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 Journey to Ecuador: Part 1
Arrival in Quito
April 29-10, 2001
The Spiritual Traveler
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I
hit upon traveling to Ecuador in a curious way. I was teaching at a
small college in Michigan, and doing occasional interviews with local
religious or spiritual leaders. One day one of my students
handed me a flyer advertising the presence of a shaman from Ecuador who
was staying in the small nearby town of Manchester. I called
to get some information, and was invited for dinner with Don Alberto
Tatzo and his hosts that evening. It was an eventful
meeting. Don Alberto intrigued me. He had a
presence that was very calm, very accessible, and very
warm. What struck me most was the fact that he seemed very
grounded in the physical world, very much aware of the
moment. I felt that possibly Don Alberto had something to
teach me. I already belonged to a spiritual group called
Eckankar, and I was hesitant about splitting my attention between two
spiritual groups or paths. But at the same time, I did not
get the feeling that Don Alberto's teachings were in conflict with
those of Eckankar, but rather that they only complemented or augmented
them.
I went back
home that evening and found a message on my e-mail informing me that a
friend of mine in Eckankar by the name of Gary had suddenly decided to
move to Ecuador. What was odd was that Gary also lived in
the small town of Manchester. He knew nothing about Don
Alberto's presence in the area, and probably would not have been
interested if he had. It was just a seemingly trivial
coincidence. But I was already thinking about doing some
traveling, and was on the lookout for any signs that might point me to
a particular destination. And this seemingly minor sequence
of events sparked the initiative within me.
 Six
months later, I found myself on a flight bound for Quito. My
friend Gary was living on a ranch in a place called San Pedro, near the
provincial capital of Loja, far to the south. His
instructions were for me to fly into Quito and take a national flight
to Loja, where he would meet me. Meanwhile, I had also found
out that Don Alberto lived in a small village near the town of Salcedo,
also to the south of Quito, but much closer than Loja. There
was a chance that Don Alberto might be there during the second week of
my trip, and I intended to try to visit him. Other than this
idea, and Gary's sketchy instruction, I had no plan for the
trip. It was to be an experiment in spiritual
travel. That is, I would go with no plan whatsoever in mind,
and rely on Spirit, the ECK, or Life itself to furnish whatever
experiences would be of benefit to me.
As I flew into Quito, I was by no means certain in my mind that I
wanted to visit Gary immediately. There might be much more
for me to see and do in the vicinity of Quito. Gary had
e-mailed me that someone would be meeting me at Quito airport, and I
felt as the plane touched down that whatever course of action I chose
would hinge greatly on whatever information I obtained from my
welcoming committee.
 Monica
Rivera met me at the airport, together with a friend of hers named
Gladys. Monica was a diminutive woman in her 70s, with a
craggy, weather-beaten face, and hands that told of a life of manual
labor. She was originally from Colombia, had lived in the
United States, and had worked her own farm for 22 years, after her
husband had died. Gladys was a heavy-set woman of
approximately the same age, who spoke no English. Once I was
settled in the room, the three of us sat down to do a contemplative
exercise together. We sang the word HU five times, holding
the word as long as our breaths lasted. Then we sat in
silence for a considerable period of time.
"I saw the ECK Master Rami Nuri behind you," Monica said in a quiet
tone during a brief break in the contemplation. It was a
statement that was impossible for me to verify, but it was a reassuring
thought that, despite my lack of awareness of such a presence, my
activities were somehow being sponsored and supported by the ECK
Masters.
 The
next day I got my first look at the city of Quito. Most of
my previous travel experiences had been in the Middle East, and these
experiences immediately came back to me with a stab of
homesickness. The neat, diminutive style of the buildings
reminded me of Amman. The volcano Pichincha, supporting the
city like the back of a chair, was similar to the vast hilltop that
rose behind Damascus, except that it was a lush green instead of barren
brown. The Internet cafes and restaurants catering to
youthful students, hikers, and adventurers brought back memories of
Beirut before the civil war. I was nostalgic for the Arabic
language, in which I could communicate fairly easily. Here I
fumbled for the simplest word in Spanish, and occasionally an Arabic
word popped up, like a lost relative, to remind me of the past.
In the evening, Monica and
Gladys took me to the Eckankar center, which was in the middle of
Quito, next to a neat little square, where a HU chant was scheduled for
seven o'clock.
"There are about thirty Eckankar members in the whole country," she
told me, "with about a dozen that regularly attend the meetings at the
center."
 At
7:00, the members filed in. I was greeted by smiling faces,
and eagerly listened to the conversation in Spanish, trying to pick up
as much as I could. I was introduced to Germán, an
Ecuadorian scholar who had written several books on ancient Inca
culture, cosmology, and tradition, and was a new member of
Eckankar.
