2nd task of dreaming

The main task at this phase in Mayan teachings is to learn to will the assemblage point (AP) to move.

Shifts of AP are minute displacements of conscious focus, whereas movements are major displacements of this focus in dreaming (or meditation, visions, etc...). Such movements of AP result in perceiving separate and total worlds, really different universes or levels of existence from ours, similar to those quite known in some other traditions (Vedic, Nordic, Egyptian, Buddhist, Enochian, etc...).

It takes more awareness and energy to move the AP. Shifts are easier.

The first of those universes right next to ours is the realm of slow, immovable, and 'friendly' inorganic beings (IBs), called Nek-tsha (meaning: eternally reposed, always stable, immovable, as per dreaming emissary). That is a low astral world.

The Lineage of Don Juan, most known through Castaneda's books, depends heavily on these 'friendly' inorganic beings and their energy. That is the hallmark of ancient Toltec sorcerers, their Lineage being strongly influenced by black death defiers (like the 'woman in the church' or 'the tenant', written about in the book "The art of dreaming").

These 'friendly' beings, described in great detail in the books by Carlos Castaneda, are actually low astral level spirits. And herein lays a major test for those in the Lineage of sorcerers of antiquity.

The astral world is full of astral glamour, low and illusory energy that can blur the awareness of a dreamer. Their influence is really hypnotic if you let them take the initiative.

At this stage, a dreamer in the Lineage of sorcerers of antiquity is faced with his/her own inner conceptual and emotional identifications that manifest in dreaming when IBs try to trap one in their realm, for good.

If there is not enough clarity and wakefulness in the state of consciousness of a dreamer, chances are that indulgence will prevail.

On the other hand, if one is sober, silent within, and awake enough, the IB trap is easy to avoid. Who, in the true warrior state and intending complete freedom, would ever want to stay there for eons?

Only someone that can't see past shortcomings/illusions yet and someone who loves to indulge (Castaneda's case comes to mind here).

The danger is real to be sure, but the mental/emotional illusions, well, those really are a choice.

We can see that from Castaneda's example: he just didn't see past his own subjective concepts and projections about slavery/freedom, which manifested as a 'blue scout' incident and as his inability to move on his own in dreaming, at that point. His subjective reality was his responsibility which he did not assume, so IBs played him.

Actually, only dreamers in the Lineages of sorcerers of antiquity have to face the realm of the inorganic beings and their traps.

Jaguar, a Maya totem animal

On the other hand, at the present stage, a dreamer in our Maya Seers Lineage is challenged to move his AP and perceive new and total worlds, beyond the low astral level of manipulative inorganic beings.

With the guidance of Maya Nagual, a dreamer is guided to visit those realms via our main temple at Chichen Itza, which offers three groups of stages, together forming nine inner levels of systematic development of dreaming.

And at this stage, a dreamer has to learn to move the AP to a location where he/she perceives a totally new world, quite different from that of the aforementioned world of the inorganic astral entities.

That Maya total world is way beyond the low astral level of existence and offers a safe and yet challenging environment for a dreamer to learn in his/her own pace all about:
- moving around,
- communicate with others,
- gathering needed energy for dreaming,
- acquiring the Maya allies,
- meeting totem animal and shape-shifting into one, etc.

Lots to learn at this stage, important tasks, no doubt!

<< previous | next >>

Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent (II.)

The article below describes beautifully the symbolism, mythology and hidden meaning of the Plumed or Feathered Serpent.

 Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent

Of course, while the text shares historical and mythological aspects of the 'God-form' under discussion from both Mayan and Aztec cultures, we do not have to stop there.

The Kukulkan is a living force, and as such can be, or should I say, ought to be, encountered directly and validated empirically...
...in visions, meditation or in dreaming.

Only talking, reading, researching, intellectualizing and writing about Kukulkan or development of awareness is only a first step.

It is like describing a glass of water and writing about it, without ever really drinking the fresh water.









