One of the aspects of the Andean mystical tradition that first attracted me to studying the tradition and practicing its techniques is that it sees energy as free of moral overlay. Energy is just energy. Kawsay is the living energy, the life-force energy. Sami is its frequency as light living energy (light as in density, not illumination). At the heart of the tradition there is no conception of bad, negative, evil, entrapping, or contamination energy. When I explain this to my students, I use the following examples: Are there harmful electrons? Evil photons? Entrapping neutrons? No! An electron is an electron and a photon a photon without moral overlay from human beings. This is the way we conceive of the universal fundamental energies, kawsay and sami—as free of human projection. Thus, in the realm of pure energy there is nothing to protect ourselves from.

But, you might be asking, what about hucha? You might explain that hucha is bad for us, and we don’t want it in our poq’po (energy field) as it can degrade our well-being. Well . . . that’s not an entirely accurate view of hucha. Hucha is not “out there” as an independent form of energy; it is not something that can trap us or invade our energy field. Hucha is not a cause of anything, but a consequence of the state of our own inner psyche. Hucha is what we create when we have degraded our overall well-being through our human foibles and weaknesses, our unhealthy attachments and rejections, our chaotic emotional state. When we are out of ayni in our interactions with other human beings—when we are ruled by our impulses and emotions, then we speak and act in ways that cause us to block or slow sami—that slowed or blocked life-force energy is what we call hucha. Humans are the only beings who create hucha. It has no meaning beyond being a consequence of our own conscious or unconscious disempowering behaviors. The more hucha we create for ourselves, the more difficult it is to motivate ourselves to take responsibility for ourselves and, thus, to consciously revise our way of being to improve our energy condition

When it comes to energy, it’s all about us and not about the independent state of the fundamental energy of the universe. For instance, although we don’t see energy itself as negative or harmful, there certainly are human beings with negative attitudes and harmful intentions. Of course, when we encounter people who are not acting from ayni, and thus may be creating a lot of hucha for themselves, we face choices: we can protect ourselves from physical or emotional harm and we can consciously choose to not allow their hucha to affect us (to create our own hucha from our responses to them). The teaching of the tradition is that no one else’s energy can enter our poq’po unless we consciously or unconsciously allow it. Therefore, no one can cause us to have hucha; we generate it for ourselves because of how we interact with or react to others.

Physicist Dean Radin, a researcher who works at the frontiers of energy and consciousness, explains the different underlying dynamics of universal energy versus human intentions about how to use energy. In his book Practical Magic, he explains that many cultures and religions reject and even condemn “magic”—a term he uses as an overall container for working with consciousness and energy—as sorcery, witchcraft, or the work of the devil. Then he counters that prejudice by explaining the physicist’s point of view (and for us, a fourth-level paqo’s point of view): “. . .the way magic is used is completely up to the magician. The power itself, like any fundamental force of the universe, is morally neutral.”

How we humans choose to use energy shifts the energy from the realm of neutrality into the realm of human values, ethics, judgement, and morality. We have neither the space nor the need to delve into the immense complexities of human consciousness, nor to discuss the Andean view of ayni (reciprocity) and our varying degrees of lack of it. I have written many other blog posts about those topics. The point here is that in terms of fundamental energy, the Andean tradition sees it as beyond moral overlay.

This view extends into many other areas. For instance, my primary teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, has said that there is no moral overlay on the inherent sanctity of our Inka Seeds—our Spirit. Our Inka Seed is the “drop of the mystery” that animates us at the moment that our mother’s egg is fertilized by our father’s sperm. A drop of “God” as the Life Force animates matter to begin the creational process that results in each of us. And upon the death of our material body, our Spirit will return to this Source. While in the body, we may choose to consciously dedicate ourselves during our life to growing to be the fullest, most highly developed human beings we can be. But there is no imperative to do that. Those who choose not to grow are not rejected by Taytanchis (God, if you will), as we are given free will and we are valued and loved despite what we do with our will. Moral overlay comes into play as an influence in who we choose to be and how we choose to live while we are here, living as conscious human beings, and so it is of unquestioned importance in what our human world looks and feels like. This world is a reflection of us, not of the will of God or the forces of fundamental universal energies.

The sanctity of our Inka Seed, the fact that our Inka Seed is pure sami no matter how much hucha we are creating for ourselves, is why, don Juan says, when someone commits suicide, there is no moral overlay on that form of death. Fourth-level paqos would say suicide is factually one of many forms of death, and so they would not judge or condemn the person who died by their own hand. The Spirit (Inka Seed) returns to Taytanchis despite the person’s choice to take their own life. While that may be the fourth-level paqo’s view, don Juan also points out that suicide is rare in the Andes, because people have strong ayllu (family and community) ties and may have the energetic tools—such as saminchakuy—to deal with the hucha they have created for themselves before their mental or emotional condition deteriorates to the point of choosing suicide.

As one more example, this view extends to the way we understand our own personal energy dynamics. For instance, as I see it, all of our energy interactions can be reduced to four main dynamics: we are perceiving energy as compatible or incompatible, or the energy exchange is masintin (two similar energies in interaction) or yanantin (two dissimilar but complementary energies in interaction). I will focus here only on the first pairing. When we interact with anything—from the energy of an environment to that of another human being—we can sense that the other energy feels compatible (comfortable, easy to engage with, little or no feelings of resistance or dissonance) or incompatible (uncomfortable, difficult to engage with, producing resistance or dissonance within us). Because we are practicing the paqo path, we are taught to take full responsibility for our own energy.  All we can say is how to the energy feels to us, and we say nothing about the actual energetic state of the other person. So, when we meet with someone who feels heavy to us, all we can truly say is that we feel a flow of hucha. We can’t say with certainty that the other person is actually carrying a lot of hucha. What we may be perceiving is the hucha we are unconsciously generating within ourselves as we interact with the other person. Of course, we can use our commonsense, and sometimes it is obvious from the other person’s words and behaviors and other less-obvious clues that he or she is carrying a lot of hucha. We can choose to reduce our interaction or end it. But as paqos we want to be able to be in sami-filled relationship with everybody and everything, so we attend to ourselves. We bring self-inquiry to our perceptions, asking questions such as “Why do I feel such heaviness when I touch this person’s poq’po (energy body)?” “What can I do to shift this heaviness to sami?” We take responsibility and use our tools: doing saminchakuy on ourselves or hucha miqhuy on the flow of energy between ourselves and the other person. We don’t just say, “That person is heavy. Not my problem.” We say, “I feel heaviness in response to my interactions with this person. Let me refine my own energy so that I feel sami, or at least less hucha, in our future interactions.” That’s the impartiality we bring to our relationships and our energy work. Ideally, we reserve personal judgment as much as possible and deal directly with the energy flow.

