The human beings consciousness in ancient Mexico goes back to the ancestral memory of four earlier eras called Suns, in which mankind attempted their development and in each one of them failed, so a new cycle begins. The Fifth Sun is the era that we are currently living.
It is understood that for our ancient grandparents, life was the chance to evolve individually and collectively. Each Sun was an attempt to seek perfection, not only for humans, but of the very Earth. This was the essence of life and this, humans shared with the gods, the sacred mission of improving the world and life.
Indeed, the ancient Mexicans had a "social purpose", not only maintaining the gods life and humanizing the world, but what represented the supreme challenge, perfecting the human essence human. In fact, all civilizations with autonomous origin called Mother, such as China or India, have tried by various means and ways.
Finding the meaning and significance of existence. Reach the essence of life. Achieving immortality, light or total consciousness, has been at the top of all great human project.
The knowledge attained by our ancient grandparents in this field was undisputedly immeasurable and with and incredible reach. The material testimonies of his impressive effort to reach full consciousness or light, continues marveling us today; today we only have material ruins of the so-called "archaeological zones", we are dazzled not only by the architectural grandeur and technical prowess, but mainly by its spiritual magnificence; but at the same time, paradoxically, the current ignorance by the Mexican society, on the central issue of the existence of our ancestors is surprising, where they invested all the resources and efforts of the Anahuac civilization, especially in the period known as classical, which is almost unknown.
The destiny of Anahuac conscious humans was the evolution and improvement of the world and life. The gods one day gathered at Teotihuacan and decided to make a new attempt. On the night of the times, in the darkness of ignorance, they ignited a cosmic fire (for lack of a Sun) and said it was good and necessary to create a new Sun. Two of the gods first had to sacrifice so the sun and the moon were born. After the other gods threw themselves onto the cosmic fire so that with their sacrifice movement began.
For the ?náhuac philosophy, the existence of the human beings in this fifth Sun, is a product of the sacrifice of gods, reason why human beings are called "macehuales", which is interpreted as "deserving" of the sacrifice of the gods. Here we highlight one of the most important paradigms of the Anahuac philosophy, "the sacrifice", as a source of life and consciousness.
Everything will be moved in the world of the Anahuac, by a spiritual sacrifice. Later in the genesis of this fifth Sun, Quetzalcoatl, symbolic representation of wisdom and spiritual energy, it will have to symbolically "fight" death, represented in this case with the God Mictlantecuhtli.
Quetzalcoatl going down, accompanied by his Nahual or double to the underworld and allying with insects, which are the small constructors of nature, managed to evade the Lord of death and rescue the relics or bones of disappeared human beings of the fourth Sun, so that immediately with the help of the Mother Goddess, who grind the bones to make them dust, for Quetzalcoatl to make the ultimate sacrifice of resurrection.
Indeed, more than symbolic, the Dios of the divine breath that gives consciousness to matter, will bleed his virile member, to shed his precious blood on the ground bones and hence arises the new human strain that will live in the Fifth Sun.
In this way the gods have sacrificed so that human beings revive on Earth. Therefore, it is understood that human beings of the Fifth Sun, deserving of that sacrifice, needed to dedicate all of their energy and whole your life to the demands of their creators.
Thus we see how the ancient Mexicans understood the world, life and their existential responsibility. They are responsible for "humanizing the world" and "feed" the gods with their spiritual energy.
Because it should be noted in this regard that, coincidentally all the gods of the ancient world, required of human beings their efficient, constant and growing "spiritual sacrifice", either through rituals, abstinence, prayers or fasts. Our old grandparents did not escape this interesting and suggestive equality.
Unlike Western culture where for the Greco-Latin and Judeo-Christian world, the man is called to "dominate, exploit and transform" nature to be above all living beings, as he was made in the "image and likeness of God".
The conception of ancient Mexico aims to "humanize the world and spiritually feeding the Gods with their sacrifice", representing the destiny of human beings and the higher "Social purpose" in which they lived in Anahuac.
Since ancient times the ancient Mexicans understood that this was not their world, their ultimate reality. They felt that their life was a medium, a wonderful opportunity to achieve eternal life.
When children were born the midwife gave them in a beautiful speech that their house was elsewhere and that they would only be for a short time on Earth. That life was full of suffering and deprivation.
The development of the ancient Mexicans social project, took around four thousand five hundred years since the invention of agriculture, the corn and the milpa, approximately in the sixth millennium BCE, until the consolidation of the Olmec culture, also called "mother culture", around the year 1500 BCE. Long enough for the ancient Mexicans to developed the bases of the solid cultural philosophical matrix which sustained all the cultural scaffolding in which peoples of the Anahuac were to develop their social purpose.
