The Three Spirits of Reality: A Peruvian Shaman's Journey

Munai, a Peruvian shaman, shares ancient wisdom about interconnectedness, transformation, and healing through the lens of Andean spirituality. His teachings reveal how understanding the three spiritual dimensions - Ukupacha, Kaipacha, and Hananpacha - can help us navigate life's challenges and see problems as opportunities for growth.

• Different cultures represent branches of the same tree, each offering unique perspectives that help us heal
• A shaman understands the connection with everything, recognizing the spirits that create and shape our reality
• Three primary spirits in Peruvian shamanism: the snake (past), the puma (present), and the condor (future)
• Problems we face are self-created guides toward transformation, like the snake choosing to become part of the puma
• The present moment acts as a mirror reflecting our past into our future and our future into our past
• Letting rigid mental "lines" dissolve allows us to see beyond limitations and embrace transformation
• Mistakes are actually "funny moments" that guide us toward growth and evolution
• Recognizing both light and darkness as working together creates balance and wholeness

Join us next time as Munai explores the relationship between light and dark, and how they create time itself.

Chapters

• 1:30 Introduction to Munai the Shaman
• 3:07 Cultures as Branches of One Tree
• 4:49 What It Means to Be a Shaman
• 7:35 The Three Spirits That Create Reality
• 13:01 The Snake, Puma, and Condor Connection
• 19:38 Transforming Problems Into Growth
• 22:51 The Present as a Mirror Between Past and Future

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

Munai, who is a shaman, and he's going to share some of his experiences with us, but also what shamanism means to him.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Now I'll just share a little an experience that I had on my spiritual journey, and I do resonate with a lot of the shamanic ways, but I saw an advert and I'm probably going back about 15 years at least where a lady and gentleman were inviting um people to go and stay with them for the weekend and have the most amazing shamanic experience.

Speaker 1: 1:21

Well, it turned out that it was only me, um, that took this offer up, and I went and stayed with them for a whole weekend and I had the most enlightening, eye-opening, healing experience that I've ever had, I think. Um, the drumming, the use of feathers, the use of fire, um, and even the food that she made for me. It just all tasted amazing. It was the basic, simplest food that you could ever have, but it's like all my um taste buds had come alive and all my, it's like every little hair follicle had come alive as well on my body, and that I could sense things so much more than ever before, and it's definitely an experience that I will never forget. But let's see, let's hear what Munai has to say Over to you.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Hi Jane, so nice to have you have me here and have you here too. Yeah, I'd like to start by explaining to everybody how it's important to learn about every culture. Really, if we think of a tree, we can think that one culture is one branch of this tree. So when this branch understands that there's other branches, and then all these branches together make the tree, uh, you start becoming this tree, uh-huh, you start becoming back to the all, back to the everything, to the beginning and to the end. So it is important in this way, and very healing also, um is empathy and understanding for other cultures, because they also show you about yourself a lot and it gets to heal parts that maybe you couldn't see. And it's like scratching this part or giving us a massage in the back, because we cannot really do it so well, but then when we see this other perspective that can see behind us, then it helps us. A massage in the back, because we cannot really do it so well, but then when we see this other perspective that can see behind us and it helps us a lot. Um, yeah, I want to start by saying that and explaining a little bit. Was uh to be a shaman? So to be a shaman is really understanding that you're the sum or the product of all the cultures. At least, this is how I see it Through the experiences that life has led me through.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Because and this is a very important part I also want to discuss because often we have lines in our head and then it is better for us to just let them dissolve or sometimes break them, because if now we're stuck in place, so that's what literally movement is. You see these lines, and because they move, they don't stay in the same place. They dissolve and they become new ones. So there's these new ones that we see, we call movement or time. So if we want to have change, also called evolution, we need to let these lines dissolve. I see, it's a big problem in society nowadays that we put such strict lines that we don't see further than that.