The ‘Myth’ of the Plumed Serpent: Revealing the Real Message Behind the Feathered Snake

The Plumed (or Feathered) Serpent is a Mesoamerican myth that has fascinated modern people for quite some time. Among the Aztecs and Toltecs this divinity went by the name of Quetzalcoatl and to the Maya, it was known as Kukulcan.

It was a much-revered god who was believed to bring good tidings and civilization to humankind. His preeminent role in ancient times is evident from the fact that not only whole temples but in fact whole cities were built as centers of worship for this entity. Most well-known of these may be the so-called pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen-Itza in Mexico, which recently was included among the seven wonders of the world and is the most well-known of all Mayan pyramids.


The descent of the Plumed Serpent

The descent of the Plumed Serpent (shown in Fig 1) is one of the most remarkable light shows created in the ancient world. The seven triangles of light (alternating with six triangles of darkness) can only be seen projected onto the staircase of the pyramid for about 20 minutes at the Autumn and Spring equinoxes (and maybe two adjacent days as well).

Fig 1. The pyramid of the Plumed Serpent at Chichen-Itza. Note the seven triangles of light projected onto the staircase as scales on the back of the plumed serpent that descends into the earth. 

It is an event that attracts some 100,000 visitors and to the local Mexicans, it is a celebration of the advent of Spring. It is hard to convey how awesome this occurrence actually is for someone who has not had the chance to experience it firsthand. The reason it is so spectacular is that it is almost incomprehensible how the pyramid could be built so that the projection of the triangles only occurs on a specific day. This is not something you can build by trial and error as you cannot move the pyramid a little bit if it does not have the correct position. It must be built right from the beginning and when you realized this, it is something that really goes into your marrow. The Maya had a cosmic resonance that we have now essentially lost.


Serpent, the Central Creator God

This raises the question of why the Maya about a thousand years ago built a pyramid – in fact, their most impressive pyramid – with the purpose of worshipping a serpent. It does not quite make sense to modern people, who tend to look upon a snake as a low-level reptile, which does not seem worthy of any form of religious worship.

For this reason, we have tended to dismiss the Plumed Serpent as a “myth” that lacked a basis in reality and was made up by an ignorant people. And yet, the Plumed Serpent was the central deity in ancient Mexico.

Quetzalcoatl in feathered serpent form, Codex Telleriano-Remensis

Not only that, in the Popol-Vuh, which is sometimes called the Bible of the Maya, the Plumed Serpent was seen as the central creator God, the One that the other gods went to when the creation of this universe was to begin. According to the Mexican lore, we also know that the Plumed Serpent among other roles was regarded as the bringer of civilization and the calendar.

In their view, when the Plumed Serpent disappeared, their civilizations would suffer, but as he returned they would go through a rebirth and flourish. For this reason, it was a beloved god whose return they would long for.

This particular aspect of the mythology of the Plumed Serpent came to play a central role in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1519-1521. It is said that as the Aztec emperor Montezuma had a word of Hernan Cortez’ landing at Santa Cruz, he believed him to be the returning Quetzalcoatl, whom he feared as he knew that this deity and its human embodiments would not approve of their large scale human sacrifices.

Quetzalcoatl, God of Wisdom

According to legend, an embodiment of the Plumed Serpent (a priest in the city of Tula by the name of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl) had been expelled from his city about five hundred years earlier but had sworn to return. Because he feared this return, Moctezuma was very accommodating to Cortez and allowed him to enter his capital Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico City).

This became the beginning of the conquest of this mighty empire by Cortez, his 600 men, 16 horses, and native allies who remarkably defeated an emperor who was capable of raising an army of 100,000 men. This defeat is often attributed, at least partially, to the power the myth of the Plumed Serpent had over the Mesoamerican peoples, including the Aztec emperor.

