Andean Research Institute

Sunday, October 7th, 2012

There is a distinct difference between preserving the wisdom of an indigenous culture and keeping it alive and active in modern culture. A core theme of our work at ARI is to keep the vital wisdom of the Andean traditions alive and at work in the world today. People have often asked me if I mean that we’re working to be like the traditional culture, to live as they lived. The answer is ‘not quite’. Our forms of life in the modern world are new and more complex; the scale at which we live and need to problem solve is new. In other words, the form of a culture always changes. The wisdom base, however, is meant to live on and increase in depth and power, creating much more benefit than we realize is possible. The wisdom base that exists in indigenous cultures is human wisdom; it is our experiential knowledge and unique recording of the very principles of creation thriving that we’ve used age after age – until our modern age, that is. We tend to dismiss indigenous wisdom as primitive, perhaps interesting, but not really relevant for our world. Why would we throw away, or ‘forget’ or devalue all of that wisdom?

The wisdom base of the Andean traditions contains something magical and at the same time absolutely essential for us in the modern world. It contains a very pure expression of the basic principles of consciousness itself. In fact, the knowledge of the organizing principles held in the Andean traditions is one of the first and most elegant expressions of the physics of the universe that includes human consciousness. I tell my students that the Andean traditions have been holding this knowledge for us; they are gifting it to us now, because we are intended to be the stewards of this wisdom in our age. This wisdom shows us how to reclaim our capacity for collectivity, for universal love, for limitless creativity without waste. Don Manuel Quispe, a powerful altomesayoq and leader of the Q’ero nation in his lifetime, always said that we modern people have no choice but to allow ourselves to be reclaimed by the collective. In order to do this, we need to release to collective consciousness, and this is what the Andean traditions hold for us – the ‘manual’ on consciousness itself!

Over the next few months, we’ll be posting a series of blogs to share with you some of the principles and core teachings of the Andean traditions. Our hope is that you will be able to feel the teachings, that they will change your awareness, feed your imagination and your heart, and perhaps provide you with new visions of thriving in life.

By Marti Spiegelman MFA

ARI board member

To insure that you don’t miss this series, subscribe to our blog http://arinews.tumblr.com

For more information on ARI and our programs, visit our website http://www.andeaninstitute.org

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