What a Way to Go: Network

I've been thinking about Mayans and Aztecs. The Aztecs are a bit more recent than the Mayans in Central American history. A lot of people get the two cultures confused and sort of mix them together, but they are from distinctly separate periods of history. This is important to understand, because it's likely that the Aztecs got their signals mixed up about a particular piece of knowledge passed down from the Mayans.

See, the Mayans had devised a calendar of future events - the famous calendar that leads to the date Dec. 21, 2012 as "the end of time." They expected some pretty catastrophic events on that date, and thought it important enough to leave a record for future humans to evaluate and maybe do something about. One of the things I've come to understand about the Mayans is that their culture was far more advanced than ours. Their mathematicians and scientists had a better grasp of astronomy and the interaction between celestial bodies than we do. The calendar was not based on psychic, religious, or superstitious visions - it was based on science and mathematics.

But by the time the Aztecs came along, cultures had started to disintegrate enough that their partially understood memories of inaccurately transmitted predictions became "belief" instead of "knowledge." And, with "belief" comes superstition. Somewhere along the line, they turned the knowledge of the "end of time" into a superstitious fear of the "end of the world." They also devised a method of placating the gods to delay the end of the world. They figured out that if they made live, human sacrifices to the god, then he wouldn't destroy their world as soon. So, they waged wars against other people and kidnapped the people to become their human sacrifices, cutting out their hearts while they still lived, to offer to the god. If you look at the grisly history from their perspective, they were doing something righteous and honorable - delaying the end of the world.

So, here's why I thought about the Mayans and the Aztecs while reading this thread. I thought about the knots we tie ourselves into with our various beliefs about what, who, or why is our "creator" and what, who or why are we existent. The Christians have an amazing level of personal guilt attached to their own existence, along with a smiting, vengeful and justice-driven god. The Moslems have a self-righteousness that comes along with a god who favors them over everyone else (well, that is also in the Christian theme, and when you get right down to it, the vengeful, smiting god exists in the Moslem culture too.)

Personally, I strongly suspect we, as members of the modern dominant culture, are all Aztecs. We have taken partially understood memories of inaccurately transmitted truths and turned them into superstitious sacrifices.

I'd rather be a Mayan. I am in a constant struggle to isolate what is action based on knowledge versus action based on superstitious fear. My definition of "god" is "the Unknowable Essence." There is a power that created energy. I don't know what that power is, and furthermore, will never know. If I could understand the essence of the power that created energy, then my level of knowledge would of necessity be "greater than" the level of knowledge of that Unnknowable Essence, and therefore is impossible, because the Unknowable Essence must, by definition, be greater than that which it created.

So, I begin with the foundation that there is an Unknowable Essence that created energy - all that is. The energy has vibration (life.) The only difference between the planet, a diamond, this computer I'm typing on, the dog lying on the floor next to me, my hand typing, the air I breathe, the water I drink - the only difference between these "things" is the speed of vibration of energy.

The spiritual law of "reap what you sow" is echoed in the scientific principle of "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." If you put both of these concepts into the foundational principle of the existence of energy as the source, it means that we live on this plane of existence (the earth in physical dimension) interacting with the physical or the spiritual both, through the give and take of energy. Therefore, we have a better possibility of receiving positive energy if we put out positive energy. The opposite is also true - if we put out negative energy, we have a better chance of receiving negative energy back.

I have no better idea than anyone else just exactly how things are going to pan out in the future. My lifestead is tucked away in a mountain valley, difficult to reach on foot, off a minor canyon highway, and in an area without a great deal of recreational attraction, but there is no guarantee that it won't suddenly be in someone's line of travel or line of fire. I have the basic philosophy that building up a large survival supply of goodies requires the intention to protect that supply from whomever might come along demanding it for themselves. And, I operate on the assumption that no matter how many guns, dogs, and people I put together, someone will come along with more guns, dogs, and people. Therefore, it makes more sense to me to attempt a woodwork imitation - someone who fades into the woodwork and is simply unnoticed. It also makes more sense to depend more on knowledge than supplies. There's another principle that would be of benefit here and that is that no matter how many supplies I store, eventually they're going to run out. If I don't know how to make more, it really doesn't matter when the suffering would take place - it would happen eventually.

My conclusion is that most of the religious practices of self-denial, control, and rigid rules of behavior are based on superstitious fears, that the only thing we really need to understand is that there is an energy flow that is better utilized through love and positive energy than through hate and negative energy, that the past 10,000 years of negative energy flowing from humans toward the earth has resulted in a negative return today that is going to have a hell of a kickback to it and that what I need to do personally during this kickback period is find some way to ride the tidal wave all the way to landfall, uitilizing as much positive energy as I possibly can to make landfall safely.