spirituality

Mystical Relations with Cities

~ Q'enti Wasi ~ Leave a comment

In my last post, we explored our mystical relationship with nature. That reflection left me wandering down an unexpected path, thinking about cities. Urban areas are rarely the places people flock to when seeking personal respite or rejuvenation, spiritual connection, insight, inspiration, or the transcendent. But why should an urban environment be considered any less sacred than a natural one?

I am not talking about the world’s widely recognized spiritual centers, such as Jerusalem, Medina, Vatican City, Varanasi, Cusco, Kathmandu, or Kyoto. I am talking about everyday cities, such as Boston, Edmonton, Siena, Hamburg, Córdoba, Anatalya. I am talking about any city, really—large or small, well-known or entirely anonymous to anyone but the locals.

I guess what I am really exploring is not a specific location, but a particular kind of environment: the entirely manmade kind. And what I am exploring in a broader way is the sense of pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is an intentional journey to a place deemed holy or sacred, undertaken for spiritual, creative, or inspirational reasons. Because modern environments limit our daily exposure to nature, we often—and rightly—seek out green spaces for this kind of respite and rejuvenation. We head for the mountains, the forests, the oceans, or the jungles. But beyond recognized cities that are spiritual centers, why do so many people assume they will not (or cannot) find the sacred—or connection, respite, rejuvenation, insight, inspiration—in what is pejoratively labelled a “concrete jungle?” Other than our own learned biases, what truly makes the manmade less holy than the nature-made?

One of the strongest pulls of wilderness immersion is the ability to step (almost) entirely outside of society. When we are alone in nature, the social cacophony mostly ceases, allowing us a quiet space in which to connect with the self and better hear (and listen) to our inner voices. We also expand our awareness beyond ourselves. Instead of harried and complicated interchanges with people, we slow to the simpler rhythms of the wind, water, sun, and moon. We shed the social masks we wear and the cultural mores we serve. We become more aware of our wasi: the temple of the self, which comprises both our physical body and our poq’po (energy body). Naked to ourselves, we deepen our relationship with our own souls and the soul of the world.

Yet, the sacred is not out there. It is always and everywhere within ourselves.

So, I wonder why we cannot so easily shed those same social costumes and psychological masks while standing on a crowded street corner surrounded by brick buildings and the honking horns of cars? Isn’t it true that the challenge isn’t the concrete beneath our feet, but our willingness to “be” wherever we are, in whatever conditions, whether the dizzying action of a large city, the bland homogeneity of a suburb, or the insular timelessness of a backwater town? 

Landscapes by themselves are devoid of meaning. We are the meaning-makers. If we cannot “be”—centered, calm, aware, in wonder—in the middle of an urban rush, well . . . that tells us something about ourselves. If we can marvel at the power of ocean waves surging toward shore, can we not find a sense of majesty in a crowd of people propelling themselves with purpose along the city blocks? Why is sunlight brilliantly streaming through a thick tree canopy any less mesmerizing than one streaming down between a cluster of skyscrapers?

There is a term I once heard don Juan Nuñez del Prado use while discussing the Andean tradition: the egregore. It was how don Juan described some energy dynamic—I forget now what he was talking about—back in the very early days of my training. I haven’t heard him use it since. But it has stuck with me. It’s a term that refers to the spirit of a group, to how their energy coalesces into a shared psychic structure. We might think of it as a city’s dream body or its ayllu poq’po (group bubble or energy body). The egregore is formed from the collective beliefs, thoughts, emotions, needs, desires, dreams and such of the group, and so the egregore is the holistic impression we have of a place. It is a signature energy, such that the “feel” of London’s egregore is different from New Delhi’s, which is different from Buenos Aires’. There is a reason we feel the glow of romance in Paris and the welcoming, family-like familiarity of Bologna.

Most cities use taglines to brand themselves for tourism and commerce. However, from an energetic perspective, they are actually advertising their egregore: I live near Winston-Salem, NC, whose egregore is “The City of Arts and Innovation.” New Orleans is the “Big Easy,” Tokyo is where “Old Meets New,” and Geneva is “The Peace Capital.” You can “Find Your Heart” in San Francisco and know that “What Happens Here, Stays Here” in Las Vegas.

