Saturday, April 24, 2010

At The Beginning

At the Beginning

Everything written about the continent of America before 1419 is lie. The history of this continent began 40 millennia. A time where there where no borders on Earth. Humans had a nomad existence with strong ties with Mother Nature. Little by little, hunters and gathers from continent of Asia journeyed in to the continent of America following pray. [1]
Even thought they had a “rudimentary” way of existence, these people had sophisticated concept of the Universe. What we now call Shamanism[2]. A Shaman society valued harmony with Mother Nature and the understanding of the exploration of cognitive powers by means of conscience exercises and respectful use of plants that alter it.
Eight thousand years ago humans became sedentary and shaman values lost virtual. A god called “Father”, who preferred his disciples as men, replaced the direct relationship with Mother Nature. Cognitive powers replaced by symbolic rituals conducted by salaried priests. These phenomena occurred mostly in Euro-Asia by fortunate factors as much as intentional ones. In America it was more in tune. The first imperial states in organizing in America where over thousand years ago with their arrival of the tihuanacos to Tawantinsuyu (Andean zone) and the Teotihuacán’s to the Anawak[3] (central Mexico). Even thought the Shamans ways survived and prospered co-hebetating with organized religion. Respecting each other’s areas of influence, at times working together for the common good.
The people of America share a higher level of culture that deserves deeper study. They where able to materialized the idea of a civilization and maintaining a strong bond with Earth. Were diversity in opinion did not lead to wars of faith; where a lack of material wealth did not limit spiritual expression and creative vision. Institutions where designed to inhibit idolizing. Contrary to public opinion, these cultures where not primitive, fantastic idolizer of the elements. As an author a testifies, “… They had a metaphysical knowledge of existence. They spoke a copious language and where able to express concepts of maximum abstraction, sufficient as to maintain its fines and solidity as a scientific language, philosophy and poetic. (They) had a concept of the world that explains its qualities and a great mathematics, astronomical, engineering, architectural, and sculptural.” (Bonifaz Nuño, Mexico Profundo).
The combined scientific, artistic, and social achievements of the people of Anawak was called Toltekayotl, Toltequity, a nawatl[4] term formed from the root Tol, stem, that with time it became to mean culture[5]. The first nawatl dictionary was drawn mid XVI by Father Molina, it translates Toltekayotl as “art of living”.
Toltequity is the legacy from Mexico to the world. If the Eurasians cultures had the Tao, and Hinduism and Buddhism. In the Americas we have Toltekayotl. If other civilizations had Hermes and Buda, we had Quetzalcoatl and corn. … More then a culture or ethnicity being “Toltec” was a level of knowledge from wise people from antique Mexico. Teotihuacán was the center of and generator of Toltekayotl in all of Anawak. (Guillermo Marin, True History of Profound Mexico).
A scientific assembly in 1941 defined and widespread an interpretation of the word Toltec[6]. The term Toltec has been associated since with the dwellers of the city Tula in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. However, Tula and Tollan is a Nawatl word that means Capitol. As we can appreciate in the next definition of a mexica codex, anybody who accepted the Toltequity principals was considered a Toltec: The Toltec is a wise, he is a light, a fire, and a torch with no smoke. It makes foreign faces guru. It makes them take heart. It does not pass over things, it stops, reflects, observes… This way it transforms in to a Toltec. If you obtain this habit and custom to consult everything with your heart. (Matritense Codex).
In an effort to be faire to the original concept of these people. The term Toltec will describe all the inhabitants of Anawak, from the Olmes two millennia before Christ, to the mexica that ended this history to the pipiles of Nicaragua to the Tarahumara in the northern frontiers. The Toltec approach is composed of ideological formulas that led to a healthy development of civilization. It was based in three pillars that govern other religions of the earth. These are:
First: An archetype messiah that was named Quetzalcoatl, Feather Serpent.
Second: Life’s rules contained in a sacred book, today lost. Named Teomashtili, Divine Book.
Third: A spiritual initiation, whose trustee received the title of Masewalli o macehual, deserving by auto sacrifice.
The foundation of Toltequity was Quetzalcoatl, the feather serpent. He was not a tribal God, but the Supreme Being, the same that in other traditions of the world received the name of Yahweh, Allah, Brahma, Tao, etcetera. He represented totality, since the serpent alluded to the material Universe and the feathers to the energy of the cosmos. It was also a proposal to action, since the metaphor of the serpent that undertakes flight transcendence. More then a God, from the western term, Quetzalcoatl is the image of our potential as humans to expand and become gods.
[1] Discoveries made in the Mohave Desert and other dig sights show that America had native home sapiens like species extinct over 28,000 years ago.
[2] Shaman is a term of sancrist that means meditating. Through Buddhism and crossed Siberia and from there in to the Anthropology scientific term.
[3] Anawak extends from Nicaragua to the tropical of Cancer; but its center of influence extends from Central America to North America.
[4] Nawatl is a language with its roots in Uto-Aztecan, spoken in North and Central America.
[5] The Stem gave name to the palisades that protected the first cities and from the society and its culture. In Anawak it obtain the meaning of esoteric knowledge.
[6] Wigberto Jimenez Moreno, “Tula and the Toltec’s according to Historic Sources”, Mexican Society of Anthropologist, 1941.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Toltequidad: the Teachings of the Feather Serpent