There are many other aspects of the myth of the Plumed Serpent as well. He had been given the calendrical signature of 9 Wind and represented a positive spiritual force to the ancient peoples of Mexico, and was in conflict with his dark nemesis Tezcatlipoca, the “smoking mirror.”


Global Serpent Mythology

Before we go into what the Plumed Serpent actually may have symbolized we should take note of the fact that the Serpent played a very significant mythological role in many other ancient cultures as well.

What for instance may be the world’s oldest preserved object of art is a giant python in current-day Botswana that has been estimated to be 70,000 years old. This is believed to symbolize a creator god revered by the ancestors of today’s Bushmen. Similarly, to the aborigines in Australia the Rainbow Serpent was the main creator god and in the Amazonas, the great anaconda was seen as the creator of the human beings. In fact, all over the world (including in the Book of Genesis of the Bible) we find the serpent revered as an especially powerful animal. This does not match what a modern person would think of like a snake, and it makes us wonder why the serpent has played such a significant role in ancient myths.


The Waves of Creation

It then seems that there must be some more profound reason that the Serpent, and in particular the Plumed Serpent, by ancient peoples would be recognized as a central creator deity. As I have elaborated on in two books of mine: The Global Mind and the Rise of Civilization, and The Nine Waves of Creation, a serpent is the most natural symbol to use by anyone who would like to represent a mathematical sine wave.

And what the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica and elsewhere were aware of was that history, including the rise and fall of civilizations, was driven by waves of creation. There were, in fact, nine waves of creation that created the universe and the pre-set direction of its evolution. The reason that the Plumed Serpent went by the name of 9 Wind was that there were nine such sine waves creating spiritual winds corresponding to nine levels of creation as symbolized by the terrace-formed pyramids.

Maya Calendar: From the Mayan display inside the National Museum of the American Indian

What the ancient peoples were aware of was the nine underlying waves in the quantum field that was driving the evolution of the universe, our planet, as well as humankind. They did not use the same language for them as we would have and instead came to call this waveform the Plumed Serpent, that they perceived as a living deity. Their entire calendar came to be developed in order to chart the movements of this Plumed Serpent. If it indeed was this wave, which they perceived as and symbolized as the Plumed Serpent, that was behind the rise and fall of civilizations then it, of course, became of utmost importance to chart the ups and downs of this wave movement by means of the use of a calendar. If the predictions would fail (and this was indeed the case when the Aztecs became aware that the Spanish had arrived) then the consequences would be disastrous. The problem of the Aztecs was then that the true Mayan calendar called the Long Count which accurately described the ups and downs of civilization (Fig 2) was not used by them.

Fig 2. The Seven days and six nights of the Mayan Long Count (Sixth Wave of Creation)
from 3115 BCE up until 2011 CE.
(Diagram by Carl Calleman)

As we can see from Fig 2, the wave movement of the so-called Long Count (the sixth of the nine creation waves) leading up to our own time, in principle displays the same pattern as the seven triangles of light and six triangles of darkness of the Plumed Serpent of Chichen-Itza that we can see in Fig 1; Much like a Serpent history which moves like a wave with its ups and downs that makes the pendulum often swing with them. What may be even more remarkable is the fact that the wave movement in Fig 2, which covers seven peaks – each of a duration of a so-called baktun of 3943 years – remarkably well reflects the rise and fall of major empires and civilizations in other parts of the world.
While modern people (who are generally unaware of this wave movement) wonder why ancient civilizations have mostly disappeared, this no longer is an enigma if we recognize that upon peaks follow valleys that often, but not always, tend to bring the already existing civilizations down.