For every one of our shifting passions there is an urban egregore that perfectly resonates with it and so can deepen our feelings about whatever is sacred to us in the moment. There is a place vibrating at the perfect frequency to sweep us into the indulgence of physical pleasures, or into freeing our inner child or unleashing our inner comedian, or into supercharging our creativity or immersing ourselves in futuristic technology. When we choose to view every place on this planet as sacred, even a simple day trip to a bustling urban center transforms into a pilgrimage. Just like a verdant forest or an imposing mountain, a city can serve as a powerful bridge between the mundane world and the liminal space of the divine.

Mystical Relations with the Earth

~ Q'enti Wasi ~ Leave a comment

Hike through the high plains of the Peruvian Andes, and you might notice your guide pausing before a towering peak or beside a rushing stream, whispering softly and offering a few coca leaves or spilling a few drops of water. To an outsider, this gesture might look like a quaint ritual—a nod to folklore. But to the paqos (practitioners of the Andean mystical tradition), this isn’t a performance. It’s a vital connection, even a sacred communion. While Western spirituality often focuses on ascending out of the world, and many Eastern traditions look inward to find the divine, the Andean paqos do something entirely different. They look directly at the landscape and bridge its materiality to touch its energetic essence. Andeans in general, and paqos in particular, are kawsaypa llikapi, which literally means “within the network of life.”

In modern society, many of us view ourselves as separate entities moving through a space. Even if we admire our surroundings as we walk through a valley, many of us traverse the terrain essentially as observers or visitors. In contrast, in the Andean tradition we understand that our energy field (poq’po) is directly enmeshed with the surrounding landscape and its features. The valley in its own right has a poq’po, as do the creatures who live there and each of the trees, rocks, rivers, flowers, and other natural features. The paqos teach that humans possess three main forms of perception: yachay: mind; munay: feelings; and llank’ay: action. When these three ways of perceiving are aligned, a human being becomes a chakaruna—a living bridge. We literally become a conduit through which we and the sky, the mountain, the river, or the stones share energy. This is ayni, or reciprocity. As modern physics tells us, and the paqos show us, the created universe is relational. As Margaret Wheatley, a writer and speaker who incorporates systems science into her leadership seminars and books, says, “Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation.”

Without humans consciously performing rituals of reciprocity, Andeans believe the universe loses its harmony. So, we humans, despite our woeful behavior as stewards of the Earth, are not cosmic tourists visiting the Earth for a time but vital expressions of the Earth. Humans, the Andeans tell us, are allpa camasca: animated earth. Energetically, when we engage in an ayni relationship with Mother Earth, we not only honor her but become an integral aspect of her body and serve as ritual caretakers. The physical landscape is not just terrain; it is the altar upon which we cherish our “mother” and take to heart our roles as attentive “children.” By caring for the Earth, we care for ourselves and all creatures.

Most people, when they first begin to practice Andean mysticism, tend to gravitate toward Pachamama, which usually is translated as “Mother Earth.” However, Mother Earth as a being in her own right has her own name: Mama Allpa. Who, then, is Pachamama? The Cosmic Mother. In a beautiful imagistic rendering, Andeans see Mama Allpa as the womb of Pachamama. From this Earth womb all living things are birthed into being. However, our Original Mother is of cosmic origin. Pachamama is the mother of the entire material universe, of which Mama Allpa and we are just a small a part. When we are in ayni with Mama Allpa, by extension we also are in ayni with Pachamama, the entire material cosmos.

A logical question is why Andeans tend to call Mama Allpa (planet Earth) “Pachamama.” One reason is a function of the Quechua language. Allpa literally means “earth,” as in soil or dirt. Pacha has many definitions: dirt, soil, earth, realm, world, space, time. But it also functions as a kind of honorific. When Andeans are planting seeds in their fields, they are digging furrows in the allpa, the earth, the dirt. Allpa tends to be used within common language as a reference to the mundane. The word Pacha, however, lifts the mundane to the sacred. So, when Andeans shift to referring to the Earth as the giver of abundant life gifts (crops, animals and herds, water, and such), they refer to her as a sacred being, and they use the term Pachamama, the Sacred Earth Mother.

There is a similar language transformation with how Andeans relate in ayni with water. The Quechua term for water is unu, although many Andeans use the Spanish agua. In fact, they tend to use the word agua when referring to water in its mundane form as an element of rain or a stream. When they add the word unu (agua unu), they are referring to water in its sacred nature. The water flowing down from a snow-capped mountain to irrigate their fields is agua unu; it is considered the fertilizing blood that flows thru the veins of the mountains or as the sweat of Mother Earth. Referring to water as unu imparts the notions of divinity, unity, fertility, and sanctity. Likewise, yaku means river in its mundane sense, or refers to any mundane type of flowing water, such as that in an irrigation ditch. But when referred to as yaku unu, this water is elevated to the realm of the sacred. The water is honored for its sacred life-giving properties.

