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Posts on the Andean Cosmovision

Tag: meditations (Page 9 of 9)

Touching Pachamama

June 9, 2011 / / 0 Comments

This is a very simple meditation (like the Bellybutton to the Pachamama meditation) but after years and years of seeking to know more and more I find that I have returned to the simple meditations as the foundation for integrating the Andean Cosmovision into my daily life. This meditation is very useful for coming into harmony and balance within ourselves. I don’t use this meditation to get rid of unwanted energy (e.g. anger, anxiety, stress)–there are other meditations for that–I use it when I have simply become too focussed on only part of who I am. For me this often means that I have gotten way too much into my head. There is a certain way I feel after a long spell of intellectual endeavor; from listening to papers being presented at an academic conference, writing computer programs, teaching (or taking) classes, or attending several meetings on the same day. It is a feeling of being disconnected from the full experience of being alive, which is what this meditation can resolve. This meditation is also beneficial for recovering from other ways we might be imbalanced, for example when we are too caught up in our emotions, or when we are feeling spacey and ungrounded from a mystical or spiritual experience. What this meditation can do is to balance our energy and get us in touch again with all of who we are, bringing the various aspects of ourself into harmony.

Here is the meditation in all of its simplicity. Sit on the ground. Begin by noticing the state of your energy, i.e. notice how it feels to be you right now, take a few seconds to do this. Now place your hands on the Pachamama (our mother Earth) and with intent connect the energy of your body through you hands with the energy of the Pachamama. Ask her to bring your energy into harmony with hers. Notice how your energy shifts as you do this, continue until you feel the shift is complete. Thank the Pachamama. Spend a few seconds being aware of your new state of energy, how you feel being you. That’s it.

Well, that’s it as far as the meditation goes, but there is more about this that I would like to share. I recommend that you do the meditation and then come back to this post to read the rest (if you are interested). It is the experiential aspect of the meditation that is important and I don’t want that to be overshadowed by my now going on to some of my thoughts about it.

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The Andean Cosmovision cannot be explored intellectually, it is explored by noticing the quality of some energy, doing some meditative-like process, and seeing how that affects the energy. If you experienced a shift in your energy when you did this meditation what does that prove? The answer is that it doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t prove the Andean Cosmovision is true, it doesn’t prove (blah, blah, blah), it doesn’t prove nada. What it means is that you can notice how your energy is and that you have a way of changing it into something more pleasant, that is shaman work.

The Andean meditations all involve our relationship with Nature and the Cosmos (I see Nature as just the most local aspect of the Cosmos) and the foundation of that relationship is ayni. Ayni is the Andean principle of reciprocity, whenever something is received something is given back in return. This applies to the relationships people have with each other as well as to their relationship with the Cosmos. When done with love and respect this is not a matter of ‘breaking even’ it is an act that leaves both sides enriched and it opens the door to a deeper level of exchange. In this meditation the Pachamama does something wonderful for us, she brings our energy into harmony within ourselves by bringing our energy into harmony with her. To nurture this relationship we can insert into our lives smalls acts of ayni for the Pachamama, giving a little wine to her before we drink by pouring a few drops onto the earth, or laying a few flowers upon her breast (red flowers are traditionally offered to the Pachamama), or digging a small hole and putting the flowers and a few sugar cubes into the hole (the Q’ero women told me that the Pachamama has a sweet tooth…don Americo added with a smile that this might be a projection) then covering it with earth, all with the intent of expressing gratitude. There are also more formal expressions of gratitude that can be made (despachos and pagos) which I will cover in later posts but here I believe that intent is again the most important ingredient.

On the surface these offerings of gratitude seem almost to be a social act but more deeply they are energetic acts. We form a loving, respectful, mutually-supportive, energetic relationship with the Cosmos, this is the heart of the Andean approach, this is paqo work. The ayni takes our meditation–whose goal is to make our energy more harmonious and balanced–and elevates it to being a step in our dance with the Cosmos.

[Added later].  Please see the subsequent post on ayni.

Source of this meditation: don Americo Yabar.

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Intent

June 3, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Intent–as the term is used to describe how to carry out the Andean meditations–is a fascinating thing. Intent is like an apocheta (a Quechua term), a doorway into another type of energy, into another way of experiencing the world. On the surface intent is easy to understand, but as we go deeper into what intent really is it becomes more and more mysterious.