Cycles of Creation and Destruction

The Plumed Serpent, i.e. the wave movement of creation generating the alternating rise and fall of civilizations, is thus not a myth in the sense of being something false. The rise and fall of civilizations that this movement describes reflecting a very profound truth of our existence and the power that drives its evolution.
The ancient peoples worshiping serpents knew that history went up and down and sometimes tried to chart this movement in mythological terms or harbor the spiritual powers these were believed to embody. There were, in other words, reasons for the Aztecs who saw themselves as living in a dark age (a valley) to fear the shift into a peak. Likewise, they would be aware that the Plumed Serpent would sometimes molt its skin and disappear as it set an end to civilization. However, most people today have misunderstood not only the message of the Plumed Serpent but also its underlying truth. We may call the Plumed Serpent a myth, but in reality, it is a truth and I believe it is a truth whose time has come and may play a critical role for those that seek a path out of our civilizational crisis.



By Carl Johann Calleman, PhD


Source:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-americas/myth-plumed-serpent-revealing-real-message-behind-feathered-snake-009200

Astral Glamour - a serious problem

In many years on the path of Nagualism, I have observed something interesting: a tendency to indulge in the sweet-sugar-new-age bull shit attraction of self-created illusory phenomena.

What am I talking about?

I am talking about the lack of clear and sincere insight into Reality; about attachments to the false and flashy ideas about things as some individuals would love them to appear instead of seeing them as they really are.

I am talking about indulgence in the glamour of lower astral (emotional and energy) realm (where lower elemental spirits, souls of dead people, "friendly" inorganic beings, dark death defiers, demons, etc... reside) and illusions created within the minds of those who lack the ability to face the Reality as it Really is.

In practice, these tendencies manifest as self-delusion about the importance of certain inorganic beings or assumptions about contacts with god-forms or other powerful spirits and deities in dreaming or meditation.

Craving for power, immortality and instant magical movements of the focus of perception is what might obstruct a lot of dreamers, I observe.

Emotional perception or focusing primarily on sensations and/or mental understanding is seriously limited and flawed - it yields no spiritual attainment.

One can not feel or astrally/emotionally sense truly spiritual Beings (the Kukulkan, for example) and the same goes for mental masturbation (tons of info, understanding, asking and receiving answers, analyzing, remembering, etc.). Not even in million years can a mental level bring spiritual attainments.

The astral sense is limited and inherently flawed. And a dreamer has to work really hard to overcome that astral trap or s/he might end up as a permanent resident of some low astral realm (like Castaneda did).

Glamour, in its turn, veils and hides the truth behind the fogs and mists of feeling and emotional reaction; it is of unique and terrible potency, owing to the strength of human nature to
identify itself with the astral nature and to the vital nature of conscious and sentient response itself. As you know and have been taught, glamour can only be dissipated by the inflow of
clear, directed light; this is true of the life of the individual or of humanity as a whole.
-  Glamour - A World Problem, p. 185

That is rather well said, in my opinion. And the "clear, direct light" mentioned above cannot, it never has and it never will come from the astral beings, whether the friendly ones or the dark ones.


"Mental illusion when intensified by desire, occurring on the astral plane. (Emotional attachment to forms - distracts attention away from reality.) Glamour has been likened to a mist or fog in which the aspirant wanders and which distorts all that he sees and contacts, preventing him from ever seeing life truly or clearly or the conditions surrounding him as they essentially are... 
He is deceived by the appearance and forgets that which the appearance veils. The emanatory astral reactions which each human being initiates ever surround him and through this fog and mist he looks out upon a distorted world."

One more notion from Alice A. Bailey:

Illusion: Mental fixation upon an idea - exclusive of the whole thus not seen in its reality - leads to misinterpretation of the phenomenal world. 
An illusion is the power of some mental thought-forms, of some ideal, and some concept - sensed, grasped and interpreted in mental form - to dominate the mental processes of the individual or of the race and consequently to produce the limitation of the individual or group expression.


A good book that deals with the astral glamour problem has been written years ago and is still quite relevant (quotes above are from that book):

Glamour - A World Problem, a book by Alice A. Bailey and her Master, can be purchased here >>

1st task of dreaming

Feathered Serpent 

The first task a potential dreamer is up against at this stage is simply becoming aware of dreams. The aim is to bring awareness and control into ordinary dreams.