Living these kinds of relationships turns the landscape into a kind of living altar. Just about everything in nature is considered a waka, a repository of the sacred. Andeans don’t just live on the land; they are in continual, dynamic reciprocity with it. If we want to experience this mystical immersion into a network of living relationships with nature, the Earth, and even our entire cosmos, we don’t have to practice the Andean or any other mystical tradition. We can simply walk outside of our house and shift our perspective. Instead of looking at nature, we feel into nature. And perceive how nature is looking at and feeling into each of us. By transitioning our conscious awareness from our mind to our poq’po (our energetic, perceptual body), we learn we are integrally woven into the living web of nature. We cease being spectators and become partners in the world’s unfolding.

The Value of Spiritual Questioning

~ Q'enti Wasi ~ 1 Comment

In the Andean mystical tradition, knowledge and proficiency are not destinations reached through logic, but are a joint path carved by repetition. This indigenous lineage prioritizes embodied knowledge over theoretical frameworks. Unlike Western pedagogical styles that favor “the why,” the paqos (Andean mystical practitioners) focus almost exclusively on “the what.” Their style of practice is:

Action Over Analysis: Techniques are rarely accompanied by logical explanations or philosophical discussions.

Experiential Repetition: Students are expected to perform techniques time and time again, bypassing the analytical mind and accessing personal perception. The work is phenomenological rather than intellectual.

Experiential Mastery: The energy dynamics of a practice—its purpose and its potential—are revealed through the lived experience of doing the work.

In this tradition, understanding is not an intellectual exercise; it is an interior state of being achieved through the rhythm of sustained practice. This raises a natural tension: Is there any room for the questions themselves? If you are like me, you are likely bursting with them. Fortunately, my primary teacher, don Juan Nuñez del Prado, occupied a unique position as both a former university professor and a master practitioner. Because of his background, questions were always—well, mostly—welcome. There were certainly moments when don Juan would simply say, “Just do it. Discover the answer through the practice itself.” But more often than not, he graciously and patiently entertained my inquiries. Because we both had one foot in the academic world, we were constantly balancing two distinct ways of knowing: pure experiential immersion and logical, informed speculation. This dual approach—bridging the mystical and the analytical—has served me well. So, in this post I want to explore the value of questioning as a vital component of the spiritual path.

I view mystics as a specialized kind of scientist. They begin with a fundamental hypothesis: Is there more to this world than the purely physical? To test this, they devise an experiment: If I consciously share my energy with this mountain, will it respond? They run multiple trials, observe the results, and sometimes the mountains “talk back.” From those results, a host of new, rigorous questions arise. I suspect the paqos, while not analytical, asked the following kinds of questions in their own way:

Verification: Were those responses objective reality or projections of my own mind? How can I discern the difference?

Replicability: If other paqos perform the same energy practice, will they achieve the same result?

Variables: Are the mountains who responded sentient, or am I tapping into a broader field? Why do some peaks respond while others remain silent?

I believe the mystics of antiquity must have held a perspective much like that of Albert Einstein, who famously remarked: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.”

To me, this is more than just a quotation; it is a vital, even precious, stance for the modern seeker. By embracing this Einsteinian curiosity, we don’t just “do” the practices—we engage with the marvelous structure of the energetic world. We honor the mystery not by silent acceptance, but by sustained, awe-filled attempts to comprehend just a little more of it each day.

Questioning is a skill, a kind of spiritual practice itself. There are ways to form questions, and what I am proposing here is a type called “open inquiry.” Rather than seeking definitive answers or reaching absolute conclusions, spiritual inquiry acts as a bridge beyond the intellect. It isn’t about solving a puzzle; it’s about staying curious enough to bypass our mental filters. In the realm of the spirit, questioning serves as a catalyst for wonder rather than a search for facts. By moving past the analytical brain, inquiry allows us to touch reality directly, favoring raw connection over mental labels. Questions can move us from only from knowing “about” a practice to “being within” it, turning the question itself into a tool for direct energetic engagement.

Adopting a stance of “I don’t know” acts as a solvent for the ego and the analytical mind; it is a form of inquiry that Masters across many mystical traditions regard as a valuable spiritual discipline in its own right. The “I don’t know” stance can be a power move for the soul. It bypasses the intellect’s need for control and plunges us into the raw, mysterious reality of the moment. When we “live the question,” we treat the strange, mysterious, and illogical not as problems to be solved, but as fertile landscapes where spontaneous insight can take root. It is in this space of radical uncertainty that our old habits soften their stubborn hold, and our true potential begins to bloom.