Speaker 2: 5:20

So, yeah, I wanted to bring into all of us this wisdom, and it's especially important to understand what I'm going to talk about in these episodes. So, yeah, that's what a shaman is someone that understands this connection with everything. We say spirits. We say spirits because for the branch, the tree is the spirit and then, once you see the tree, you can see that all the trees together make another big spirit. So this is this understanding we're only seeing one part of the whole thing and this whole thing we call spirit. So I want to let everyone know that we are seeing spirits and we are communicating with them. When we, for example, example, we hear about water and Then we hear that there's a connection to our emotions if it came to us, because the spirit of water wants to let us know this information and it wants to help us this way with this understanding. So we, we are seeing spirit. It is's just how conscious we are of it. So, yeah, a shaman does talk to the spirits and they can see the bigger picture through experiences in life, through mistakes and funny moments. Because that's what mistakes are these funny moments really?

Speaker 2: 7:24

Now I'd like to move to the specific type of, the specific type of lineage I'm most resonant with right now Because, like I said before, right now I'm only one branch of the whole tree that I am. So right now I'm understanding this branch first and I'm looking at the other branches so I can become the full tree, and then I think all of us are doing the same, maybe at different speeds and in different ways, but all the ways lead to the same way. All of them lead in the same city. Yeah, so I come from Peru. This is where I was born. It's a very nice country. I like it a lot. Like any country has its bad things and good things, but I like to to see everything with a bit of light and a bit of darkness when I need to, because this is what a shaman does, and not only a shaman, it's a complete person. They can see the darkness and the light as the same, as things that are working together, and I'm going to explain more of this in the next video, but in this one I'm going to talk about the three spirits that create reality. These are the three big spirits.

Speaker 2: 9:14

Um, we have the okupacha, the kaipacha and the hanapacha. I know these words may sound strange to you at first, but allow me to explain. When we think about the okupacha, we can see it as a snake, we can see it as the past. We can see it as the past, we can see it as our genetic material. This is wisdom from our ancestors.

Speaker 2: 9:49

And then again, I'm putting some lines because I'm speaking with words, and so you may understand that the okupachi is only the snake. But then we need to let these lines dissolve and then we can see that really, the Ugu Pacha is also the other spirits. It's just we make these separations for our minds, for our spirits, to understand this wisdom, to understand how reality works. That's why we make lines. It's not to say that lines are bad, it's to say that they're good. But it's also good to let them dissolve. And if we have a problem with letting them dissolve, then we know how to solve our problems, uh-huh. So the Ukupacha is the snake. As I said, we can think about the symbolisms of the snake. The snake is transformation. The snake is always on the ground, the whole body is on the ground, uh-huh. And then we can think of mother earth and all of our ancestors that have led us up to here, uh-huh. And then we have the kaipacha. The kaipacha, you can think about a puma that one.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Sorry to interrupt you, but you you sent me some photographs of the different Patchers. You sent me Ukupatcher, which is. I just want to try and explain it to the listeners. It's a piece of fabric.

Speaker 2: 11:31

No, no, this is for the next episode.

Speaker 1: 11:35

Oh, sorry, I'm jumping ahead here, guys Nice.

Speaker 2: 11:42

Yeah, we're going to discuss the misandina. This is um a portal which is basically an altar no worries, sorry but, yeah, there, you're absolutely right, there is many, many.

Speaker 2: 11:58

We call them parlors, uh-huh, um, because they, they go hand in hand. How we go? Um. So, yeah, we have the kaipacha, um, the kaipacha, it's, uh, we can think about a puma. We can think about a puma. This is a snake that chose to rise through its legs, and now it's a little bit more above. We can think about the present moment, the right now, the movement of everything that's happening. We can think about emotions, we can think about water, and then, for the okupacha, we can think about earth, and then again there's more lines and we just need to let them dissolve to understand the full picture. Then we have the Hananpacha.

Speaker 2: 13:06

The Hananpacha, we can think about a condor.

Speaker 2: 13:10

A condor is a bird from Peru, from the Andes, more specifically, there's a couple more countries that have, uh, condors flying around, and then again we see this, and this is a puma that has chosen to rise even more.

