material world.

For Andeans,  energy is just energy, devoid of moral overlay and thus with no intrinsic qualities such as good or bad, or positive or negative (as in beneficent or maleficent). Just as there are no good or bad electrons or photons, the energy of the kawsay pacha is beyond moral labeling.

Andean paqos train to become masters of energy exchanges—of ayni, which is the reciprocal exchange of energy between the kawsay pacha and human beings and vice versa. Everything depends on their “personal power,” which means the quality and efficacy of their ayni. Most cultures, when they divined the reality of this foundational energy field, sought to interact with it through the body: yoga, martial arts, fasting, breath, ecstatic dancing, drumming and sound, etc. For Andeans, ayni mostly comes not through the body but through something else—which brings me to the second word to describe the tradition.

Intention

Andean paqos say that the prime mover of energy is our intention. A fundamental teaching of the tradition is that energy must follow intention. We are all masters of using our intention. The quality of our lives, say the Andean paqos, is a reflection of how we are using intention to move energy. We cannot not be using intention if we are a thinking, feeling, interacting human being. However, the key is that most of us are unconscious to how we are in ayni with the kawsay pacha. Unlike cultures that first went through the physical body to learn to move energy, Andeans go through the poq’po, or energy body. Thus, the practices of the Andes are all about refining the state of our energy body—our poq’po, or personal energy bubble—and aligning our energy with our intention. We must be conscious of how this dynamic interplay works. This is why I say so often that a paqo is someone who is on a path of conscious evolution.

Many other cultures eventually got to this insight that intention alone moves energy, and modern metaphysics is rife with methodologies for marshalling intention to manifest thoughts, desires, and more. The Andeans, having come to this insight early, have developed ways to perfect ayni, which brings me to the next word to describe the tradition

Efficient

Efficiency means two things in relation to being a paqo. First, the practices move you along the path of personal power and conscious evolution relatively quickly, so they are in efficient in methodology. And second, the practices produce results. So they efficient in effects.

Because ayni—energetic interchanges—are at the heart of all the practices, these two meanings of the word “efficient” are tightly bound. Let me speak to both of these meanings together.

Andean mysticism is a practical path comprised of energy techniques that provide excellent results—both in terms of personal development and of manifestation of intention—relatively fast. You are not expected to spend years or decades learning what to do, why you are doing it, and perfecting your technique. If you are true to the practice, you should see improvement in your well-being quickly. Furthermore, the practices—from saminchkauy and saiwachakuy to hucha mikhuy to despachos—are not complex, but, in fact, are rather simple and, certainly, direct, even as the cosmovision that underpins them has an impressive level of richness and comprehensiveness. The practices are ones that use intention to move energy, so there is no long learning period of complex techniques. The primary “technique” is perfecting your ayni exchange and the various methods of becoming conscious of those exchanges and using them to improve the condition of your energy body can be taught quickly. In fact, I would say that one of the biggest surprises to those new to the tradition are just how simple (but not simplistic) the core practices are.

Going back to effects of applying the practices: This is not a path of wishful thinking or hope. It is one based on producing results right here in the human world as quickly as possible. If you are not getting results, look not to the cosmos but to yourself and the quality of your personal power. Remember, personal power is about the condition of your energy body first and foremost and how that condition supports or undermines your ayni. If you find your results lacking, you take personal responsibility, and go back to the basics of the simple, direct, and efficient practices for empowering your energy body and, thus, increasing your personal power. (“Responsibility” could have been another word used to define this tradition as it goes hand in hand with efficiency.)

Invisible

An interesting aspect of this tradition is that because it is purely personal energy work, it is invisible. No one will ever know you are doing saminchakuy, saiwachakuy, hucha mikhuy. You can even learn to offer a despacho using your energy body as a living despacho. There need be no outward sign that you are working—and working gloriously and fruitfully—as a paqo. Thus, it is a path of power but not of ego.

The Native North American Sun Bear once said something to the effect that if you can’t work without your feather or crystal, then you are not working at all, or at least not very well. I find this especially true of the Andean tradition. In the lloq’e work we learn to turn our body into a living despacho, so you never have to be caught short if you don’t have all the physical items for a material despacho. Everything you can do with your mish (mesa), you have to be able to do without it, or else you are turning that misha into a fetish. A fetish is an object in which you have invested your power, so if you lose the fetish or it is taken away, you lose your power. That is not the way of the Andean paqo. Ayni is the core energy dynamic of the cosmos, and to make an energy exchange you need only your intention. Even with healing, the practices are such that you do not have to be with the person or doing anything physically with them or to their body. You can use pure intention to move energy on behalf of activating another person’s well-being. In all of these ways, this is a path of invisibility.