Questions as self-inquiry can serve as a vital compass, allowing us to gauge the depth and trajectory of our practice. As our karpay (personal power and proficiency) expands, our inquiry naturally evolves; the questions we ask grow alongside our shifting values, capacities, and goals. Most importantly, this process facilitates an expansion of the self. We all carry a “story” of who we are, but as we expand access to our Inka Seed—our core potential—that narrative must be rewritten to accommodate a larger reality. The fundamental questions of identity and purpose become essential:

Identity: Who have I become in this new light? Beyond my personal history, how do I consciously choose to be in the world now? As a Drop of the Mystery, do I recognize myself as an integral thread in the fabric of creation?

Direction: Where is my expanded Inka Seed now leading me? Am I honoring my Inka Seed as my ultimate truth-teller and following its guidance as my inner compass? Am I expressing my essence in my own unique way—acting as the “energy artist” of my life—and walking the path of my own heart?

Intent: What is the quality of my ayni (reciprocity) with the living universe, nature, and my fellow human beings? Where are my intentions—both conscious and unconscious—driving me? Am I open to being flexible enough to make necessary course corrections?

Challenges: What remaining internal filters or personal energetic blocks are stalling further growth? In what ways am I still choosing to play small or hide my power?

Contributions: In what ways am I failing to honor my own needs or neglecting the “service” I owe to my own well-being? In what ways can I offer more of my authentic self to my family and friends, my work, and the world?

Mysticism is an unfiltered, direct encounter with the Mystery—a relationship that naturally overflows with inquiry. Rather than separating us from our practice, spiritual questioning deepens our connection to the universe and ourselves. Questions don’t distance us; they facilitate the very experiences they seek to understand.

Hucha Mikhuy: Digesting Heavy Energy

~ Q'enti Wasi ~ 1 Comment

During a recent ice storm, I spent my time housebound revisiting old transcripts of private conversations, small group discussions, and early classes with don Juan Nuñez del Prado. Within these folders was a trove of insights into hucha mikhuy (also spelled hucha miqhuy), which inspired me to compile and share these teachings with you. (You might also want to revisit last month’s blog post in which I discuss the basics of hucha mikhuy.)

Hucha mikhuy is an advanced technique used to transform or release hucha, or heavy energy. It is applied in three ways:

  • Self-Refinement: Transforming our own accumulated heavy energy.
  • Service to Others: Clearing hucha for the benefit of another person.
  • Relational Empowerment: Refining the energetic flow between ourselves and others to reduce any hucha within a relationship.

Regardless of how we apply this energy “tool”—as don Juan calls it—the core process remains the same. We draw the hucha into the qosqo ñawi (the mystical eye or energy center at the navel/belly), intending for our spiritual stomach to “digest” the heaviness. The key to successful digestion lies in perceiving how the incoming stream of hucha transforms as it enters the qosqo and the digestion process begins: The single stream of hucha splits into two distinct flows. A portion of the hucha is accelerated back to its natural state of sami (light living energy). This refined energy diverges from the main stream of hucha and flows upward through the body, empowering us. The remaining hucha, which is not digested, flows down into Mother Earth, who graciously receives and expertly transforms it.

Through this practice, we truly come to understand that hucha is a kind of “food” for us and for Mother Earth. Don Juan beautifully explains this reciprocal relationship: “Mother Earth is a co-creator with the cosmos. She propels our evolution. Everything is sami, and only human beings create hucha. She recycles our hucha, which propels us forward. She feeds us sami as a kind of food and we feed her hucha, which is food for her. This is ayni, sacred reciprocity. When we do hucha mikhuy, we are following her example. She is the master at recycling things, and with hucha mikhuy we learn to recycle energy as Mother Earth does. Hucha mikhuy increases our sami: with the self, our relations to others, and the world. We become Mother Earth’s ally, helping her to digest human beings’ heavy energy. When we are digesting heavy energy in a relationship or for another person, we are doing three things: first we are giving food to Mother Earth. She is the best at hucha mikhuy, and she loves hucha! Second, we are clearing some of the other person’s hucha, helping that person. Third, we are empowering ourselves. There is a big impact because we are doing three things at the same time as we digest heavy energy.”

