“Para llegar a Dios hay que aprender a ser humano”.
(“To reach God, one must learn to be human.”)
– Ícaro, Ábrete Corazón, Rosa Giove –
When the Earth ceased to be an organism and became a resource; when the forest turned into merchandise and life was reduced to economic data, humanity forgot that it breathes within a greater body. Mother Earth stopped receiving the offerings of Indigenous peoples; she ceased to be the Gaia of the Greeks, the Jord of the Nordics, the Mamapacha of the Incas. She became property, spoils of empires and of modern feudal lords: large corporations and the interests of a global system.
They call this era the Anthropocene, a time in which the human footprint shapes climate and landscapes as never before. We have gone from being part of natural phenomena to becoming a force that profoundly alters them.
But it must be said clearly: not all of humanity is responsible for this transformation. It is certain development models, economic systems, and political decisions – sustained by governments, corporations, and historically privileged sectors – that have crossed the planet’s bio-geo-physical limits.
Processes that once followed natural rhythms, cycles, and invisible wisdoms have been irreversibly altered. Today, under an extractivist and deeply mercantile logic, human activity intervenes directly in the regulation of the land and the climate. In this violence, not only are ecosystems destroyed: the physical survival of all humanity and countless beings is compromised, and the balance of living consciousnesses that sustain the Earth is broken. There, the soul fractures. There begins the loss of Dharma, the abandonment of our humanity.
What makes us human is precisely the capacity to live the Dharma: the ability to embrace one another as conscious beings in the search for truth, meaning, and compassion. To be human is to live aware of our own vast nature and to the vastness of the other; to look at every existence with truly human eyes. We are not made human by dominating the Earth, by ruling over it, or by idealizing the image we have of ourselves. That impulse distances us from our humanity because it is born of ignorance and fear.
What makes us human is the capacity to serve, to sow, to protect, and to love in all its forms. What makes us human is the sincere search for understanding. And what dehumanizes us is the immediacy of the plunderer, of the consumer who devours without reflection, driven by urgency and inner emptiness.
We live in a deeply dehumanized world, where ego, the drive for control, and fear prevail, sustained by a model that invades all areas of life. Even spiritual and religious spaces are not exempt from this confusion, when inner seeking is replaced by external veneration, dogma, dependency, or beliefs that limit direct experience.
Many of our expressions today seem crossed by the same dynamics: patterns that distance us from what is human and disconnect us from the essential. Perhaps we are on the threshold of a spiritual winter – a necessary winter, capable of allowing the rains to come that will cleanse our roots and prepare us to blossom once again as humanity.
As Sinchi Runa, we have returned to Peru. The past years have been intense since we left more than thirteen years ago in order to return once again to the roots. Like the Renaco – the Amazonian tree that “walks” – we too have learned to move forward while leaving exposed roots. The Renaco lifts its body on ancient roots, lets them dry, and sprouts new ones, giving the illusion of walking. It always leaves something of itself behind, but it never stops moving toward the light.
We are like the Renaco. We leave roots in the earth that ultimately are the earth and are ourselves. Roots that germinated in other forms; that seem to detach, yet remain accompanying us. Letting go hurts, yes, but it is what allows life to be born: new encounters with oneself, new confrontations, new eruptions of truth and love in the heart. As we move forward, wisdom arrives, and with it the capacity to heal and to be healed.
Today we are once again in the world of plants, very close to that orgy of life that is the Amazon: the lung of the planet that still allows itself to breathe.
There are many reasons to return to Peru, but perhaps the deepest is to create a living relationship with the land and with Dharma as a foundation for healing; to humanize in order to heal. It is about strengthening a place we can protect, a home that is a temple of love for humanity and for life on Earth. To begin, from the land itself, a path of healing for this collective circumstance – to reconnect deeply with the forest in the search to heal and be healed – is also to address the afflictions born of this cultural disconnection: depression, addiction, and the hopelessness that emerge from inner emptiness.
Together with the forest, we seek to embody a frequency of hope in the face of the urgency to evolve and truly become humanity.
After so many retreats and processes, we understand that the most important aspect of Sinchi Runa’s work is to awaken in each participant the need for Dharma: conscious action, the living gesture embodied in daily practice. We can call this awakening by many names; even as a union with God, understood not as an external or religious figure, but as that which is most pure and undeniable that dwells within each being. We do not need to walk toward borrowed images or foreign paradigms, because the undeniable lives within us.
That temple we wish to create in Peru, a temple of trees, animals, flowers, insects, and forest spirits, is our song to Dharma. A place where to conserve is to love, where to heal is to protect, and where to become human again is to remember what is essential.
Preservation of the Rainforest & Retreat Center Construction
This project needs the conscious support of those who feel this calling. We invite you to collaborate in the purchase and construction of this living space, a home for healing, learning, and a return to what is essential. Learn more about the project.
Make a Donation via Bank Transfer
BANK NAME: BBVA Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA
BANK ADRESS: Plaza San Nicolas, 4 – 48005 BILBAO
INAME: ASOCIACION SINCHI RUNA
IBAN: ES94 0182 0454 8102 0162 2600
BIC/SWIFT: BBVAESMMXXX
Sinchi Runa is a non-profit association registered in Spain.
Donation Receipt to write off from your taxes:
Make sure to mark your transfer subject as ‘Donation’, and email us your bank transfer slip at info@sinchiruna.com. It must clearly state ‘Donation’, otherwise we cannot legally provide a donation receipt.
Thank you for your support 