Speaker 2: 13:31

It's a snake that has this rising even more, uh, and now it's in the skies. We can think about the future, we can think about our thoughts, we can think about the air, to help us understand what these words are trying to tell us, and I want to explain how all of them are working together. And I want to explain how all of them are working together, mhm, when in the Andes and this happens all over the world in many different ways, but the example I'm going to use is from the Andes Mhm, when the condor is flying, and it normally goes, it kind of follows the puma, it's following the puma and then when the condor sees a snake or another animal that the puma can hunt, it leads him, it takes the puma that way. You see, our thoughts about the future takes our present that way, so we can realize it, actualize it. And so then the puma is led to a snake and then this wisdom grows even farther because the snake chose to be found.

Speaker 1: 15:13

And I think it's a very important message.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Animals choose to be hunted, maybe not so consciously, maybe more through their inner wisdom. They understand that life is uh, cycles, and life never ends, you know, it only transforms. So the snake, um, this time decided not to only shed its skin, it decided to shed its whole body and become a puma. Because when we eat stuff it becomes part of ourselves, it becomes our hokupacha, it becomes our information, it becomes one of our ancestors. So then this snake decided to be a puma and it sent the signals to the condor to find it and tell the puma where it is. And then the puma goes and eats the snake or this animal.

Speaker 2: 16:26

And it may be sad sometimes, and this parallels to how we feel about when we have a problem. Uh-huh, because we don't feel, because problems we put in our lives to guide us. But when we don't understand that this problem that we have is because we put it there, then we suffer Like the snake. It can suffer, but if the snake realizes that this time, through its inner wisdom, decided to be a puma, then we wouldn't have to suffer so much with our problems. We will see then that we put them ourselves to again transform like the snake. It's a beautiful story.

Speaker 2: 17:25

And then the puma. When the puma is the snake or the animal, it lives a little bit behind so the condor can go down, eat uh-huh. So this is all our beats, it's all. I'll be working together, um, but it.

Speaker 2: 17:38

But it may be difficult to see if we're missing pieces in our puzzle, and that's why shamans are helpful, because they bring us these pieces that we may be missing. We may not understand why there's so much violence, why there's so much injustice, understand why there's so much violence, why there's so much injustice, but and I'm going to give an example of my personal life I used to be in the US and I had a scholarship for psychology, but then it was illegal so they took it away from me my whole, the way we've made universities nowadays but I am glad we have scholarships and I could have seen this as the universe trying to tell me that my dreams cannot be accomplished. But then I decided to see that I put this problem in my life. So I know we say a lot one door closes so another one can open. It means exactly that you close the door.

Speaker 2: 19:16

So you can open the other door and so with that I stopped going and I decided to go back to this wisdom from the Andes, and that's why I'm a shaman. Right now, Along many other problems I have, I have a problem in my back. It will not go away this pain. I went to the doctor many times but the doctor had no solution. The solutions he gave me never really worked and I went multiple times and spent a lot of money.

Speaker 2: 20:00

But then I went to this holistic therapist Her name is Alexandra, I think. I always remember her and she introduced me to this magical world where there is not these lines of science. There is more different sciences, holistic sciences as I like to call them. And that big problem, this problem that wouldn't go away from my life, showed me a better way for me what do you think about the story? Jen.

Speaker 1: 20:42

I think I nearly cried when he was talking about the snake and the condor and the puma. I felt very emotional when he was talking about that and I had to really focus and think of the bigger picture there. I don't know why I felt emotional, but I just did. Maybe I connected to something that I needed to let go of or that I needed to transform with, and I think a lot of the things that you've spoken about really resonate with me and I'm sure they will with a lot of the audience, especially the tree and the branches and the way that I work. I always talk about the roots. The roots equal the branches, so it keeps you balanced. So we kind of work in the same way but different. I like the way your face lights up when you're talking about your journey and the way that you're talking about all the different elements, because your light just shines so brightly and I'm sure that you're going to help so many people on your path with this, with your beliefs, with your wisdom, and it's almost like I can feel more wisdoms being given to you. You know, as you move forward on your journey.