There are other examples I could provide, but I trust that those I have provided illustrate the egalitarian nature of fourth-level Andean energy dynamics and our ayni with the living universe and fellow human beings. If we are truly going to walk through the world, and live our lives, according the fourth-level principles of this tradition, then we take back our projections and attend to the state of our own energy interactions.

Photo Copyright: Photo 2 by Dieter/Pixabay, Photo 3 by Gerd Altmann/Pixabay

In my February 11, 2023, blog post, I wrote about the deep structure of Andean mysticism, focusing on the weaving of the chunpis (in the Chunpi Away karpay) and awakening of the ñawis (in the Ñawi K’ichay karpay). The word ñawi means “eye” and in the mystical tradition refers to the mystical eyes or energy perception centers in our body. The word chunpi means “belt” and in the mystical tradition refers to bands of energy we weave into our body to link up the ñawis into a coordinated and connected system. The joint karpay is given by a chunpi paqo. But just what is a chunpi paqo? Is he or she different from a “regular” paqo? If so, how? We will look into these questions in this post.

I’ll start by reminding you that we don’t know much about chunpi paqos. The chunpi energy work is a teaching from the Q’ero, and the only chunpi paqo we know of is the late don Andres Espinosa, who was recognized as a master chunpi paqo both by the Q’ero and by other top non-Q’ero paqos of the time, such as don Benito Qoriwaman. Don Andres ran a month-long “paqo school” in Q’ero Totorani every year until his death in 1981. My primary teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, attended that school in 1980 and learned the chunpi teachings directly from don Andres. It is possible that there are Q’ero elders who know the teachings, but none that we know of are passing on the knowledge as don Andres taught it or working as chunpi paqos. In fact, don Juan and his son, don Ivan, have been teaching the karpays to several Q’ero paqos, in effect helping them recover what appears to be a lost teaching.

There are others who teach about the chunpis and perform the joint karpay, but none that I know of teach it the way that chunpi master don Andes did. For example, the Q’ero paqo don Mariano Quispe Flores teaches about the chunpis and performs a chunpi karpay, but his work is radically different from what was taught by don Andres. Other teachers from outside of Q’eros, or even Peru, who perform the karpay to weave the chunpis, such as Oscar Miro-Quesada and Alberto Villoldo, do so, to the best of my knowledge, in ways that are significantly different from the original teachings of don Andres.

In addition to learning about the chunpis, and the two joint karpays from don Juan Nuñez del Prado, I have had several conversations with him both about these mystical belts of power and about how a chunpi paqo differs from a “regular” paqo. As I said, there is not much information, but the points I make below will, I hope, help you understand what a chunpi paqo is and how he or she differs from a regular paqo. This is, of course, my own understanding of the teaching, and so I do not speak for don Juan.

The chunpis are energy belts that paqos purposefully add to their physical and mystical bodies to help accelerate their conscious personal development. This developmental path, called the qanchispatañan, is a teaching from don Benito Qoriwaman, and I will describe its basic features below. The qanchispatañan is crucial to understanding not only the role of the chunpis, but the special abilities to which a chunpi paqo aspires. While both pampa mesayoqs and alto mesayoqs could receive the joint karpays to weave the belts and awaken their ñawis, traditionally those paqos who actually worked as chunpi paqos were fourth-level alto mesayoqs—and they were considered candidates for the fifth level of human development.

According to don Benito’s teaching about the qanchispatañan, an apu (mountain spirit) was considered a runa micheq, or shepherd of human beings and human communities. Paqos—and specifically alto mesayoqs—developed according to how their own personal power became commensurate with each level of apu. There are three levels of apus: ayllu apus, which oversee a village or small town; llaqta apus, which serve as guardians and teachers for the people of a cluster of villages or a larger town; and suyu apus, whose power covered a wide region. A paqo would progress along the qanchispatañan by working consecutively with the power of each type of apu.

However, apus have power only through the third level (suyu apus), and so they can only help take an alto mesayoq to the third level of development. The first-level paqo is the ayllu paqo, or an ayllu alto mesayoq who has the power to shepherd a small community. A second-level paqo is a llaqta alto mesayoq, able to shepherd an intermediate-size community. A third-level paqo is a suyu alto mesayoq, who can shepherd large communities or the people across wide regions. To move beyond the third level, a paqo had to switch from working with apus to working with the teqse apukuna, or universal spirit beings. There are seven: the divine masculine, which in the Andes after the Conquest was seen as Jesus; the divine feminine, which was seen as Mother Mary; and then the major universal nature spirit beings of Mama Killa (Mother Moon), Tayta Inti (Father Sun), Tayta Wayra (Father Wind), Mama Allpa (Mother Earth), and Mama Unu (Mother Waters). These are considered teqse spirit beings because they reach all of humanity: teqse literally means “universal.” So, a paqo who achieves the fourth level of personal power is one who can (potentially) shepherd all of humanity. A fourth-level paqo was also sometimes called a kuraq paqo, or Great or High Paqo.

While all human beings have ñawis—or mystical eyes for perceiving energy—the purpose of the Chunpi Away and Ñawi K’ichay karpays for paqos is to create energetic belts that connect these separate mystical perceptual centers into a fully integrated system. The rest of this paragraph is information directly from don Juan and don Ivan. While it has been edited and contains paraphrase, I will put it in quotation marks: “The chunpis are made of Mother Earth’s sami, so there is no hucha. The belts are connectors of the ñawis, and energy flows through them. Once they are in place and the ñawis are activated, they can collect your hucha. Once they are in place, they interact with two sources of sami: from the cosmos and from the earth. This flow helps bring resolution to our hucha. The chunpis are like big wires that help energy flow, especially when connected with our heart and Inka Seed. All of these are sources of light living energy inside of us, and so we can develop heightened perception. That’s what the work of the ñawis and chunpis is about: being able to integrate information within. Then we can reflect that understanding through the quality of our own actions, feelings, affections, and thoughts. Every one of these energies helps us improve all the aspects of ourselves and our power. Once all the ñawis are connected into a system [by weaving the belts], if we have hucha in one center [ñawi], the other centers can help clear it; they can compensate for each other. Then, when something causes us a lot of heaviness, we are stronger. We can deal with it better. The chunpis help improve our personal power. Instead of separate ñawis, now they are all connected through the belts. The ñawis are natural, everyone has them. The chunpis are not natural, but are an energetic addition that improves us.”