It is necessary to draw attention to two fundamental elements, in order to understand the mystery and wonder of the Anahuac civilization.
The first is that we are facing a social project of millennial nature, involving many generations. It is supposed that only the splendor, or classical period lasted more than a thousand years and the preclassical or formative, as noted before, about 6 thousand years; and altogether the Anahuac civilization lasted almost seven thousand five hundred years.
The second is that we are facing a phenomenon of a civilization that had many different times and spaces of different cultures, but which were always united by a same social purpose through a cultural philosophical matrix, allowing them to create a wonderful world saturated with different variants, which represent different expressions of a single reality.
To understand the miracle of Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza or Monte Alban, must think that civilization, in addition to having a perfectly structured and defined project, necessarily required a strong and efficient food system, of an effective health system, a wise social and legal system, but especially an excellent educational system, that not only transmitted knowledge, sciences, arts, philosophy and religion; but that could be permanently involved in the millenary social purpose for children and young people, so that henceforth could ensure the permanence of the social project.
The construction of any of these now called "archaeological zones", as is case of Monte Alban in the Oaxaca Valley, which began its construction in the year 500 BCE and which is presumed abandoned in the approximately 850-900 AD, it represents more than a thousand years of same use and a tireless construction.
A byproduct of this impressive human development is the educational system, which on the 16th century, at the time of the decadent postclassical period, Europeans were shocked to find that in Anahuac, no child was without school, because it was compulsory and free.
Probably the educational system was already in operation since the preclassical or formative period, the fact is that there were three ancient institutions which had as their main objective, "forming own faces and real hearts" for the students. The institutions were: Telpochcalli or the youth house where children were received from early childhood and were interned.
In this institution they were formed as "human beings and citizens". They acquired basic knowledge about their culture, history, language, customs, crafts, they learned to write and to "read" their codices.
The "ancient word" was an institution and in it they jealously kept the wise advice that were transmitted from one generation to another and that permitted a fair and orderly life.
Another institution was the "Cuicacalli" or House of song, which was the venue where they taught women and men, through "flower and song" the aesthetic sense of their being consciousness. Dance, painting, declamation, poetry and music, were excellent means through which new generations were educated in the ancient social purpose of the Anahuac peoples.
Art education was as important as what today we would call "formal" education. The ancient Mexicans expressed their feelings of life and world, with what they called "flower and song".
Everything they did in social and private life, was closely linked to the artistic and religious aspect. This compulsory level of education to all young people of both sexes was completed when they married and formed a new family. However, there were young people who were selected to follow higher studies, because of their great talent, ability and intelligence.
The higher institution was called the "Calmecac" or the House of measure. There are studied the most talented young, preparing them as leaders, managers or priests. Young people entering these important institutions of higher education were named them "warriors".
The Mission of humanizing the world and feeding the gods with their spiritual sacrifices, represented for ancient Mexicans the bases of the solid cultural philosophical matrix, which held the structure essentials in which the Anahuac "Social purpose" would develop, finding in the impressive educational system, the instrument that allowed continuity over at least two thousand five hundred years.
The ancient Mexicans built a complex philosophical allegory surrounding the "social purpose". Full of poetic symbols and deep esoteric parables, we find the flowered war as the maximum individual, social and State enterprise.
Just as the gods sacrificed themselves in the cosmic fire, which frees the spiritual energy from the grotesque matter that contains it.
Human beings, the "deserved", responsible for "humanizing the world" and spiritually "feed" the gods, were to engage in the most difficult and reckless war that a human being can do in life, to fully achieve their existential task.
The fight against oneself, against the inertia that condemns matter to fall toward the inevitable corruption, first of the spirit and then the body. The battle takes place in the depths of human beings, the fight against weaknesses and temptations, laziness, stupidity and existential irresponsibility, the struggle that necessarily occurs in the bosom of a conscious spirit.
The ancient grandparents called this challenge "The Flowered battle". This struggle was waged with "flower and song", understood as wisdom and beauty, weapons par excellence of the immaculate warrior of ancient Mexico.
Thus, the Calmecac prepared these "warriors of the spirit" through a strict military discipline, in which the sense of sobriety, austerity and frugality prevailed, this, together with study and reflection marked a lifestyle, only comparable with a Tibetan monk.
These "warriors" were prepared for the flowered battle and in doing it, they humanized the world and fed with spiritual energy, product of a life of sacrifice, the tutelary deities. They were organized into two major lineages; the Tiger Warriors, associated with the world of tangible properties and the Eagle Warriors, associated with the world of intangible characteristics. The two large orders of Ancient Mexico warriors possessed hermetic knowledge of the world and of human beings.