Toltequidad
The teachings of the Feathered Serpent

The return of the Toltec’s

A deep spiritual message surges from the yawning in Mexico. Intertwined in such a way that its existence seems to renovate in numerous practices as it relates with the body, the mind and the sprit these days. However, its roots are emerged in the night of time originated from Mesoamerican antiquity. Toltequidad is about the art of living; it is a philosophy that had influenced numerous cultures in the Americas. Toltequidad, being Pan-American phenomena evolved, as a by-product of trade of goods and ideas between North and South America, thou the capitols of Anawak in Mexico and Tawantisuy in Peru where separated by not only the equator but by time. Yet, the vision of these two different cultures where similar not only in astronomical teachings but of their vision of the world too. As a result, there are no borders for Toltequidad. Native Americans from as far north as Alaska to as far south as the Alps all share a same appreciation of life. This could be interpreted as a religion, but it goes beyond that need alone. It fulfilled intellectual, spiritual, economical and medical needs of a group of people across the continent. It awoke man’s ability to be in touch with all its senses. The Toltec essence goes beyond identifying historical places in central Mexico, like Tula or Xococtitla (Wasp in nagual), or the pyramids in Teotihuacán, considered at the time by its habitants as the center of the world. They believed that below the pyramid of the Sun, were a cave surges from the underground is where time and space originated, it is where humans surged out of the inners of the Earth. After God and Man had made a pact. However, numerous testimonies of the time believed that the Toltec’s name given to a city: Tula or Tollan is not a physical place, but more of mythical one. Tula is a kingdom of spiritual dimensions situated towards the four directions of space, the four cardinal points of the Universe, which is symbolic of the cross and so familiar to many people of pre-Hispanic antiquity, which surprised the Christian conquistadors that came upon them. The Toltec’s made their first appearance 5000 years ago. In Peru they where named Chavin and in Mexico called Olmecs. Their idea about the Universe, life, evolution, conscience and Man’s destiny evolved later in great civilizations like Tiahuancao, Teotihuacán, Tenochtitlan, Machupichu y el Cuzco.

Kinam and Toltequidad
In old México very advanced cultures emerged, that learned how to live in harmony with Nature. They created impressionable science and art and where in tune with the latent powers in the human body. The sum of this way of life was called by these people Tolkekayotl, Toltequidad. Frequently, the name Toltec was given to a group of people that resided in the City of Tula in central Mexican state of Hidalgo. However, this name Tolteca describes all Mesoamericans. Independently of the language they spoke or the time and space they occupied in this continent. We read it this way in the sacred book of the Mayan-quiches, were the Supreme being is revered with this prayer: “Show us your nature, your two times mother, two times father, Teacher Toltec, this is how your offspring will call you!” (Popol Vuh 1.2)

The Union of Art with knowledge
The Toltec’s are associated since the beginning with knowledge and art; they are responsible for astronomy; registering movements of the planes and the earth. They like no one before or after knew the secrets of the movement of the planes and time. They influence writing, painting, and the art of prediction. So too, they merged art with architectures, engineering and sculptures. All calculations in perfect synchronization with the movement of the planets, stars and the earths changing season through the year.

The center of Cosmo-vision for the Toltec’s is Ketsalkoatl, Feathered Serpent, the Universal Supreme Being, known in Peru as Wirakocha, Seed from the Ocean, and in the nations of North America as Manittu, Great Spirit.
This secret symbol represents transcends the material limitations (compared to a serpent) and the liberation of the spirit (the quetzal) Ketsalkoatl is then the cosmic conscience that incarnates our world with a mission to bring a higher level of civilization to humans. For the old Mexicans, all men and woman where Feathered Serpents: With huge amounts of potential. Toltequidad is the way to conduct that energy towards innumerable possibilities. A natural path that leads us to our ideal supreme being.

Fusion of Spirit and Matter
The devotion to Ketsalkoatl, and the verbal doctrine transmitted from who was considered his manifestation among men, form Toltequidad. We can’t associate these teachings with an ethnic group. But as a way to understand man’s role in the Cosmos, engaged constantly in the evolution as part of the process to obtain transcendence. The meaning of the word Ketsalkoatl, as the anthropologist Frank Diaz has demonstrated. Answers an infinite amount of concepts. In on part the quest quetzal describes “beauty”, “perfection”, “state of impeccability, or “precious feathers” (equivalent, as Frank states to the Holy Spirit among Christians), as well as “cycle of time” and “the act of fertile among animals” (associating the Serpent Feather with the creator of the Universe). On the other hand, coatl means “double,” “twin”, as well as “sin” and “pain”, that intermingles with the Toltec doctrine of merit.