Even after receiving these karpays, having a capacity for heightened perception does not automatically lift fourth-level paqos to the fifth level. Instead, it prepares them to be able to develop more easily to that level. What is this fifth level? It is the domain of the Inka Mallku or Tukuy Hampeq—the fully developed healer. Although paqos have to do their personal inner work to prepare for this new level of power, no teacher or spirit being can lift them to it. The doorway to the fifth level is opened when a paqo, especially a chunpi paqo, receives a very special karpay—the Mosoq Karpay, which simply means “new karpay.” It is a karpay that is given only by Taytanchis/God. The paqo is touched by the energy of God, either directly or through the mediator spirit of the hummingbird. So, truly developed chunpi paqos—those who are also tukuy hampeqs—are not only a special kind of paqo, but they are rare.

The particular power, or gift, of all chunpi paqos is healing. However, if they achieve the fifth level of development and receive the Mosoq Karpay, they are considered to have powers that go beyond the usual kinds of healing abilities—they are tukuy hampeqs, or “total healers,” meaning infallible healers. They can heal any disease or malady every time. Don Ivan Nuñez del Prado has made an interesting point, and to my mind a crucially important one, about the difference between the fourth and fifth levels of personal power. He said that it is as if the Andean mystical system has baked into itself a safeguard, so there can be no imposters to the fifth level. While paqos of all levels of development can perform healings, tukuy hampeqs experience no failures of healing. They can heal anything with just a touch—from cancer to the regrowth of an amputated limb to the resolution of emotional and mental ailments, even neurobiological ones such as schizophrenia. There certainly are instances where fourth-level paqos have facilitated almost miraculous healings, but these are rare occurrences. As don Juan says, healing at the fourth and lower levels is hit and miss. In contrast, at the fifth level, complete and total healing is the guarantee. So, while there may be “imposters” to the lower levels of development, there can be no faking being a fifth-level paqo.

Being able to tune energy seems to be crucial to achieving the infallibility of the chunpi paqos as tukuy hampeqs. In the part of the training in Andean mysticism where we weave the chunpis and awaken our ñawis, we learn to tune and move energy. Tuning energy means raising the frequency of sami (the light living energy) up the spectrum, first to munay (love and will) and then, by incorporating two other kinds of energy into the munay, to hampi munay (healing love). From there we can raise the vibration of hampi munay to willka energy, the most powerful restructuring and creational energy on the healing spectrum. There is still another level of tuning, where we move from willka energy to tawantin energy, which again requires a specific protocol for merging different kinds of energy to create this pinnacle energy of wholeness and unity. However, the doorway to all healing is munay, for this energy of love and will allows us to connect deeply with the person who seeks healing. Through this munay connection, we touch their hucha directly. Without being willing and able to touch the other’s hucha, it is unlikely that there will be any lasting healing. Not surprisingly, then, in don Andres’s paqo school, most of the month-long training was about learning to generate munay, tune it to these healing frequencies, and use it. You could say, therefore, that a chunpi paqo is a master of munay.

At the fourth and lower levels, healing mostly is accomplished by sending sami or munay (or one of the other tunings of munay) to the other person to activate that person’s self-healing capacity. The paqo usually does not heal directly—he or she actually is creating temporary conditions in their clients’ energy body and physical body so that they can marshal their own energy for healing. Thus, healing can be a challenge—and hit or miss, as don Juan says. While people might improve for a while, the chances are that they will revert back to their old ways, beliefs, and states of energy. But at the fifth level, the fully developed chunpi paqo—the tukuy hampeq—can transmit power through intention or touch and absolutely, without fail directly heal the other person. They have the power to restructure the body and soul.

From the little information we have or can surmise about chunpi paqos, I trust you can now better understand why (in the previous generation of paqos) the joint karpay to weave the belts and awaken the mystical eyes was freely available, but that working as and being recognized as a chunpi paqo was relatively uncommon—and that becoming a tukuy hampeq was a rarity. The prophecies tell us, however, that we are living in a time when the fifth level of personal power will be much easier to achieve. That is why many paqos—including you and me and other non-Peruvian and non-indigenous people who are trained in the tradition—are actively working to develop ourselves and aspiring to reach this heightened expression of our Inka Seed.

In last month’s blog post, I wrote about how if we want to know how well we are in ayni with the living universe, we can glean clues by looking at how well we are in ayni with our fellow human beings. If you have not read that post, I suggest you do before reading this one.

In that previous post, I said that I have revised the common adage “How you do anything is how you do everything” to “How we are in our relationships with others is how we are in relationship with the living universe.” I find truth in that statement because why would we expect the living universe to give us in ayni what we begrudgingly give, or even refuse to give, others? Why would we expect to receive all the desirable, sami-filled things in life if we are not also generating them? Ayni is an expression of our sami and munay, and it seeks not only self-fulfillment but also the well-being of those with whom we are in ayni. This reciprocal flow is not a system in which we have to earn or deserve the good things in life. It is not a reward system, and it not a moralistic system. It is a core energy dynamic where like energy generates more like energy and attracts like energy.

I have just pointed out that ayni is not a reward or score-keeping system, and it is not moralistic. There is a term for those kinds of interactions in our tradition—chhalay. Ayni is not chhalay, which is a purely transactional interchange, and usually one that puts self-interest above all else. Contrary to common belief, ayni also is not just an energetic two-way interchange. It is more than that—it is a process. Ayni is 1) intention, 2) followed by action, 3) followed by feedback from an “other” (a response from a person or the living universe that can take myriad forms), 4) followed by our awareness of that feedback (we realize the events, situation, response is the return on our ayni), 5) followed by a course correction if needed in response to the feedback.

