Author: Oakley Gordon (Page 21 of 31)

(I have edited this since first posting it, including changing its title).

For a long time I’ve been going to a special place in the woods by a mountain stream. There, over many visits, I go through the various meditations I have learned from don Americo, including one of the simplest: ‘Go to a place in nature, open up your energy, connect to that place, still your internal dialog, and just be there, not-doing.’ I also–on an intermittent basis–practice as I take my walk some of the meditations I have learned from Eckhart Tolle; to become completely present in the now, to become aware of my own presence, to be aware of being the Being who is experiencing the world. Tolle also speaks of the great benefit of being totally present in a beautiful spot in nature as a way to experience who we really are.

I follow this path because at some deep level it resonates in beauty within me, just below the threshold of hearing my heart sings, even my intellect smiles and says “I don’t understand what is going on but I like it'”. This keeps me going, even though for me the momentous moments on the path are few and far between.

The other day I was sitting by the stream with my close friends who are walking this salka path with me. It was one of those internal dialog days where my mind just doesn’t seem to want to shut up its chattering and let more of who I am inform my experience. We went through a couple of internal-dialog-stopping meditations, and when we finished my internal dialog was quieter, but still nattering on. As we sat and chatted for a while by the stream I found myself withdrawing from the conversation. I was feeling such a strong desire to connect with the river and with the trees on the other side and with the cliff that towers up behind them. As I let my energy, my filaments, connect to the Nature around me my internal dialog faded away. Then for a brief moment my experience shifted in a way that is beyond words, but led to me exclaiming to myself (imagine a tone of fond affection and pleasant delight), “Oh…there I am!”.

Hi, I’m on a bit of hiatus from writing posts. My writing efforts right now are directed toward putting together a book based upon what I’ve written so far. I don’t want the Salka Wind blog to languish in the meantime, however, so I’ll continue to share what I can of salka and the Andean Cosmovision and the exploration of who we are as Beings in the Cosmos (put like that it sounds like a rather lofty goal).

About a month ago I returned home from another trip to Peru where I worked with don Americo and other mystics, p’aqos, healers and of course Peru itself. Coming home was hard on me. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I made it hard on myself. I didn’t want to step out of the Andean Cosmovision and back into my western culture’s view of reality. After a couple of weeks, and fair amount of depression, I finally made the shift. It’s not bad, I’m glad I did, and I have learned something by looking back at what I went through during the transition.

My reluctance to return to my western perspective was based upon fear, a fear that in doing so I would lose what I had gained in Peru and simply return to how I was before I left. Silly me. That is never what happens, what does happen is that I return to my everyday life and to the everyday things I do, I go back to work, I go back to meditating at my favorite spot in the mountains, and then after a while I notice that I’m not like I used to be, I’ve changed in a way that leaves me often feeling happier to be on this planet and more enthusiastic to move forward in whatever-in-the-heck-it-is that I’m doing (“I don’t know what I’m heading for, but I’m going to head for it that’s for sure!”, Grateful Dead lyrics).

We don’t have to go to Peru to have this experience, every time we do one of the Andean meditations we step into salka, it is just juicier in Peru, but small steps will get us to the same place as large ones. Whether in Peru or meditating in our back yard we move into our salka way of being, and then we return to our everyday, domesticated, way of being, and then our Being subtly integrates the two. I’ve come to realize that this Being, not the U.S., not Peru, is my home. Every time we meditate and then go back to our everyday life we take a tiny step toward home.

When I came back from Peru I was afraid that re-entering my everyday life would lead to my losing what I had experienced in Peru. The opposite of fear is love.

The path to a greater experience of salka does not depend upon a specific set of beliefs, nor does it depend upon connecting with a certain teacher, it depends simply upon you, and Nature, and the Cosmos.

Of the three centers of your being the best place to focus your attention is in your munay. When light and energy grow in your munay then they also flow to your llachay and llankay.

Connect with Nature, connect with Nature, connect with Nature. Connect with the Pachamama, with the Apus, with the stars, with the trees, with the rivers tumbling down the mountain side, with the condor riding the thermals up into the clouds. The Andean Cosmovision gives you the freedom to do this, that is its main utility.

Connect through your munay, dance with Nature and the Cosmos, ayni will provide the music.

There are times to be on the right side and times to be on the left side; times to be feminine and times to be masculine; times to be your own mother and times to be your own father; times to operate from your intellect, times to operate from your heart, and times to operate from your body; there are times to engage in the dance and times to withdraw and gather your energy. You are not the various facets of your being, you are the diamond, you can be found in the profound silence of the Cosmos.