Don Juan further explained the ayni dynamic this way: “We don’t have Ten Commandments in this tradition. We have only one commandment, and it is ayni. If you receive something, you must give something. It is the moral rule to share. You have the right to increase your personal power, but if you do, you also must share your power with other people. We are not looking just to accumulate power; we are looking to share it. You know, there is nothing heavy about money, about accumulating a lot of money, if you share it with others who need it. In our Westernized cultures, we sometimes want money just to have money, and the more, the better! But in the Andes, we share what we accumulate. This is the law of ayni.”

Hucha mikhuy, don Juan says, is a “spiritual tool, and so it is a matter of training.” It is considered an advanced energy practice, and so there is a protocol for learning it. When don Benito Qoriwaman taught hucha mikhuy to don Juan, he explained this step-by-step sequence, and we would all do well to follow it. First, we work on ourselves, and to do that we must hone our ability to perceive energy. Energy is always coming toward us and through us, and we want to learn to perceive energy as it touches the “skin” of our poq’po, or energy bubble. Our poq’po, according to don Juan, “is sensitive, just like the skin of our body is. If you touch the skin on your arm, you will feel that touch. The poq’po has an outer boundary, which we can think of as its own kind of skin. When energy flows meet it, they are like fingers touching the skin of our body. We are sensitive to that energy having touched us. It might take practice to develop that level of sensitivity to energy, but like anything else, with practice we will develop the ability to do just that.”

Once we are adept at perceiving energy flows, we move to the next step in learning hucha mikhuy: mastering control of the mystical eye (qosqo ñawi) at our belly (qosqo). Don Juan explains, “You must learn to work with your qosqo, which is your spiritual stomach. You will feel how you can open and close your qosqo ñawi, the ‘eye’ or energy center there. You must learn to use this ñawi like the diaphragm of a camera. You don’t start with your qosqo ñawi wide open. You open it only a little. And then as the energy flows in you will feel something like a finger touching you. In the beginning, you may only feel a little flow of hucha into the qosqo. Then you use intention to open the qosqo ñawi more, and you will feel the periphery of the ñawi enlarging. Once you learn to control your qosqo ñawi, then you learn how to digest, to use your spiritual stomach. You just command it to digest, and it will do it! You will feel the flow of hucha coming into the qosqo and split into two streams: one of sami flowing up and one of undigested hucha flowing down. That’s it! Don’t overthink it. Just trust that your spiritual stomach knows what to do.”

To understand the energy dynamic, we must remember that hucha is simply slow sami (light living energy). As the hucha is digested in our spiritual stomach, some of the hucha is sped back up to its natural state and some it will resist transformation. Hence, the split flow of sami moving up and into us and hucha moving down to Mother Earth. That double flow is a key characteristic of “digesting” hucha. Don Juan says, “If you do not feel the split stream, then you are not digesting. So, you just stop, and you can try again another time.”

As an aside: If you are like me, sometimes you will not feel the split stream. When that happens, I don’t stop the hucha mikhuy session, because I trust my spiritual stomach more than my own perceptual sensitivity! Some days I simply am more perceptual than others. As don Juan said, our qosqo knows what to do, and I take that literally.

Once we know how to do hucha mikhuy, the learning protocol continues by working with varying degrees of hucha. “Don’t rush,” don Juan says. “Follow the teaching. Practice. Learn step by step. First learn to perceive your bubble and energy flows, and then your qosqo ñawi. Learn how to open and close that ñawi. Then learn to digest your own heavy energy, the hucha on the surface of your poq’po. When you know how to do that for yourself, you will know how to do it for another person. Start by processing the hucha of a person close to you, someone who is neutral in your relations with them or who you feel you have only a little hucha with. Then move to a person who is heavier, where your relationship is a bit uglier. Once you master the technique, it is a tool to use with a person who is ugly, who is heavy or heavy in their dealings with you. But do not go there first! You take it a step at a time.”

When learning hucha mikhuy, students commonly ask if there is any danger of taking in too much hucha, and, if so, if that can be harmful. The answer to both concerns is “No.” The worst that can happen is that we will not be able to digest the energy, and so we simply stop the practice. Don Juan reminds us that “when dealing with hucha, you are not touching something dark or negative. You are dealing with something heavy. Think of trying to lift a heavy stone in your yard and you cannot, and that is all that will happen—you cannot! So you stop trying, and come back to it later.”