The last two steps in the process of ayni are the ones most often overlooked. This part of the ayni dynamic most often comes into play when we expect something “good” and get something we judge as “negative” as a response to our ayni. When we notice and try to understand the feedback (step 4 of the process), but it is not what we expected or does not seem commensurate with our intention and action, we are being asked to complete the ayni process by taking step 5, which is course correction. There are all kinds of ways to do that, from using saminchakuy to generally release our hucha to working to change a habitual detrimental personality trait to acknowledging and doing our inner work to release fears, judgments, and prejudices that keep us restricted and closed off from others and from the bounty and benevolence of the living universe.

We can most easily understand steps 4 and 5 of the ayni process by activating and using our three upper eyes: the two physical eyes (paña ñawi and lloq’e ñawi), which help us to see the human world both mystically and rationally; and our seventh eye (qanchis ñawi), which is our fully mystical eye, the perceptual center for seeing the flows of energy, especially the intuitive and non-rational aspects of reality. Using these three ñawis together generates qaway, the ability to see the fullness of reality as it really is instead of how we would like it to be or how the subconscious and conscious aspects of ourselves collude to create stories in which we usually come out looking better than we actually are!

However, qaway can cause an ayni Catch-22 situation, so let’s look at a few of the possibilities. Through qaway we can assess the quality of our ayni without slanting that assessment in favor of ourselves. However, one difficulty in doing this is that the universe is generous. Even if our ayni is weak, the universe responds beyond our measure. According to the Andean cosmovision, the living universe returns to us more than we give out. So, we can misread the ayni signals. It is human nature to think we are making the greater effort in comparison to others: study after study shows that when people are asked to compare themselves to others, we tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. We say we are smarter, kinder, more generous, less judgmental—whatever the quality is—than the “average” person. And that may be true . . . or not. Using qaway, we can be more clear-eyed and so not overestimate the sami we are sharing with our fellow human beings, and thus with the living universe. We recognize that the return may be of greater proportion than what we offered. As one possibility, if we are the recipients of healthy, nourishing, and sami-filled energy from others, we have to consider that we are receiving more sami than we are gave out. As another possibility, if we are experiencing a lack—if what we are receiving (or are willing to receive) from others seems paltry—then we have to consider how we may be giving out even less than we think we are! In other words, what we see as lack actually is the universe being generous! There are many other possibilities, and I raise the issue here, right up front, to provide us with a sobering reality-check about what it means to understand the ayni feedback, both from our fellow human beings and from the living universe.

Despite these potential complications, assessing what we are giving and what we are allowing ourselves to receive—and how and why—in our human relationships can reveal the sensitivity of our awareness of the dynamics of ayni and the strength or weakness of our atiy—our capacity for rising above an unconscious impulsive way of being to cultivate conscious and purposeful intentions and actions, which are at the heart of ayni.

Don Juan Nuñez del Prado once made the declaration: “Nothing is going to touch you, if you don’t allow it. Even God has to ask permission. But people don’t give permission for something unconscious [within themselves].” His point is that self-inquiry and self-awareness are keys to assessing our ayni. Our subconscious impulses, needs, desires, beliefs, and more are what mostly determines what we are allowing or restricting in our human life and relationships, which in turn may reveal what we are allowing or restricting from the living universe. Ora Nadrich, mindfulness coach and writer, says, “The words ‘I am’ are powerful. We are declaring who we are to the universe.” That is only partially true, for there can be a huge gulf between declaring something and actually living it! Our kanay is the mystical capacity to know who we really are, but most of us are still discovering our kanay, and so how we think of ourselves and how we are “being” in our lives are two different things. This not the place to discuss shadow work—a deep dive into uncovering the hidden, denied, or rejected parts of ourselves—but our shadow energies are usually running the show we call “the self.” Our shadow acts out all the time! And our ayni is affected by how our shadow is causing us to think and move, especially in our relations with our fellow human beings and, by extension, in our ayni with the living universe.

To give you an example of the kinds of self-inquiry we might bring to our shadow selves, and we can begin to bring as inquiry into our ayni, we might ask ourselves a series of probing questions, such as the following:

• What will you never or rarely let others know or see about yourself?
• What do you refuse to see in others (either their sami, because acknowledging their gifts makes you feel less than; or their hucha, making excuses for them or justifying their heaviness because there is some pay-off for you)?
• Who or what type of people do you gravitate towards and even seek out? Who or what type of people do you avoid, almost at all costs?
• What kinds of people do you think negatively about or harshly judge (about everything from physical appearance to sexual orientation and self-identity to religious views to political affiliations to financial status to ethnic origin to social behaviors to physical or conversational mannerisms and more)?
• Whom do you try to impress? Whom do you never try to impress, because you really don’t care whether they like, accept, or include you, so why bother?
• Where in your life are you making half-hearted efforts? How are your efforts inconsistent and dependent on how you feel in the moment or according to how you judge the pay-offs? Where are you feeling things are difficult and so that you need to undertake unrelenting and even Herculean efforts?

As you think about these questions pertaining to your life and human relationships, consider that all of them involve various aspects of (usually subconscious) needs, desires, expectations, and motivations. Needs, desires, expectations, fears, aversions—these are the stuff of every great story! Including the “story” of our ayni. At this point, we circle back to the energy perception of our three uppermost ñawis (two physical eyes and qanchis ñawi). Our two physical eyes as mystical ñawis help us see the human world and our interactions with it without the overlay of the subconscious stories we concoct to rationalize why our needs and desires are not being met. The seventh eye is fully mystical, helping us get beyond the perceptual screens through which we view the world and others. A developed seventh eye is in its own way compensatory: it provides additional information so that we do not fool ourselves, especially through conscious rationalization. The qanchis ñawi is an intellect-free—and a story-free—zone! It is focused on the actual energetics of the interaction rather than our oh-so-human perception of that interaction. It connects us to the “truth meter” that is our Inka Seed.