Hence, the "Flowered War" was not only the very reason of the State, but more importantly, the means by which a civilization could articulate its "Social purpose". It is then possible to understand the constructive possibility of the "great material projects" of the ancient Mexico and the continuity of its Social purpose. From this perspective, we can imagine the dimension and significance of philosophical thought and spiritual energy that the peoples of the Anahuac developed.
The Flowered War represented for the state its reason of being and the fate of the Warrior represented for the people, the opportunity to transcend their existence and give meaning to their own lives, linking it directly with the immeasurable forces that govern the universe. The gods sacrifice for humans and the sacrifice of human beings to improve the world and feed the gods, was structured as a never-ending chain of events between the human and the divine, heaven with Earth, the Quetzal with the Coatl.
One of the greatest mysteries of humanity is represented by the "collapse of the upper classical period", in which without any logical explanation, men and women of knowledge, the elite of the intelligence of the millennial Anahuac, mysteriously, destroyed by themselves their impressive structures, where they developed their knowledge and completely covered them with earth, to literally "disappear" from the face of the Earth without leaving any trace. This happened more or less at the same time in all Mexico and Central America.
The historical memory of the Anahuac metaphorically recalls this fact with the parable that Quetzalcoatl, God representative of wisdom, one day was in his "Palace" of Tula, when its philosophical counterpart, Tezcatlipoca sets trap and sneaking into his bedroom puts a mirror in front and Quetzalcoatl, sees an old man and therefore violates all principles, to regret it the next day and abandons his lovely city, goes to the East to finally incinerate himself in a liberating fire and predict that he will return to restore his domain of harmony and wisdom.
Should be understood as the aging of the Toltec wisdom, as the end of a cycle.
After this disaster, the peoples were left without their great masters and guides. Peoples conduction remained only in the hands of administrators and priests, who eventually broke the bases and principles that were taught by their teachers, creating the lordships, a decadent nobility and a corrupt theocracy, the long since forgotten wars started again, that did not exist during the classical period, and reinstated human sacrifices, jealously prohibited by Quetzalcoatl.
They were in the midst of this decadence, approximately three hundred years after the mysterious collapse of the classical period, when the last barbarian people from the North arrived in the Valley of ?náhuac. The Aztecs didn't speak nahuatl, or knitting cotton, were hunter-gatherers who soon assimilated the culture of the Anahuac.
After a "hectic" search, they were able to settle on a small Islet in the middle of the Lake around the year 1325 AD., founding Tenochtitlan and soon become the dominant people of the Valley of Anahuac. Thus begins their splendor and power, threatened by the ancient prophecies that the Fifth Sun is finalizing and that Quetzalcoatl would return in the year Ce-Acatl (one Reed), a date which repeated every fifty-two years.
The Aztecs began a major ideological, philosophical, political, religious, military, educational, cultural and economic reform, to support not only power, but the future of their nascent Empire. The great reformer and creator of the Aztec Empire was Tlacaélel. The Cihuacóatl or administrator of the Empire, who was a connoisseur of the ancient Toltec philosophical and religious thought.
Tlacaélel re-functionalized the millenary Anahuac philosophical and religious thought. Established the cult to the material and devalued the cult of the spirit, by imposing their tribal god Huitzilopochtli, representative of the matter and the conquest war, displacing Quetzalcoatl to a lower level.
Changed the spiritual war, to a material war. He made the first educational reform and changed the ancient history, one in which the chosen people were the Aztec. But fundamentally changed the "Social purpose". In fact, the Aztecs self-called themselves "the holders of the Fifth Sun". Divine mission that allowed them to conquer and exploit neighboring towns.
The Aztecs proposed that the Flowered War was not spiritual but material, that the Sun was not fed from spiritual sacrifice, on the contrary, according to them, the Sun was fed by the sacrifice of human beings, their pounding hearts and their divine blood that moved the world.
That the Fifth Sun in which their empire was emerging would not live threatened to death, that the Aztec people would provide food for the Sun through human sacrifices. Therefore, the Aztec Warrior challenge was, to take prisoners alive, as their lives belonged to their gods and it was unfit for the warrior to waste it on the battlefield.
Captives imprisoned through the wars of conquest and the so-called "flowered wars" with their closest neighbors, in which religiously Aztec warriors went in search of prisoners to be sent to the sacrificial stone.
All the religious/philosophical/spiritual symbolism of the Toltec wisdom, was brutally changed by a materialistic/mystic/warrior philosophy. The "Flowered War" became for the Aztecs a reason of State, both in the ideological and economic aspect, because both strengthened their imperial purpose. The warriors found wealth and social recognition in the continuous wars of conquest.
The Empire was consolidating, got more power, land and taxes that allowed them to finance military campaigns. The millenary schools of ancient Mexico were converted into military academies, where the Telpochcalli, trained the sons of the people learned to be soldiers and the Calmecac was reserved for the sons of the nobility, they prepared as officers. Traders on the other hand, began a dizzying social ascent and created a new powerful class that had never existed in the ancient Mexico.