Control in this context and at this level means exerting total control over the dreams, say, freezing the whole situation in dreams.

The second task, as per our Maya Lineage, is to will to move around in dreams. Such aware and controlled dreams become dreaming, in time.

When aware and in control of dreams, it is easy to move around, simply by willing it. Moving around in dreams at this stage means, for instance, being willing to fly high up and dive back down, moving through the walls, buildings, doors, and changing the location in dreams simply by willing it, etc...

These skills are really very important and are rather readily upgraded at the later tasks.

As with all more advanced phases, the main task is to learn to shift or move the focus of awareness and to fix the new position, thus perceiving in a coherent and sustained way.


Next >>

Levels of Dreaming, the Mayan Way

Intro

The art of dreaming in this context translates to the ability to not only bring awareness into ordinary dreams (which results in 'lucid dreaming') but also to perceive real and total worlds or other levels of existence vastly different from our own...

... AND to integrate such expanded perception into the overall state of consciousness in life and death with the final goal of complete freedom, not only for ourselves but for others as well.

There are three levels or stages of dreaming, according to Maya Seers of our Lineage (that is, according to the teachings I received. There are other teachings, for sure.)

Some phases of developing the ability to shift and move the assemblage point (AP) (what dreaming actually amounts to) in our Maya Lineage differ somewhat from other non-Mayan Lineages.

The main reason for that can be found in the fact that right from the inception of development of the skill of dreaming (or perceiving other levels of existence), Maya Lineage primarily integrates energy and awareness of the Maya 'God-forms' and gives very little attention to the low-level astral inorganic beings

Thus, a Maya dreamer is beyond the reach of various astral level inorganic beings and sorcerers that depend on their energy (i.e. black death defiers and other darker inorganic beings/demons, etc...).

The Maya Path to Freedom is ancient and completely developed. It is a wast, self-sufficient and rounded system employed by the Maya people and those connected to their incredibly rich and enigmatic culture.

Maya tradition takes care of their own, in life and in the afterlife. There are multiple levels of total worlds that are populated by Maya; on these worlds, one can live in (if not incarnated on, say, Earth) and study and learn (if still incarnated) at the same time.

The main focus of Maya culture have been and still are their 'God-forms' (thus integrating Underworld and Heavens, Life and Death, Light and Darkness, etc...) not through some religious or naïve superstitious devotion, or by bowing down to some totalitarian doctrine, but by systematically employed unbending thirst for deeper self-awareness (Maya do not limit themselves to only building up energy).



Kukulkan, the Origin

Maya 'God-forms' are very real, they are eternal waves of transpersonal consciousness or abstract force. Awareness and energy a dreamer can receive from each 'God-form' are incomprehensibly deeper, richer, and faster than that from any low or high astral level entity.

In our Lineage, the main 'God-form' is the Kukulkan.

Kukulkan 'God-form' in Maya culture is not even anthropomorphic (as most god-forms in other traditions are), for it represents impersonal and transpersonal force or wave of universal consciousness that integrates the most abstract (feathered...) and ultra-personal or material (...serpent) aspects of our overall existence.

Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent, the main 'God-form' in our Lineage

This one fact, meaning, integrating the presence of 'God-forms' into dreamer's organically or materially conditioned awareness, has far-reaching implications and places Maya Lineage quite apart from many other Lineages.

Moreover, in the Mayan Lineage discussed here, organic energy is of great importance.

The main 'God-form' or the impersonal wave of the force of our Lineage, Kukulkan, is embodiment and integration of the highest eternal consciousness/energy AND the relative organic awareness/energy or Underground, symbolically represented by its form: Feathered Serpent.


Arena for dreaming

The central temple in our Lineage and the focal point for all Mayan families in this Lineage is at Chichen Itza, the Kukulkan Temple, pregnant with rich symbolism and power that support dreamers on their quest for complete freedom.