"The vibration level is very high here," I was told as we sat down,
"because of the altitude." And, indeed, I not only felt
light-headed, but I also noticed the high vibration level in the
room. As we sat together, I perceived the figures of the
people in front of me to be pulsating, unstable, luminescent, as if
their bodies were composed of energy, rather than matter.
Germán was a very spare, compact man, with a modest amount of reddish
hair. He had a calm, reserved, diffident manner, but his
eyes shone brightly. After the HU chant, I spoke to him of
my reasons for traveling to Ecuador, and mentioned that I had met an
Ecuadorian shaman back in Michigan.
"I know a lot of these shamans," Germán said. "He has
consulted with a number of them as part of his research."
"What was the name of the shaman you met?" Germán asked me.
 Instead
of answering, I said I would show him. I went to the next
room, where I had stowed my backpack, and took out a flyer with Don
Alberto's picture on it. As soon as I showed it to Germán,
his eyes glowed.
"He is my brother," he said.
"Your spiritual brother?" I asked him.
"Yes."
Suddenly, I was filled with the sense that my visit here had a definite
purpose.
"What I'm most struck by," Germán said, "is the timing of your
visit. I just joined Eckankar very recently. If
you had come only a few weeks earlier, we most likely would not have
met."
After the HU
chant, we sat down for an extended conversation. "I always
felt that there was something very strong, motivating me in my life,"
Germán began. "I was looking for the occult side of America
that was hidden for centuries as a result of the colonization
process. This process was carried out by the Western
civilization, which brought with it a completely different value
system."
 "For
Westerners who are interested in the field of spirituality today," I
responded, "there are now individuals like Don Alberto coming to the
United States. Immediately, the conclusion that we jump to
is that this is a deep tradition in the Andes region, and that the
people of the region are conversant with this tradition. But
the impression that I received from my brief contact with Don Alberto
was just the opposite, namely that there has been a great rupture
between the indigenous people and this occult or spiritual tradition,
as a result of this colonization process."
"You're right," Germán replied. "And what's important is to
remake the connection."
"So Don Alberto is interested in remaking this connection for his own
people in this country, more than for Westerners?"
"He's looking for a common identity for the people in the Andes
region," Germán explained. "The Andes is divided into
countries today, but culturally it's one region. It includes
Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and extends into
Chile. There is now an Andino Pact, on the model of the
European Common Market, between these countries, but what Don Alberto
and others are saying is that they really shouldn't use a European
model, but need to come up with their own."
 "I'm
interested in Don Alberto because his teachings seem to be very
practical, and oriented towards enabling individuals to become more
integrated with the physical world in which they live. One
of the points of similarity that I see between Eckankar and the
shamanic tradition of the Andes, however, is the use of
dreams. In my interview with Don Alberto, I asked how the
different shamans communicate with one another, and I anticipated his
answer. I asked if it was via the 'dream' state, and he said
yes it was."
"We're
up higher," Germán noted, "and that makes a difference in one's ability
to make such contact via dreams. That's why the areas of
greatest spiritual activity in the world have been in the highest
regions, such as Tibet and the Andes.
 I
have published five books on the subject of the Inca spiritual
tradition. It involved a lot of bibliographic research, but
also a lot of field research with the 'ancient ones' among the modern
Incas, like Don Alberto. They supplied me with a good deal
of information."
"What kind of bibliographic documents were available to you?" I wanted
to know. "Are there any ancient texts that are
existent? Were there any writings in the indigenous
languages?"
"There
are some grammars and other miscellaneous texts. But as far
as the history, chronicles, and religious tradition is concerned, it
was all wiped clean, just like a tape that has been
erased. A lot of information and research began to come out
in the '80s. There was an Argentine writer by the name of D.
K. Valagrasso who started to change people's perspective toward the
history of the region. In the 90s, a new wave of writings
appeared. There was a writer by the name of Victor Burgos
Stone who wrote about Amaraca, which is the ancient name for America
before Columbus."
 "The
history books all say that the name America was derived from Amerigo
Vespucci, and Italian mapmaker who popularized Columbus's discoveries,"
I commented.
"No. It had the name long before. There is no
such name as Amerigo in Europe. Vespucci's name was
Alvaric. Amerigua was the area of the Mayas in Central
America. The name signifies the Land of the High Winds."
I dug out a book that I had brought with me from my knapsack and showed
it to Germán. It was entitled Chamalu: The Shamanic Way of
the Heart: Traditional Teachings from the Andes, by Chamalu (Luis
Espinoza). "Do you know of this shaman?" I asked Germán.
He nodded in the affirmative. "I know him well," Germán
translated. "He's a Bolivian. I also know another
shaman named who is from the Oriente, the jungle region of
Ecuador. He's also very sympatico, and has very good energy."
