My Stand in the Game of Life: An Interview with Indigenous Elder, Abuelo Suaga Gua
Chyquy Suaga Gua Ingativa Neusa (Abuelo Suaga Gua) is a member of the Council of Elders and former Mayor of the Muisca Chibcha nation of Colombia, Abuelo Suaga oversees and stewards the cultural restoration of the Muisca Chibcha nation. He is creator and lecturer of Human Ecology and ancestral indigenous thought and ethics.
Abuelo Suaga Gua was the first Latin American indigenous elder trained as an Awakening the Dreamer Symposium Facilitator. He is also a founding member of the Pachamama Alliance’s Group of Ibero-American Leaders (GIL), and his guidance supports the team in ensuring that its work honors and implements ancestral indigenous wisdom. The team strives to offer transformative experience to people across Latin America and Spain. Since 2012, Abuelo has presented over 150 Symposiums around Latin America, contributing to the team’s mission to “to weave the wisdom of the natural, ancestral, and modern worlds to generate transformation in the world.”
Abuelo shared with us the wisdom and teachings that he incorporates into the delivery of Pachamama Alliance's Awakening the Dreamer Symposium. These teachings contribute to the transformation of the world.
What should humans do to change our thinking, to bring about change and transform the world?
The truth is that everyone is responsible for choosing their own position in the game, and there are only two ways to do this: choose to be a victim or be a real player, daring to change the game.
The victims are always looking for others to blame and to unload their fears, guilt, resentment and pain on to. They always seek allies to retreat and avoid taking responsibility. Usually, these characters feel persecuted by people and forces, and they blame others for what they feel: this is the manifestation of wanting to be a victim.
By contrast, players do not have time to get distracted in the game of life and even less with the weakness of humans; they analyze and transform the situations so to take action to change the game. As elders we are told: "When you get to a good place, watch it closely, so when you part, you leave as it was or even better."
What has been your experience in this game?
On my path I've been sad, confused, hungry, lonely, abandoned, betrayed, blamed, prosecuted, tired and sick, but this is the path I have chosen and I have no right to complain. If I had to give up my life for this, I will. This is my mission and commitment to the Universe, to my partner, to my family, to my community and to humanity. In walking this path I find wisdom, knowledge and experience to listen and to guide others. This makes me very happy!
Would you give up your mission?
Waiving this privilege that the Universe has given me as a desideratum to reveal, guide, rebuild lives, peoples and nations is an option, but that doesn’t take away my Cosmic responsibility. On the contrary, the situation can work against me; so I warn everyone: to those who give up their mission, they will not be exempted from responsibility! Remember that everything in life has a cost. Lifes’ mandate is clear: "In life we must assume a cost of doing what we should not do, stop doing what we must do, and for the words we say."
What do you recommend to be a player who changes the game of the modern world?
You have to learn to assume the costs that your thinking, your feeling and your doing in the spiritual, emotional and physical work generate. You must let everyone learn what they need to learn. The problem is that we get distracted and dispersed. So, educate yourself to be a Real Player (whether you are a man or a woman), or else the Grand Officer of the Universe [here and now] will send you the bill for not being able to accept responsibility for your own reality and circumstance. You know you're responsible for what you attract or choose. Walk without affecting or being affected. NO ONE SHOULD CHOOSE YOUR POSITION IN THIS GAME! Playing victim will not transform anything, you will just be wasting your time. But if you choose to be the player who transforms your life and be a guide to others, you will enjoy the privileges of the vital laws of nature: the welfare, prosperity and abundance.
How should one walk without affecting or being affected?
You must remember with gratitude your encounters with the word and the knowledge, and honor them as guides because after all you are already a part of them ever since you received knowledge. In them, even if you disagree on personal business, you have a tool for your life. Useless is individual leadership if the leader does not generate conversations and actions to create their own transformation and be a support and example for other actions. The mission of the elderly is ensuring support from the spirit and the human; the duty of apprentices and of the wise is to transfer their learning, so that they are an example to their partners, their families, their communities and humankind.
Is it necessary to follow an elder to achieve transformation?
If a guide or elder appears or not in your life is not the point; they will leave you in a favorable condition for you to be dedicated and impeccable, and to make you responsible for the commitments you make and for all you say. Do not think that they haven’t had to make great efforts and assume costs to reach to that level of commitment to the people, without complaint to others for the decision made to start the journey of spiritual learning.
How should an apprentice walk this path?
Always remember where your spiritual and physical lineage comes from. Rely on those who believe in you and love you, do not give up or let them down or betray them, or charge them of negative impressions by playing victim. Keep clean the word that was given you, build and transform your life for the benefit of the Great Cause of Father and Mother. Be happy! Grandparents say -practicing the vital law of nature: "Do not judge yourself, do not justify yourself and do not be angry." Do this permanently.
The guide or Elder always will be working with everything they can to sustain you in your apprentice process; for them, the pleasure of life is in that the seed continues to spread and in that many of those who receive their word are already bearing fruits ... Their responsibility is to spread the word received.
Check if as apprentice you've managed to develop the word to be a carrier or on the contrary, you are incurring in debt with the Cosmos for doing things that are against natural development and for complaining about the position you took in this game—who said this was easy?!
Lastly, I recommend to everyone:
Strive to be happy and do the work that has been entrusted to you. The more lives you touch with your life and the more you harmonize them, the more they will shield your way with the help of Mother and Father God, giving happiness and responding to your search.