By using both our physical-mystical eyes and our seventh purely mystical eye, the paqos tells us, we can see reality as it really is. In terms of ayni, these three ñawis help us make connections between how we are in ayni with others and how we are in ayni with the living universe. Go back to the series of questions listed earlier to see how “what you are attaching to” and “what you are rejecting” in your relationship with yourself and others might be creating hucha in your human life and so keeping that same dynamic active in your ayni with the living universe. Author Vera Nazarian reminds us of this deep-down two-way connection when she writes: “When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions, you will have spanned the universe. “

Despite Nazarian’s belief that reaching out and reaching in are the “same thing,” there is an important aspect to our ayni that is not always evenly weighted energetically: not everything related to ayni is personal. There is a measure of randomness in the universe. If we take everything personally, we will fool ourselves just as much as if we take nothing personally. Let’s turn to don Ivan Nuñez del Prado to enlighten us on this point [edited for clarity]. He says, “In the sphere of ayni . . . there is a big part of your life that is related with your actions and relationship with the environment and your personal connections. And at that level, in that sphere, you can track your actions to see how you did something, how the energy moved, and how you have received the feedback. But that is only one sphere—the part of reality of your own life, where you have certain control. But there is another, higher sphere that is random. And it is related to you but not really related to the kind of things you do. Have you ever heard people ask why bad things happen to good people? Well, good things and bad things happen to all people independently of people being good or bad. That’s the random part of our life. Those are things that are not really connected with our actions, so we cannot prevent them or make something else happen. Once randomness crashes into our lives—like when we have an accident—we have to deal with it and find a way to survive. But it is not necessarily that you made it happen. If you think that everything that happens is because of your ayni, then you are going to start to feel guilty. The thing is that everything that is under your power is your responsibility. But there is a sphere that is not in your power. And that part needs to be accepted. So, we need to know our power, because that’s the only way to know the difference [between what is our ayni and what is random].”

One final point. When it comes to both our human relationships and our relationship with the living universe, we have the freedom to choose how we are in interaction with both. There is no secret formula, magical incantation, or sacred ritual that can help us to improve our ayni with others and with the universe. There is only the energy dynamic between sami and hucha. In the Andean tradition, even if we feel we are receiving hucha as feedback, we don’t fear that hucha but we learn to pay attention. Hucha, remember, is not negative or harmful energy; it is just slow sami (life-force energy). Slow energy cannot hurt us, but having a lot of hucha can reduce our personal power. Ayni depends on personal power, which involves intention, will, action, and awareness. Juan sums up this view beautifully in the following personal story he shared: “In the beginning [of learning this tradition], I was not so kind with a lot of people and with myself. I know that. But how could I improve my way of being? I discovered something—this is not a moralistic tradition. It’s not about don’t do that, don’t do this . . . The only commandment is to be aware of ayni. At a certain point, I discovered how when I project hucha, hucha feeds back to me and even enlarges. That hucha was not a punishment—it was just feedback. The measure in which you start to discover that for yourself, you are going to start to be careful with what you are projecting in every aspect of your life.”

I would add that the moment you start understanding the entire dynamical process of ayni is not only the moment you bring care to your interactions, it is the moment that you begin to claim your freedom. To repeat something I said in Part 1 of this blog subject: “There’s a huge difference between choosing not to be in relationship with someone and not having the ability to be in a (more or less sami-filled) relationship with a person. If we have no ability to be in a relatively ‘right’ relationship with someone, we lose our freedom because both choosing and refusing are beyond our capacity. We lack even the perception of what it means to even be in ayni with another human being.”

The same goes for our relationship with the living universe. In a way, we can see that developing skill in our ayni in our human relationships is like practice for our being in ayni with the living universe. We are honing our ability to interact with everything. Don Juan has said of our training that we must be willing and able to touch our own and others’ hucha, so that we grow comfortable not closing ourselves off from experiencing human life. The same goes for practicing “tasting” (perceiving) the enormous variety of expressions of sami in the physical world. The more skilled we are at perceiving and generating sami, the more capable we are of enthusiastically exploring the less known or the unknown, which greatly expands the boundaries of the world in which we can be at play.

I agree with Eckhart Tolle’s declaration: “You are the universe, expressing itself as a human for a little while.” Our wasi—our temple—is comprised of both aspects of ourselves: our body and poq’po (our humanness) and our Inka Seed (our drop of the Mystery that is the living universe). Our ayni is a two-way energetical process between our humanness and our divinity. The sacred self is always, first and foremost, known through and reflected by the quality of our humanness. And that is why I think it is safe to say that how we are in our relationship with others is how we are in relationship with the living universe.

There is an aphorism used in psychology, leadership training, and even the military that goes, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” It’s a good reminder that how we attend to the ordinary, mundane, and seemingly inconsequential things of life reveals how we will likely perform when dealing with things of consequence. We do not save our best effort for rare occasions, but bring our best to every occasion.

I have coined my own version of this kind of aphorism about our ayni, our energetic interchanges: “How we are in our relationships with others is how we are in relationship with the living universe.”

This is a phrase I currently use to lead off teaching a three-hour course I call “Holy Relationships.” Don Juan Nuñez del Prado coined the phrase ‘holy relationships” when talking about a type of relationship, rare though it is, that we can cultivate when we are moving with tawantin energy, tawantin being the highest tuning or vibration of sami and munay. I love that phrase, because the word “holy” comes from the Old English word hālig, which means “blessed.” It also relates to the word “whole.” A tawantin relationship, or “holy relationship,” is one that is blessed because of how two people bring the whole of themselves to each other. They are each living the realization of their Inka Seeds within the interchange of their relationship.

So, to tweak the opening aphorism: How we do anything in a relationship with our fellow human beings is how we do anything in every relationship, including our relationship with Nature, spirit beings, and, most importantly, the kawsay pacha—the living universe. In this blog post, we will look at our human relationships, and in next month’s post we will see how the state of our ayni with our fellow human beings is a good indicator of the quality of our ayni with the living universe.

Ayni yokes our intention to our action. From the energy this union generates, we fuel our interactions with others and with the kawsay pacha. Before we can truly cultivate ayni, or at least a high vibration of ayni, we have to cultivate our munay, which is the union of our love with our will. This is not an exclusively Andean energy dynamic. We can look to others, such as Indira Gandhi, for a similar view. She said, “There is no love where there is no will.”

When we look at the munay energy dynamic as paqos, we relate munay with our sonqo, our mystical heart and the center of our feelings, and with our Inka Seed, which is the center of our will. Interestingly, the integration of the energies of our sonqo (love and feelings) and Inka Seed (will) informs our kanay. Kanay is the essential human capacity to “know thyself.” The word “kanay” comes from the Quechua root “ka,” which means “to be.” Kanay, however, is not only knowing who you truly are, but also having the personal power to be able to live as who you truly are.