"I was given to understand that Don Alberto is among the most
Westernized of these shamans."
"At least here in Ecuador, and also in Colombia, Don Alberto is very
highly regarded. He's acknowledged as among the highest
among the shamans, a man who embodies the best qualities of the
evolutionary force of the race."
 "I
noticed that Don Alberto was familiar with the Buddhist teachings, and
according to his web site, there was a type of shift in responsibility
for the planet from the Himalayan to the Andean region."
"Yes. Don Alberto got together with a delegate from the
Dalai Lama, and they had a ceremony here in Quito. There was
a transference of energy, and the energy that was once in Tibet is now
here in Ecuador."
"And there's supposed to be a gathering of shamans here in Ecuador in July."
"Yes.
"Do you think it's possible to meet any of these shamans?" I
inquired.
"There was one here just two weeks ago. We could go visit
him. He was in Washington recently, visited the Smithsonian,
and came back very positive about the U.S. In fact, I gave
him an Eckankar book: The Key to Secret Worlds."
"I would very much like to talk more at length about how the shamans
and their teachings fit in with Eckankar.
"Eckankar existed here, before. The word SUGMAD, our name
for God, exists in the Quichua language."
 "In
my view," I commented, "all these ancient traditions all served as the
Eckankar of their times, epochs, and cultures. It's a
timeless teaching. It's always been around. It's
in all of these other religious and spiritual traditions, whether it's
Buddhism or Sufism or the Andean shamanic tradition. There's
no reason why we have to be talking about these traditions separately
any more. It's not so much a matter of demonstrating that
they're all the same, but rather that these traditions can now share
the same space, and we can talk in-between them."
"I agree with you," Germán replied. "Most of the
cross-cultural interrelationships in the world today are based on
economics. But in the future, they will be spiritual in
nature."
"Perhaps
the main difference that I see between Eckankar and Don Alberto's
teachings is that the shamanic lineage is determined by birth," I
noted. A shaman can only come from the family of a previous
shaman. An outsider can never become a shaman, only a
follower or apprentice."
"Yes, Germán agreed. The indigenous people in this region
are highly protective of their traditions."
 "Possibly
by reaching out to North America for apprentices, this is a step that
Don Alberto and the other shamans have taken to reinvigorate their
tradition. Maybe at some point in the future, this
exclusivity will no longer exist," I speculated.
"That's possible," Germán replied.
"Another commonality that I see between Eckankar and Don Alberto's
teachings is that they both involve gaining experience in the inner
worlds. My sense is that the shamans enter the Physical,
Astral, Causal, and Mental worlds by contemplating on the metaphysical
elements--earth, water, fire, and air. You can find similar
techniques in Western occult literature. I recall a looking
through a book in which the reader was provided with symbols of these
elements which were to be cut out, and used as objects of contemplation
in order to get out of the body and experience these other planes of
existence."
 "Yes. These
are essentially the techniques of magic," Germán
responded. "The Andes are full of magic
tradition. The ancient sites are watched over by guardian
spirits, some friendly, and some hostile. North Americans
come down here to visit, and they don't realize that for exactly this
reason, they can become targets of the entities or spirits that exist
here. These spirits see the light around these
people. This is what they crave. Then the people
suddenly come down with pains or sickness for apparently no reason, and
they wonder why this is occurring. They are actually under
attack. It's particularly noticeable when you visit the
ancient sites. The guardian spirits are very inquisitive as
to who you are and what you're doing. So these energies will
come around you and check you out. And as you visit these
areas, you have to be aware of that."
"This is the feminine side of the world," he added. "You'll
notice that the people have a more feminine quality--the men as well as
the women. Things are done more indirectly. The
indigenous people will avoid answering you. It's like
pulling teeth to get any information from them, even about mundane
things, much less the more esoteric information. "If someone
has a problem with you here, they may not tell you. But
you'll find out about it sooner or later."
 I
took these admonitions somewhat lightly, particularly the talk about
entities and guardian spirits. A few days later, however, I
had a very strange experience. I was typing up my notes of
my conversation with Germán, and had just gotten to the part where he
had been talking about these entities. At the exact moment
that I was typing the sentence, I felt a sudden stabbing pain on the
right side of my groin, unlike anything I had ever experienced
before. It lasted only about ten seconds, and then was
gone. There was no apparent cause for it. It came
out of the blue. I had not made any kind of strange
movement, but had just been sitting on a chair, hunkered over my
laptop, with only my fingers moving over the keys. Nor had I
ever had such a pain before. It seemed that something had
given me the experience just so that I would understand the truth of
what I had been told! |
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Copyright © The Spiritual Traveler, 2001 |
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