As counterintuitive as it seems, any discomfort we might experience during hucha mikhuy is not from taking in hucha (even the heaviest of hucha), but from accumulating too much sami in our body and poq’po. “When you are digesting a lot of hucha,” don Juan explains, “you will be taking a lot of sami up and into yourself. So, sometimes you might feel a little too full, a little dizzy or something, like when you drink too much alcohol! You don’t have to stop digesting the hucha. Just send some of that sami up out of the top of your head and to someone who can use more sami. Share it! Then you will feel better, and through ayni you are putting some sami in the bank. If you send sami to someone who needs it, it doesn’t stop there. Maybe one day you will find yourself in a situation where you need more energy and you don’t have it. Then you can ask for it, and you will receive it. The living universe will know how you shared and it will send some extra sami to you. You can ask for it and receive it!”

 

Reflections on the Qanchispatañan

~ Q'enti Wasi ~ Leave a comment

As we close out the year, I continue writing about mystical capacities by addressing what I believe is one of the most important: qaway, which is mystical vision. A qawaq is a visionary or seer: a person with exceptional clarity who can “see” the metaphysical and physical worlds simultaneously. Deep down the two worlds are One; yet qaway allows us to maintain a metaphysical stance even as we “see” our human world just as it is—in all its darkness and light. Qaway helps us understand not only what is happening on the surface, but energies that play into root causes way down in the netherworld of cause and effect.

Although statistics show that across the globe humans live in better conditions than ever before in history—better health, less poverty and hunger, higher rates of education, greater wealth—the predominate perception seems to be that we are living in particularly troubled times. Authoritarianism is on the rise, a climate crisis looms, AI threatens to reduce employment at record levels, the cost of living is rising, and people appear to be less tolerant and more tribal. Can there possibly be a single, core explanation for the heavy state of so much of humanity? If so, what could it be?

The answer is yes, and the core explanation probably is not what you think. The root cause of most of our problems, if not all of them, is not politics, power structures, prejudices, oppressive social or economic systems, and the like. It is a person’s stage of consciousness, and by extension the predominant collective stage of human consciousness.

As I lead you into a brief discussion about human consciousness, I must state the obvious as caveats. Consciousness is an immensely complex and intricately nuanced subject. We will be venturing into only one aspect of it: the evolutionary nature of the development of human consciousness. There are, of course, innumerable reasons for the problems in the world; but the hub of the wheel, so to speak, is consciousness and where we are individually and collectively along the spectrum of consciousness development.

It also is useful to know the core terms of consciousness: state, stage, and structure. Roughly speaking, a state of consciousness is a person’s shifting, transitory phenomenological experience: happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, curiosity, envy, boredom, etc. The stages of consciousness are the progressive shifts in the quality of how consciousness functions and thus in how we understand and experience the world differently as we develop. The various theories of consciousness development do not agree on the number of stages, although most identify between four and seven. An example of progressive stages might be pre-rational/instinctual, rational/egoic, relational/social, mythic/spiritual, transcendental/non-dualistic, cosmic/integral/Oneness. A structure of consciousness is the way our consciousness is ordered, and so how we experience our own beingness. In the Andes, we would use the word mast’ay, which means reordered or reorganized. At each stage of development, our consciousness is restructured in such a way that we expand our conception of being.

A sampling of some of the most well-known of these (mystical) models include Sri Aurobindo and his Integral Yoga philosophy; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s four-stage evolutionary consciousness, Jean Gebser’s Integral Theory, Ken Wilber’s Integral Metatheory that builds on Gebser’s and others’ models, Meister Eckhart’s stages of union, Theravada Buddhism’s stages of awakening, and Huston Smith’s four progressive spiritual personality types.

Many theories I have read about agree that collectively humanity is in a middle stage: usually at stage three of a seven-stage spectrum. This is not a highly developed stage, and the condition of the world reflects this. As mystic theologian Willigis Jäger writes in his 1989 book Search for the Meaning of Life: Essays and Reflections on the Mystical Experience: “We seem to find ourselves . . . in the middle of our journey toward full and complete humanness—and it is precisely at this point that we face special danger. No longer animals, we have nevertheless yet to reach full maturity, namely that mystical dimension of consciousness in which the future of humanity evidently lies. Til we get there, we are in a rather tragic stage, as the situation of today’s world shows.” (p 30)

The Andean mystical tradition can be added to the list of theories. In fact, the entire foundation of the tradition rests upon the qanchispatañan, a seven-stage model of the dynamical unfolding of consciousness. As with other models, at each of the earlier stages of the qanchispatañan we can express the characteristics of that structure of consciousness in both heavy (hucha-generating) and light (sami-generating) ways. We can be happy at any stage, but as we move up the spectrum of increasing consciousness, we produce less and less hucha. We broaden our abilities to harmoniously engage the world and our fellow human beings, especially those radically different from us.