Paradoxically, if we are able gain even the merest glimpse of our kanay, we have to see ourselves not in isolation, but in relationship. Although kanay is the realization of the self, it is not solipsistic. It implies engagement between the self and others, and between the self and the world. Kanay it knowing how to bring ourselves to the world as authentically as possible and, as we do, being in ayni with others without projecting, getting ensnared in story, wanting them to be who we need them to be instead of who they truly are. When we are in relationship with a high vibration of ayni, we allow others to help us cultivate our kanay as we help them to cultivate theirs. We again can look outside the Andes for both a beautiful rendering of and confirmation of this truth. Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

Gloria Steinem also hits the perfect note about kanay when she says, “Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.” [Italics added] Kanay is all about being—in “right” relationship with ourselves and with others. We reveal whether or not we are “right” within ourselves and our relationships not only when we are engaged in consequential interactions with others, but in every interaction with anyone: with a precious child, a loyal friend, an adoring spouse or significant other, a caring parent and doting grandparent, as well with the harried delivery driver, offensive opposition candidate, ruthless business competitor, or bitter rival.

With the latter group, it is not that we have to like these people, or anyone for that matter. We are allowed to choose our friends and others. Yet, we cultivate ayni even with those we don’t personally like by being in “right relationship” with them in spite of any uncharitable value judgment we have about them. In this case, being in “right relationship” does not mean faking our feelings or suppressing them, but rather that, at the very least, we choose the neutral stance rather than act in ways that generate hucha. Ideally, we release any heavy moral judgment by taking back our psychological projections, healing our triggers, and transforming our prejudices. Being “right” within ourselves is the antithesis of being self-righteousness.

There’s a huge difference between choosing not to be in relationship with someone and not having the ability to be in a (more or less sami-filled) relationship with a person. If we have no ability to be in a relatively “right” relationship with someone, we lose our freedom because both choosing and refusing are beyond our capacity. We lack even the perception of what it means to even be in ayni with another human being. Don Juan Nuñez del Prado says that “lack of perception indicates a person has erected boundaries or has fear of opening their poq’po to incoming energies, including sami. [They become] too private, or fear life, relationships, enjoyment, growth.”

In the Andean mystical tradition, we focus our work in two primary relational domains: on developing a conscious and sami-filled relationship with ourselves (and our Inka Seed) and on learning to perceive and manage the energy dynamics of our relationships with others. Hucha mikhuy, especially, is an energetic tool devoted to improving our interpersonal relationships. But the ayllu poq’po training is at the heart of interpersonal work. As don Ivan Nuñez del Prado explains, the ayllu poq’po training is based on the energy of taqe—joining. He and don Juan say that each one of us must really see and know at least one human being deeply. Through seeing and knowing the glorious kanay and Inka Seed of that one person, we find it easier to see how amazing everyone one else is (or has the potential to be). Husband, wife, child, friend, mentor, coworker, neighbor—it does not matter who the other person is. To be fully in this human life starts with being in full communion with another human being, one to one.

What we can achieve with one, we can achieve with many—and with the living universe. Which brings us full circle to my opening aphorism: how you are in your relationship with others is how you are in relationship with the living universe. We will explore our relationship with the living universe in Part 2, which I will post next month. Between now and then, our work is to bring our intention, attention, and perception to ourselves—through our love and our will, through our capacity for munay—and continue to refine our own energy, so we can, in turn, more easily cultivate our ability to raise our relationships with others closer to a state of “holy relationship.”

I feel compelled to launch this post with a caution. This is an extremely long and a decidedly nerdy post, one that takes a deep-dive into the esoteric aspects of Andean energy dynamics. If you are not well versed in the karpays of the Chunpi Away and Ñawi K’ichay, this discussion may be confusing, or even unintelligible, to you. (And there are no illustrations or pictures!) So forewarned is forearmed . . .

My primary teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, has described our training in the Andean sacred arts as a protocol. This means there is a sequence of tasks in our training, which we follow toward the goal of being in ayni more efficiently, effectively, and joyously with our fellow human beings and with the living universe. We would do well, he suggests, to review the entire training—in the order and according to the sequence in which we learned it—once a year to refine our capacity for perceiving and moving energy and to attain greater mastery of the practices.

Once I understood our training as a protocol—that it has a deep structure—I was able to see how it also has many subprotocols (protocols within protocols). For instance, one of the core energy dynamics of the tradition is ayni, or reciprocity. It can be seen as a kind of subprotocol in that there is a set order or sequence to practicing ayni: first using intention, then taking action, and, finally, being aware of the feedback. Another important aspect of our training is the qanchispatañan, which is a sequence of the seven stages of the development of human consciousness, so it too can be seen as a subprotocol. I also saw—based on teachings from don Juan and don Ivan and on my own thinking about the topic—that there is another qanchispatañan of human relationship—it is a set sequence of increasingly refined energy dynamics for developing our interpersonal relationships: tinkuy/tupay, taqe, munay, ayni, masintin, yanantin, tawantin.

There is no skipping a step or reordering steps in a protocol or a subprotocol. The sequence is everything in terms of gaining proficiency in the energy dynamics. For example, in seeking to achieve high-level, quality interpersonal relationships, we can only establish an ayni dynamic in that relationship after we have developed our munay. People tend to generalize munay as love and ayni as any two-way interchange, but these energy dynamics take on particular qualities and characteristics within the development of a meaningful interpersonal relationship. Likewise, there is no achieving a truly harmonious yanantin relationship without first doing the work associated with the masintin energies of the relationship. So, the sequence is crucial.