Sincere Pretending. Intent is the active ingredient of the meditative-like processes that constitute the Andean Cosmovision. The meditations include some pretty strange (from a Western perspective) instructions, such as “connect your energy to the energy of the river” (part of a river-side meditation that we will cover in a later blog). The way you actually accomplish this is with intent. Intent can be thought of simply as ‘sincere pretending’. Sincerely pretend you are carrying out the various steps of the meditations and experience what happens. This level of understanding intent is all you need to explore the vast experiential realm that is available through the Andean Cosmovision.

There are, however, deeper levels to intent, and if you are interested in peering more deeply inside then keep reading. Let’s begin by considering both parts of ‘sincere pretending’. First note that it involves pretending, this takes us outside of the realm of having to distinguish between what is true and what is false, to a place where we don’t have to be either skeptical or gullible for there is nothing to believe (see Why a Swan). Second, the pretending is to be sincere. Sincerity itself is an interesting thing, why is it that a computer cannot be sincere (sincerity just doesn’t seem to apply) while a human being can? The answer is that sincerity involves something more than thought, sincere pretending is more than just an intellectual exercise. Sincerity has to do with the heart, and through the heart something deeper.

Intent vs. Intention. The Andean mystic don Americo Yabar draws a distinction between two ways of acting in the world. This distinction is sometimes translated into English as the difference between intent and intention (the difference don Americo is expressing is not reflected in how the terms are normally used in English).

Intent is powerful, intention is not. If I have the intention of going to the store it is really just a thought, maybe I will go to the store, maybe I won’t, it rather depends on several factors including whether I really want to go or not when the time rolls around. With intention there is less than a 100% commitment to the act.

Intent, on the other hand, is a different animal. A friend of mine grew up in Cusco, Peru. One day, when he was a child, he decided to skip school and wander around the city instead. He was walking down a street when he saw his father. Now his father was a very powerful, and at times, a very fierce man. My friend ducked down a side street and began to walk more quickly. He was afraid to turn around to see if his father was following him but he could feel his father catching up with him. He turned into another street and found himself in a dead end with high walls all around. Just before he heard his father shout his name he scampered up over the walls and down into another street. It was an impressive feat that he accomplished with ‘intent’. The next day he went back to the same spot with the intention of climbing that wall again, but he simply could not do it, it was far too difficult a climb.

This story reminds me of other stories, of mothers who lift cars off of their children, or of some less impressive (but to me still amazing) events in my life when my body reacted with grace to some situation while my mind stood by and watched as my actions unfolded. So what creates, or allows, intent? I believe it is a lack of interference by the mind, by the intellect. Intent is available when the mind is not having doubts about whether the act is possible, when the mind is not considering how the act (or the actor) may be judged by others, when the mind is not thinking about the future or the past or of anything that is not present in the moment.

Carlos Castaneda writes of times when we act with ‘controlled abandon’, a very nice term and one that I believe is the same thing Americo is talking about when he speaks of intent. The questions that ‘controlled abandon’ bring to my mind are ‘exactly what is being abandoned?’ and ‘exactly what then is in control?’ What is abandoned, I believe, is our own intellect, our thinking, and its normal control over our acts. One of the most powerful aspects of the intellect is our ego. Our ego consists of all of the thoughts we have about who we are, our story, our identity, our self-concept, our beliefs about ourself. The ego stands in contrast to who we actually are, which is beyond any thoughts we have about ourselves. So if the intellect and its ego are abandoned in acts of intent, who then is in control of our ‘controlled abandon’? Some aspect of our being that is beyond thought…

The Cosmos. This brings us to something that Americo told me, rather in passing, he said that our intent is that aspect of ourself that is the infinite Cosmos.

 

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Bellybutton to Pachamama

May 29, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Intro: This is the first of many meditations I will be sharing on this blog. I call them ‘meditations’ only because I can’t come up with a better term. In speaking of them I often refer to them as ‘meditative-like processes’, but that is a rather awkward label. I have heard don Americo refer to them as ‘passes’, but that term has never made any sense to me. What they are in essence are ways of working with energy (or spirit). If you haven’t yet, I recommend that you read the post Andean Cosmovision: The Basics and perhaps also the post Paqos: Shamans or Mystics.