Because of space constraints, I am providing only the briefest overview of the zero through second stages of the qanchispatañan, and concentrating on the third and fourth, as these are the stages that most of us have achieved. There are no human beings we know of who currently are developed to the higher stages (five through seven). Although some people display flashes of these stages, no one is fully developed to and consistently at stage five and higher.  

In this model, we all start at the zero stage, that of the purun runa: our raw, natural, undeveloped self. As we age and engage in life, we step up through the first, second, and third stages. Using psychology as a guide, we might think of the first stage as an almost totally egoic stage. Because our priorities are survival needs first and personal status second, a core personality characteristic is victim mentality. We take little responsibility for ourselves and our self-created hucha, believing the world and others are the cause of our problems. At the second stage, we increase our self-awareness and thus begin to own and deal with our shadow (unconscious) needs, drives, and desires. We increasingly take responsibility for ourselves and may even begin a sustained program of self-improvement. Most human beings (and organizations, nations, and other social and human power structures) are at the third stage. Here we engage the world in much healthier ways, although this stage also has a host of pitfalls. The most divisive are duality thinking, tribalism such that others are either with us or against us, heavy judgments on those different from us, and the belief that we have the truth and others (whom we see as our opposition) do not.  We also display our heaviness as either-or thinking, a win-lose mentality, and a drive toward competition rather than cooperation. Our focus tends to be on differences rather than similarities, and so we are more exclusionary than inclusive.

Because the third-level worldview is so dualistic, the most difficult leap to make is from the third to the fourth stage. It is an expansion of consciousness that has dramatic effects on the way we think of ourselves, others, and the world in general. We usually do not advance to the fourth stage unless we have done our shadow work and made significant progress toward self-actualization. The fourth stage is that of the chakaruna: we are bridge builders. Our frame of reference and our daily practice is that of taqe, joining. We respect all traditions, because we see the core, underlying truths and values that they share. So, we move from focusing on what separates us to the commonalities among us. We seek win-win strategies, encourage cooperation rather than competition, and, among many other capacities, strive to see every individual as worthy of respect and compassion. We marvel at the diversity of human expression, while knowing in the physical realm we are all part of one human family and in the spiritual realm we are each an expression of the All That Is.

To understand many of the problems we face in human relations and, thus, in the state of the world, we must acknowledge three fundamental “truths” about any evolutionary model of human conscious development. First, we as individuals, and thus collectively as a species, cannot skip a stage of development. There is no leap-frogging from the second to the fourth stage, or the third to the sixth stage. There is only a steady progression stage by stage.

Second, ontologically (meaning what is means to “be”), we can only understand what it means to be human from the view of the stage we are at. Others might tell us what it is like at a more advanced stage, but we are essentially clueless about what it means to “be” (as in our quality of self, our human beingness) at that stage of development until we have reached it ourselves. As an analogy, there is no butterfly without there having first been a caterpillar. A caterpillar cannot know what it is like to be a butterfly. If it were capable of imagining, mystically a caterpillar might know it contains within itself a butterfly nature, but as a caterpillar it can only be what it is.

Third, although language is linear, we must rise above that restriction, because one stage of human consciousness is not “higher” than another in a purely hierarchical sense. Consciousness is evolutionary in nature, so we could say that all stages exist simultaneously in potential, but display in reality more or less sequentially. We take everything we have developed in previous stages with us as we progress to the next stage. Going back to the caterpillar and butterfly analogy: That butterfly, at some energetic and perhaps physical stage, retains aspects of its former caterpillarness. It is what it is, but also what it was. Thus, a later stage of development is not “better than” a previous one; it is simply “more of” what is possible within the realm of the unfolding of beingness. The new enfolds the old, the current enfolds the former. Consciousness is a process of emergence, an increasing expansion of awareness toward our “God” nature.

Now that we have the necessary context, we can more easily understand that many of our problems arise because of our ignorance, misunderstandings, or outright refusal to live by these “truths.” We end up projecting the values of our own stage of consciousness onto those who have not yet reached our stage. Every stage has heavy and light aspects to it, and we tend to valorize the light aspects of our own stage of development and focus on the heavy aspects of people at stages below us. Thus, instead of understanding that everyone can only “be” the capacities inherent at their stage of consciousness, we see people as willfully and intentionally being ___________ [insert whatever epithets of abuse you want: ignorant, selfish, immoral, hateful, racist, oppressive, misogynist, xenophobic . . .].