In my capacity as a teacher of the tradition, I eventually began to develop standalone advanced classes, which I call the “deep-dive classes,” that are devoted to examining some of these subprotocols in depth. For example, my thinking about the relationship qanchispatañan described above turned into a class I call “Achieving Holy Relationships,” which focuses exclusively on this sequence—this protocol—of the energy dynamics of the seven stages of interpersonal relationships. A new deep-dive class, which I will offer for the first time this year, is about willka (the black light energy). As I was thinking about willka and all the ways it shows up in the Andean tradition, I couldn’t help but probe more deeply into its importance in our mystical body. We create willka during the karpays of the Ñawi K’ichay and Chunpi Away (activating the mystical eyes and weaving the energetic belts, which I will call a “joint” karpay since we do them together). I realized that this joint karpay can been seen as a type of subprotocol, where the sequence of the energies we move has a precise order that is not accidental but quite meaningful. When I took a deep, and admittedly speculative, dive into trying to unravel these energy dynamics, I realized that the logic of this sequence reveals interesting aspects of how we are tuning our mystical body (and even our physical body) in this joint karpay. I began to see why the karpays took this form in terms of energy dynamics. So, in the rest of this blog, I am going to focus on these joint karpays as an example of the value of understanding some of our core practices as having a deep structure. I trust that this explication will provide insight into the protocol nature of this energy work—into what may be going on energetically, why the sequence matters, and how the sequence is helping us achieve a more sensitive and holistic mystical awareness.

I feel compelled to stress that this information is just my way of seeing things, and it is not intended to suggest that don Juan, don Ivan, or any of the paqos of our two lineages would agree with me. This is my own take on the energy dynamics, although everything I am about to suggest is based on the broader teachings from these masters. (And, again, if you are not well acquainted with the form of this joint karpay, this view of its energy dynamics may be challenging to follow.)

The karpays of Ñawi K’ichay and Chunpi Away are karpays we perform together, as a single integrated karpay with two goals: to awaken or activate our mystical eyes (called the ñawis) and to weave the belt-like energy fields (called the chunpis) into ourselves. The combined purpose is to energetically connect the separate ñawis into a fully integrated system. As we do that, we also activate the energies of the universal spirit beings associated with each ñawi (e.g., Mama Unu, Mother of the Waters; and Tayta Inti, Father Sun) and begin the process of refining the human capacities at each ñawi (e.g., rimay, khuyay, atiy).

We use five khuyas (called the mullu khuyas) to perform this combined karpay, and their form is, in and of itself, significant in this subprotocol, although discussing them in any depth is beyond the scope of this blog post. But that’s where we will start: with the mullu khuyas, because they guide the energy dynamics of this joint karpay.

The five mullu khuyas we use to perform this ceremony have names that refer to the number of “nubs” or protrusions on them. They are ch’ulla (one, singular), yanantin (two, dual and complementary), kinsantin (three), tawantin (four, the number of wholeness or unity), and pisqantin (five). Very briefly, let me share that odd numbers and even numbers have meaning in terms of Andean energy dynamics: odd numbers refer to a vertical movement of energy, whereas even numbers refer to a horizontal movement.

In the energy dynamics of this joint karpay, we start with the ch’ulla khuya, which we place on the pukyu, the energy point at the top of the forehead at the hairline. Through this single-nubbed khuya, we initiate a vertical flow of energy: we connect to the singular source of our paqarina, our place of origin, which for the sake of convenience I will call God (devoid of religious dogma and referring more generally to First Cause, Originating Consciousness, Creator, or the All). Kawsay is always flowing from our place of origin (from God) through a point at the top of our forehead and down into our Inka Muyu (Inka Seed). So, we start the karpay with the single khuya moving a singular, unitary energy, which to me is an undifferentiated energy (we and God in effect are this same life-force energy). This is the foundational and essential connection: the energy flow from Spirit to Flesh, from the Immaterial to the Material, from God-Spirit to God-Matter.

You will note that I italicized the word “undifferentiated” above. This term is important! My insight into this karpay is about how the protocol leads us—tunes us—from a state of unitary, integrated energy (undifferentiated energy) to increasingly discrete, or differentiated, kinds of energy and then back toward an undifferentiated, unitary (or integrated) energy. This is the deep energy dynamic of this joint karpay, at least according to my thinking about it as a kind of protocol. So, I will be focusing on how energy moves from an undifferentiated state to differentiated states and then back to undifferentiated.

The next step in this protocol involves our changing to the yanantin mullu khuya, which does most of the work of the karpay. Using the yanantin khuya, we move this unitary, undifferentiated energy of Creator up and back to the uma, the top of the head, where through the yanantin khuya (twoness, dual but complementary) we pull in a split stream of energy that is the abstract Creative energy of the material realm. I see the uma serving, in this joint karpay, as a kind of “reverse chaupi” point. A chaupi is usually a place where two energies merge into one. So, a reverse chaupi point would be where a singular, unitary energy splits into two. So, the uma as a reverse chaupi point is where we separate out from the undifferentiated unitary God energy the differentiated cosmic creative energies of the material cosmos: we simultaneously pull a gold stream and a silver stream of energy from the cosmos through the yanantin khuya. The gold and silver streams of energy can mean different things to different people, but usually they represent the male gold cosmic energy and the female silver cosmic energy. I see these as the unitary energy of God splitting into the Pachatata (Father Cosmos) and Pachamama (Mother Cosmos), the two universal yet differentiated energies necessary for creation in the physical world. They are the Father and Mother of the created world.

Two, as an even number, signifies a horizontal movement of energy. That’s what is happening here. We pull this yanantin energy over our skull as two fields that spread over skull on each side and then narrow down into thin streams of energy (seqes), which we cross over at the back of the neck (at the root of the kunka ñawi). Using the yanantin mullu khuya, we pull these two seqes (one gold, one silver) down to the bottom of the spine to the siki ñawi. Then we lift this khuya off the body and, at this point, the person undergoing the karpay uses only their intention to differentiate the energy further by pulling up the (green) energy of Mama Allpa (Mother Earth). We can think of what is about to happen as the two creative cosmic energies (as a yanantin) touching the energy of their creation—the physical earth, the energy of Mama Allpa.

The person pulls this green Earth energy up along their spine to the crossover point of the gold and silver in the middle back of the neck. We now have a new yanantin pair: physical, cosmic energy (the combined unit of gold and silver, Father and Mother Cosmos) and physical, earthly energy (Mama Allpa). And here, at the back of the neck, the person merges these three energies together, creating willka energy, or black light energy, as they move the energy down to the root of body, to the siki ñawi.