Universal

Walking the path of Andean mysticism does not mean that you have to forgo exploring other paths simultaneously. It is not a tradition that asks you to be exclusive. It does not ask you to believe in any dogma, doctrine, or theology. While to practice well you have to understand the cosmovision that underpins the energy practices, you can be a Buddhist paqo, a Christian paqo, a Jewish paqo, or any other kind of paqo. You can practice the Andean techniques without having to give up Reiki, holotropic breathwork, meditation, yoga, Wiccan or shamanic techniques, or any other set of practices you keep in your metaphysical toolbox.

Andean mysticism also is a path of universality because it is all about your personal relationship with the kawsay pacha. Energy is universal and impervious to the imposition of human moral labels. The way to move energy is common to all humans—using intention. Thus, the practices require only a belief that there is a world of living energy and that you are interacting with that energy. That’s it—and that makes it pretty universal!

There are other words I could have chosen to describe the basic, foundational aspects of the Andean mystical tradition, but these five serve nicely not only to describe the tradition but to distinguish it from others. By referring back to these five words, you can check in from time to time to ensure you are staying true to the path of the Andean paqo.

The real ceremony begins where the formal one ends, when we take up a new way, our minds and hearts filled with the vision of earth that holds us within it, in compassionate relationship to and with our world.
―Linda Hogan

Mast’ay is a Quechua word that in daily life refers to unfolding and spreading out a cloth or weaving, perhaps on the table or a bed. In the mystical tradition, it refers to bringing order, organization, or structure to something. When you make a despacho, you are doing a mast’ay. When you arrange the khuyas in your misha, you are doing a mast’ay. But you don’t only bring order to things outside yourself. You can apply mast’ay to your own beingness. When you bring greater organization to the inner self, everything in your life is affected in positive and productive ways. The inner mast’ay furthers your awareness and, thus, your potential for conscious evolution as a human being.

In the Andes, the primary ceremonial or ritual practice is the despacho, which itself is a teaching about ayni.  In my training I learned that there can be no mistakes in Andean ceremony. There is no proscribed way of doing things such that if you do them differently from your teacher or others you are committing an error. Quite the opposite is true. You may learn a ritual in a certain way (and it is in integrity to be a good student and learn well), but you must ultimately make it your own.

All ritual is ordered by your intention and thus the quality of your energetic interchanges with nature and the spirit beings. Because ayni is personal, so is your ceremony or ritual. It must embody the quality of your inner awareness and the state of your own energy, heart, mind, and intention. That is why every paqo’s despacho, while following a certain ritual structure, actually looks different from everyone else’s.

If someone insists that you do a ritual in one specific way, following an exact protocol, we would call this third-level behavior and thinking. As a paqo, you want to move to the fourth level of consciousness, transcending outer forms and boundaries so that you can deeply immerse in the inner aspects of the practice. So every ritual or ceremony has to have your personal stamp on it—it is your mast’ay, not someone else’s. It represents your state of being, the organizing energetics of your soul and spirit. It is the offering of your truest self to the spirit beings and the cosmos of living energy.

Of course, there are formal ceremonies in the Andes that follow rules and are repeated much the same way year to year. There are religious festivals based on Christian forms and Andean ones, such as Qoyllurit’i. There are rituals to honor the animals and herds, and the planting and harvesting of crops. There are ceremonies for coming-of-age and joining the community as an adult instead of a child. But unlike these, the mystical ceremonies, no matter what their formal outward appearance, ultimately must embody your own state of consciousness and ayni. They rely on your making an intimate and personal exchange with the kawsay pacha, not a rote one.

There is a viewpoint among many teachers of metaphysics that all the formalities of ceremony—the outward mast’ay, or structuring—have a sole purpose: to occupy the ego so that the spirit can get to work. I agree with the viewpoint, although I honor the ego and do not want to dismiss or negate it. I want all of me involved in ceremony, but not in an egoistic way. I want to marshal all of my three human powers—intellect, actions, and feelings—and make them resonant with my spirit. I want my offering to be about content, not form. So no matter what the ceremony, it is the state of the self that is the fundamental organizing principle, the mast’ay.

Mast’ay is not so much about what you do, but how you do it. You don’t even need anything outer—a poncho, a k’intu, a despacho, a misha—to make an offering or perform a ceremony. Because you are first and foremost offering yourself—your energy and intention—ritual and ceremony in the Andes is, at heart, invisible. It is an exchange that is unseen in the outer world. The spirit beings don’t really care about the gift wrapping of the self. They are concerned only with the contents of the self.

I think of the inner mast’ay as the reordering of the self whereby the whole is greater than the parts. Anthropologist Ashley Montagu has said that “the deeper personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become.” In this process of becoming all that we can be, each of us has to undertake the task of the personal mast’ay. We stem the tide of inner chaos by bringing our awareness to our own inner state and then work to bring order to the many worldly selves we are, so that our one wondrous “original” self shines through.

This inner mast’ay is always more important than the outer forms in ceremony and in life. The inner not only germinates the outer, it births it.  While we can honor the old saying, “Actions speak louder than words,” we also understand that, as Plutarch said, “What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.” That is the power of mast’ay in action.