They are the problem, we say. But that is not true in the qawaq sense. When we have developed our mystical vision, we “see” that each of us is right where we are. We cannot be anywhere else. While we want to work to increase the good in the world, it is a waste of our energy to shame, insult, demonize, or try to legislate “morality” into people who are expressing the heavier aspects of an earlier stage of development. We cannot speed up evolution. Doing so, as Ken Wilbur wrote in The Post-truth World: Politics, Polarization, and a Vision for Transcending the Chaos, is like “calling age 5 a disease and outlawing it.” (p 69) A five-year-old cannot do anything else but think, behave, and understand as a five-year-old. To expect anything more of that child is to be impatient or unfair at best and delusional at worst.

What is “wrong” in the world is not “out there,” but “in here.” We think things like (and act from these thoughts and beliefs), “Everyone knows right from wrong, right?” “Everyone knows that [X] hurts us, while [Y] helps us, right?” Even if we temper those feelings, we are prone to thinking along the lines of: “At the very least they should know, right? In this day and age, there simply is no excuse for anyone to lie and cheat, to dox and cancel, to support or enable any kind of oppression, to think misogyny or xenophobia is tolerable, to desecrate the Earth and our resources, right?”

Wrong.

Andean paqos and a variety of consciousness theorists remind of us of the obvious: We all start out as purun runa—at the zero stage, which is that of the natural but undeveloped human being. Although some of our development is fueled simply because we grow up and live in the world at a particular time and in a particular culture, much of personal development is a mix of circumstance and choice. As Ken Wilber says: No matter how fast the world is developing socially, culturally, materially, and technologically, “. . . everybody today is still born at square one and must begin their growth and development from there—and they can stop when they reach any [stage]. And thus even worldcentric [i.e., fourth stage] cultures everywhere continue to possess individuals at, for example, deeply ethnocentric [second and third] stages of development—and those individuals possess powerfully oppressive, coercive, and domineering impulses.” He adds, “Human beings are not born at a worldcentric stage of morality, values, or drives—they are not born democratically enthused. They develop to those stages after [passing through several other] major stages of development, and by no means does everybody make it.” (Post-Truth World, p 73)

However, even those at the fourth and higher stages of development face challenges, not the least of which is that they forget that everyone does not see the world as they do. Others at earlier stages may not share their ethical and moral values. Consequently, fueled by remnants of their former third-stage selves, they can be impatient with those they perceive as blocking progress or perpetuating injustices. They then tend to become contemptuous toward people they consider “less developed” than themselves. Because those at the earlier stages cannot know what consciousness at a more developed stage is like, they are clueless as to why they are being blamed and shamed for being who they are and holding the worldview that they do. They then tend to react by demonizing those at the later stages, who they come to see as elites, dominators, privileged, prejudiced, [insert your own abusive epithet]. If those at the higher levels do not right themselves, a viciously divisive cycle ensues.

While light-bearers, change-makers, activists, advocates, and educators at every stage are doing good works and striving to solve problems for the good of all, their efforts often fall short or boomerang in unexpected and unfortunate ways in part because they forget they are not talking to their peers. To be successful in their advocacy, they need to reach out to people at earlier stages of development who appear ready to be guided to the next stage of development. And they need to communicate with them in the “language” of that earlier stage. All of us must meet people where they are, not where we wish they were.

There is a danger of thinking that such a strategy is manipulative or patronizing, but it is not. (Well, it can be depending on the interior stage of development of the communicator.) Remember, when we develop our qaway ability, we “see” reality as it really is. And if we agree with the main premises of many of these evolutionary models of human consciousness development, then acknowledging that people are at different levels, and meeting them where they are and in a way they can understand, is not only realistic, but necessary. Theories of consciousness are stunning in their complexity. They easily can be misunderstood when they are only partially presented, as I have done here. So, I leave you with the advice Ken Wilber provides in A Post-Truth World: “What so desperately needs to be understood, from a developmental and evolutionary perspective, is that each major stage of development becomes a possible station in life for those who stop there, and there is nothing that can be done about that—except to make sure that all means of further development are made as widely available as possible (a core task of the leading-edge), and—just as importantly—make room in society for individuals who are at each station of life . . ., and douse the whole affair with outrageous amounts of loving kindness—and do this by example. (p 11, italics in original)