The true power of the Aztec Empire did not exceed a hundred years before the arrival of the Spaniards and did not reach two hundred years, from its foundation to the fall of Tenochtitlan.
The Aztec Warrior, whether Eagle or Tiger Warriors orders, was a formidable military instrument. Prepared from the very tender age to live and die in war. They saw in it the possibility of feeding the Fifth Sun, ensuring the future of their nascent Empire and transcend their earthly life. This "divine mission" was covered with ancient spiritual forms and esoteric Toltec knowledge, but their background was eminently formed from a grotesque necrophilia and materialist philosophy.
It is for these reasons that when one reads the Aztec precepts of the "ought to be", which were predominantly of Toltec spirit and then one knows the war and human sacrifice practices, it becomes a grotesque mismatch, a clear contradiction, between what is intended with words and what is done with facts.
The Aztec sacrifice, understood as taking life of any human being is unacceptable at any time and place. The Aztec Warrior of the postclassical period, then becomes a perversion of the Toltec Warrior of the classical period and a transgression to the millenary humanist and spiritual current which always inspired the ancient Mexico.
The century-old prophecy was fulfilled. In the year " C? ?catl (one cane) (1519) the Spanish arrived and were mistaken as envoys of Quetzalcoatl, who were arriving to restore his philosophical thinking and religious/spiritual practice. The Aztecs aware of their transgression (replacing Quetzalcoatl by Huitzilopochtli, and changing the spiritual values with material values), after many errors opted for sacrifice in Tenochtitlan, really dying at the hands of neighbors who believed to be fighting beside the cause of the much-anticipated Quetzalcoatl.
The destruction of the Aztec Empire was the beginning of the fall of the Anahuac civilization, because, although many peoples did not transgress the ancient Toltec philosophy of Quetzalcoatl; as the Maya, Purepecha, Mixtec or Zapotec among many others; the dynamics of the European invasion had spread from the struggle between native peoples.
The civilization new project established by the Spanish sought to annihilate and completely make disappear any remnant of the defeated civilization. Destroyed all public buildings, temples and schools stone by stone, assassinated leaders, priests and teachers; the "men of knowledge"; the carriers of the ancient Toltec thought of ancient Mexico, had to start their centennial path clandestinely ".
Indeed, flawlessly the knowledge and practices of the ancient Toltec spirit warriors, have remained secret and hermetically in a small number of people, from generation to generation in these five hundred years. Because of the persecution and secrecy status, they have changed the shape and have perfected the essence of his wisdom.
This wisdom is still alive, present and existing in many indigenous and peasant communities of contemporary Mexico. Male and female heirs to the ancient wisdom of the Anahuac practice it and perfect it stealthily on a daily basis. There are "certain things" in the indigenous world that conquerors of yesterday and today, never saw nor touched. The Anahuac thought and wisdom remain alive and although it is not public knowledge of the dominant culture today, exists, as well as thinking and wisdom of civilizations of the same age as ours, as China and India. The difference is that the Anahuac wisdom and knowledge have mysteriously been kept in secrecy, outside the Western world.
(Selection of texts from the work of the anthropologist Carlos Castaneda. Don Juan Matus was a Yaqui Indian, carrier of Toltec knowledge, who instructed the anthropologist in the ancient toltecáyotl knowledge and practices to be a Warrior).
Only the idea of death gives the Warrior detachment to make it, so he can be unable to surrender to anything. Only the idea of death gives the Warrior enough detachment so cannot surrender to anything. For this reason, such a man does not crave, because he has acquired a lust quiet life. Knows that his death is hunting him and that he will not have time to attach to anything; so he tries in this world, without cravings, all of everything.
With the consciousness of his death, with detachment and the power of his decisions, a warrior sets up his life strategically. The knowledge of his death guides him and gives him detachment and quiet lust; the power of his final decisions allows him to choose without complaining, and what he chooses always is strategically the best; he thus complies with taste and lustful efficiency, everything he has to do in life. When a man behaves that way you can tell with justice that he is a warrior and that has acquired patience. When a warrior has acquired patience, is on the road to the will. He knows how to wait. His death sits next to him in his petate, they are friends. His death advises him in mysterious ways, how to choose, how to live strategically. And the Warrior expected waits! I would say that the Warrior learns without hurries because he knows that he is waiting for his will; and one day he manages to do something that usually is impossible to execute.
One of the two here has to change, and quick. One of us has to learn again that death is the Hunter and that is always on the left. One of us has that seek advice from death and stop the fucking pettiness of men who live their lives as if death would never touch them.