Speaker 1: 22:05

I did make some notes. Let me just have a little look as to what else? Yeah, the water and emotions. I wrote that down. That really resonated with me as well. And seeing the bigger picture. I think so many, so many times people don't see the bigger picture in life. They can just see, we would say, what's right in front of their nose. They can just see here. They can't see the bigger picture. And if you just stop and think, what is the bigger picture? What is happening? And also, I did smile when you said about mistakes. Your mistakes are funny, did you say? Or something like that.

Speaker 2: 22:46

Yeah mistakes and them being funny.

Speaker 1: 22:50

Yeah, so think of sometimes your mistakes as being funny, as a learning, as a taking yourself to where you need to go. Seeing the funny side of things will help you evolve as well. Yeah, it was really interesting and the way that you see the lightness and the darkness, because a lot of people shy away from darkness when really you need to see both, but you need to see darkness in the right light absolutely so and I also wrote down complete person which I'm kind of.

Speaker 1: 23:21

I like the thought of that and you know I 100% believe. When you get on your holistic path and you find that holistic healer or that holistic talking therapist or you know someone holistic that changes your life or helps you to see your life changes or gives you that key to the next part of your life, you never forget that person and you can have hundreds of those in your lifetime, but you never forget them because they helped you to change. They gave you what you needed at that time. So, yeah, and your scholarship sounded amazing as well. Did you get that from Peru?

Speaker 2: 24:01

No, what I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 24:07

What did I that from Peru? No, what, I'm sorry. What did I get from Peru?

Speaker 2: 24:09

Your scholarship? No, I did my high school in Miami.

Speaker 1: 24:13

Oh, I forgot you did that as well.

Speaker 2: 24:16

Yeah, I got very good grades.

Speaker 1: 24:20

Fabulous and tell people where you live now.

Speaker 2: 24:24

I'm in Poland, but we're going to move soon. We want to do the Camino de Santiago here in Spain okay yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:33

I can see you there, I can see you in Spain. I think that would be good for you, absolutely amazing. I love that. I resonated good for you, absolutely amazing. I love that I really did. It resonated with a lot of that, so thank you very much.

Speaker 2: 24:49

Yeah, maybe a few things I want to finish with. Okay, this comes from personal experience. Sometimes I don't do stuff, I want don't do stuff, I want to do this stuff, and I see my thoughts and then I think about this, thinking about the future and this, thinking about the past, our connection to the Okupasha and the Hanampasha. Sometimes this stops you from being a puma and just doing it. So it's about learning to work with all of them and I think this resonates a lot with a lot of us maybe not asking this girl to go out with us or not speaking our truth because we're worried about what will happen. We're worried about what happened last time. We did it and we don't. We don't do it, we don't become pumas. So actually I'm a pamper me.

Speaker 2: 26:07

Sajak is the name of the level of Shama I am. We have different levels and right now what I'm learning is about this one, the Kaipatcha, and then we go to Atami Sajok, which means high or elevated, so you are able to see more. The Hanonpacha. Oh yeah, I also want to explain that. The Hanonpacha, our past is the same as our future. I'm going to use English words because I know it's easier to follow. So our past is a reflection of our future through the present, and the future is the reflection of our future through the present, mm-hmm. And the future is the reflection of our past through the present. Again. So we, right now, we are the mirror, mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 27:14

If right now I feel like I cannot do something or I cannot change something from my past, then my future is going to look like that. I can't, I cannot change it. Gotta look at my past. My past is I cannot do it. Right now I'm saying I cannot do it. So the future, when it expands out of me, is I cannot do it in a sense for the future. If, um, in a sense for the future, this is with regrets, regrets that we have. If I think that my future is not bright, that this choice that I made before is bringing me down, then I see the past is bringing me down Because through this present, I'm manifesting this future. That is bad, and through the present I can manifest that the future is good and the past is good. This is a very important part. Again, we're talking about dualism here. They're both working together and we're going to talk more about this in the next episode, how the light and the dark is or make time, uh, without, without them, we have no time oh, wow my eye.

Speaker 1: 28:37

I've really, really enjoyed that, enjoyed our session together. So thank you, thank you very much for being here, being here today, and I can't wait to hear what you have to share with us on the next episode of zoetic chat.