About Intent: These meditations involve following some pretty unusual instructions, such as “open your energy at the top of your head and let the energy of the Cosmos flow into your body” (part of a meditation I’ll be sharing in a later post). How do you go about doing something like that? The answer is simple, you do it with intent. Now intent is a pretty interesting thing and worth exploring. To start off with think of intent simply as “sincere pretending”. That’s all. You accomplish the various steps of the meditations by sincerely pretending that you are doing them, that is sufficient to open the door to the experience that becomes possible through the meditation.

Process: This is a very simple, very special meditation. It is one of the two meditations about which I’ve heard Americo say that if we were to just do this one meditation on a regular basis it would have a profound effect on our lives. My ears perk up when I hear something like that.

First, I recommend before all of the meditations that you take a moment before you start to notice how you feel, to get a sense for what your energy is like before you begin, so that you can compare it to how you feel after the meditation.

Here is how to do this meditation. Lay on the ground on your stomach and pull up your shirt far enough so that your bellybutton (navel) is in physical contact with the Pachamama (that great Cosmic Being who is our mother the planet Earth). What you do next depends upon whether you want to get rid of some undesirable energy, or bring the Pachamama’s energy into yourself, or both.

If you have some energy you would like to get rid of (e.g. stress, anger, depression, sorrow, anxiety), then, using your intent (sincere pretending) let that energy flow from you and into the Pachamama. Don’t be concerned about giving this energy to her, it is not like pollution, the Pachamama takes this energy and recycles it into purer energy that is then released into the Cosmos. This is one of her great gifts to us. With your intent, open your energy field around your bellybutton and feel this energy flowing out of your body and into the Pachamama. If you sense that some of it is not leaving–perhaps it feels stuck in some particular part of your body–then you can use your stomach muscles to press your bellybutton to the Pachamama with a few gentle pushes, this can help. You can also, with your intent, request that the Pachamama send her energy into you through your bellybutton to gently draw that energy from you. Do this for as long as it takes to feel that the undesirable energy has left you body. Then you are either finished or you can also go on to the next step.

If you would like some energy from the Pachamama (e.g. tranquility, love, ease, harmony) you can use your intent (sincere pretending) to open your energy field at your bellybutton and invite her to send that energy into you. Another option is to invite her to send her energy into you with the simple intent that she bring your energy into harmony with hers. Getting your energy into harmony with that of the Pachamama is a very beneficial thing for you to do, it helps move us out of all of the weird states our interaction with our social/political world can get us into, and it also helps us stay in harmony with the changes the Cosmos is going through. Bringing in her energy can be facilitated by gently drawing in your stomach muscles a few times, as if pulling her energy into you. Continue until you feel complete.

When you are finished with the meditation take a few moments to notice how you feel now, what your energy is like after the meditation. The difference between how you felt before the meditation and how you feel after it is the true ‘meaning’ of the meditation.

That is the process, and–as is typical of the Andean meditations–it is very simple but the effects (particularly when carried out repeatedly over a long time) can be quite beautiful. Connecting our energy with Nature and the Cosmos is what these meditations are all about. This is the realm of salka, our natural undomesticated energy.

Context: The Andean meditations are the outward form of something deeper, a shift in our relationship with the Cosmos. It is within this relationship that the “magic” of the Andean meditations arise, but this is not how we might normally think of magic for it is not a way to manipulate or harness the powers of Nature. It is instead something that arises within a relationship of love and respect. The context of the Andean meditations, where their benefits arise from and what the meditations help nourish, is a loving and mutually supportive relationship with Nature and the Cosmos. The active principle of this relationship is ayni.

About Ayni: Ayni is the Andean principle of reciprocity, a balancing of giving and receiving which reflects the underlying dynamics of the Cosmos. As you engage in this meditation with the Pachamama, well, I can’t imagine that a deep sense of love and gratitude for the Pachamama won’t arise. To follow the Andean path step into and nourish this relationship, balance your relationship with the Pachamama, give something in love to her in return. Quite simply, with intent, express to her your heart-felt gratitude. Occasionally, as a simple form of ayni, pour a few drops of wine or other alcohol onto the Pachamama with the intent that it honor her and nourish her (and thus give some energy back to her). Remember, this is not a bribe or a payment for services rendered, it is instead like giving flowers unbidden to a loved one. We will be covering more formal and elaborate offerings (called despachos) and taking a deeper look at ayni in later posts. 

[Added later] Please see the subsequent post on ayni.

Source of the Meditation: Don Americo Yabar (don Américo Yábar).

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