I see this crossover point at the back of the neck as another chaupi point: it is the point at which we begin to merge separate energies (the paired cosmic energies with the earthly energy) into a single, unitary energy, which is the black light energy. The person integrates these differentiated energies into a single, undifferentiated energy, which is the willka energy.  Thus, differentiation leads back to a new kind of undifferentiation. The outer is now inner! In the willka energy, we have created a personal source of Creator energy inside our physical and mystical body; we have “incorporated” the three physical Creator energies as one within, and from now on we are self-sufficient in this “Creator” energy. We can pull from our own source of willka energy at any time to restructure, reorganize, or reset ourselves (or use it to help others to do the same). According to don Juan, don Benito Qoriwaman would speak of the God Without and the God Within. At this point of the karpay as protocol, I see the integration of the God Without and the God Within as exactly what is happening along the spine from the neck (root of the kunka ñawi) to the tailbone (eye of the siki ñawi).

Something equally as interesting happens next. We are about to weave the four discrete chunpis (black, red, gold, and silver energy belts). I see the process of weaving these belts as resulting from the energy dynamics of another “reverse chaupi” point at the siki ñawi. From the integration of the creative energies into the singular willka energy, which is a restructuring or reorganizing kind of creative energy, we are about to break energy apart again into discrete types or frequencies to weave the four chunpis. We begin now to again work with differentiated energy and to restructure ourselves by “wiring” up the discrete ñawis into a unified perceptual system. As we move up the front of the body, we will be working in the karpay only with differentiated energy to weave each belt, activate and wire up each ñawi, and connect with and receive attunement from discrete universal spirit beings.

Using the yanantin mullu khuya we make the black belt, awaken the siki ñawi, and connect with and are tuned by Mama Unu (Mother Water). Next, we use the kinsantin mullu khuya to make another differentiation of energy, creating the red belt (the puka chunpi), awakening the qosqo ñawi (eye of the navel/belly), and connecting with and being tuned by Mama Allpa (Mother Earth). We switch to the tawantin mullu khuya to make the qori chunpi, or gold belt, activate the sonqo ñawi (eye of the feelings/heart), and connect with and be tuned by Tayta Inti (Father Sun), and then we move the tawantin mullu khuya up to the neck.

At the front of the neck, we back to another chaupi point, where we are going to reverse the process again and work toward integrating differentiated energies back into an undifferentiated unity energy. I think it’s not too much to see these shifts as mini Pachakutis (or world reversals) within!

Here at the throat, we use the pisqantin mullu khuya to weave the qolqe chunpi (silver belt), awaken the kunka ñawi (eye of the neck), and connect with and be tuned by Tayta Wayra, or Father Wind. We have completed the work of weaving the fourth and final chunpi. We have four chunpis, and only four chunpis. Together they form a tawantin of the differentiated energies of the mystical body. A tawantin represents wholeness, perfection, and harmony, and by activating our four (discrete) main ñawis and connecting them together into an integrated system through weaving the four chunpis, we have achieved a tawantin of mystical capacity and perception in the body. The tawantin also is of the four primary universal spirit beings, which represent the four aspects of Nature that anything physical needs to live: water, earth, sun, and wind/air. These are the energies necessary for life; the energies we need to be, as don Juan says, a “self-made human being.” (However, we are not working with these energies as “elements,” but as universal spirit beings.) So, now having created this energetic tawantin—the mandala of the self, as don Juan has termed it—we begin the move back from working with discrete kinds of energies to working with unified or integrated energies. We do this at the kunka, the neck, which, to me, makes the kunka ñawi, as the top of the tawantin, another chaupi point.

At the neck, we use the five-nubbed pisqantin mullu khuya to weave the silver belt. Five is an odd number and so indicates a vertical energy flow. Once we have woven the silver belt, we are about to “lift” energy from the physical back to the metaphysical in a way we have not done previously in this joint karpay. As we move up past the neck, we are back to moving toward undifferentiated energy, the energy of Oneness, as I explain below. And we are about to end the karpay very close to the starting point of the pukyu, which is always flowing undifferentiated Oneness (God) energy into us.

At this point in the karpay, we take the pisqantin mullu khuya off the body of the person undergoing the karpay and ask them to pull sami in from all around them, filling themselves from the siki (root) up to the kunka (neck) with sami. When they have done that, the person giving the karpay (the chunpi paqo) pulls in sami through him- or herself and into the pisqantin mullu khuya toward the person while the person sends some of the sami they just filled with out their kunka ñawi. Just off the skin of the throat these two streams of sami meet: the sami that the chunpi paqo is sending inward meets the sami that the person is sending outward, so that at this chaupi point the “inner and outer sami” become one. Again, the God Within and the God Without merge, and the chunpi paqo pulls this integrated (undifferentiated) sami up over the person’s face and uses it to activate the person’s two physical eyes (which are the paña and lloq’e ñawis) and the qanchis ñawi, or the seventh eye in the forehead, which is the eye through which we perceive the non-material (or metaphysical) world.

These three upper eyes are activated almost as a unity. There is no chunpi (belt) here, but we see these three eyes as a unit. It is through these three upper ñawis that physical perception and metaphysical perception are integrated, so that we can learn to see the Whole, which is to simultaneously perceive both the physical human world and the metaphysical world. We are back at a place of integration, of undifferentiated perception. If we train ourselves well, we now have the capacity to “see” with the equivalent of the eyes of God: the Whole of reality.

But there is an even greater integration that ends the karpay. Once these three upper eyes are activated, the chunpi paqo removes the pisqantin mullu khuya and the person connects with the cosmos and fills their body and poq’po (energy body) with the violet energy of the cosmos. This is the final incorporation of undifferentiated universal energy. During the karpay, and now most strongly while filling with the violet energy, the person releases their connections (seqes) to everyone in their life. (This happens automatically and doesn’t involve conscious intent). By the end of the karpay, as they fill with violet light, they are an utterly singular human being. The karpay ends with this experience of the state of complete inner integration of the Self.

Whew! Are you still with me? Many thanks to those of you are. I have gone into such great depth not only to offer a hopefully interesting (and maybe even an enlightening?) view of the sequenced energy dynamics of this important joint karpay, but also to show you why and how we can see this and other important practices of the Andean tradition as protocols: as ordered dynamical progressions of energy work that contain an inner logic. I often tell my students that if you take a deep dive into the Andean tradition and stick with it, you will attain the equivalent of a PhD in energy dynamics! I think you can see why from this post. Whether you agree with the interpretation I have shared here or not, I hope that you will have deepened your respect for the incredible sophistication of the energy work that has been passed on to us and that you will hold that knowledge and our practices as I do—as a precious gift.