Kukulkan Temple, at Chichen Itza

The nine levels of the central Chichen Itza pyramid represent the nine dreaming tasks and stages (among many, many other things), leaving the tenth and last one at the ground level.
That level represents natural ground reality far beyond the duality of light and dark, abstract and personal, male and female, eternal and impermanent, etc...


Systematic development

Each stage or level of development of dreaming is very important and verily represents the separate field of study and growth. It may take quite some time to master all of them.

There are three main levels (Maya dreamers can enter through The Kukukan Temple) that offer a safe environment for learning. No manipulative low astral level inorganic beings there!

Levels of dreaming through the prism of Maya Seers, as presented to me, are listed below. I outline only the most pertinent details for each level, for it is way too subjective a learning curve to discuss all relevant details.

As far as any Maya Lineage is concerned, in my experience, no one can just barge in into one of the Maya total worlds on his/her own.

Maya really and truly are free, self-sufficient, and way beyond the drama low astral beings (black death defiers, 'friendly' and/or the dark inorganic beings/demons, Flyers, etc...) are playing, meaning, they do not need their energy or support or anything else from them. Consequently, a dreamer employing only low astral inorganic energy and support cannot possibly enter Maya total worlds on his/her own.

If one wants to follow the Maya path to freedom, well, assistance from a Mayan Seer is a must. Furthermore, only through a Maya Nagual can their enigmatic skills be empirically comprehended and pragmatically validated, in my opinion, and experiences.

So, with a wish for those of you inspired to meet such a Maya Nagual's guidance, below are blog posts on the subject of the levels of dreaming as per Maya Seers of our Lineage.

The tasks in our Lineage are of course important but in no way determined in advance. Dreamers are at different stages of overall awareness when they begin to learn dreaming and not everybody needs to go through all of the tasks. Besides, if you are connected to Maya Seers, the chances are that you have already completed most of these tasks in the past...
...and Maya will help you remember!

There are three Levels of dreaming development and these include much, much more than only dreaming (for example invocation or working with Maya "god-forms", facing and integrating the so-called Underworld, rituals with life energy/blood, etc...). 

The goal of these practices is the elevation of awareness while still in the physical body and also preparing to retain intact awareness after death. Thus, the Maya tradition takes into consideration life here and now and also the afterlife, equally.

Here we go:

The first level (an introduction to dreaming):

• 1st task >>
• 2nd task >>

The second level (the goal of this level is the total integration of organic energy, the Underworld, and spiritual awareness, the Heavens):

• 3rd task >>
• 4th task >>
• 5th task >>
• 6th task >>
• 7th task >>

The third level of dreaming (8th, 9th and Freedom) >>

Limitation of astral inorganic beings

"We want you!"
The motto of the "friendly" inorganic beings

"Dreamers, whether they like it or not, in their dreaming seek associations with other beings. This may come to you as a shock, but dreamers automatically seek groups of beings, nexuses of inorganic beings in this case.

The thing you must bear in mind from now on is that inorganic beings with their superb consciousness exert a tremendous pull over dreamers and can easily transport them into worlds beyond description."
- Carlos Casteneda: The Art Of Dreaming

There are several issues with the above statements, in my experience.

Inorganic beings, the "friendly" ones, play a major role in the Castaneda's lineage, obviously. While those low-level astral entities do have the ability to shift or even move the assemblage point (AP) of a dreamer, I cannot really assert they have superb consciousness. Why do you think their realm is so slow and why are they always after the awareness and energy of others? Well, because their astral consciousness is limited and elementary. Nothing superbly deep there.

They are master manipulators, yes, but that's about it. When a dreamer is awake and self-aware enough, their hypnotic influence is futile. They really can't do anything if one is self-aware enough.

In dreaming that deeper self-awareness is manifested as an ability to move around on our own and especially to shift and/or move the assemblage point at will. When a dreamer is able to perform these basic maneuvers, the inorganic beings Castaneda fell prey to (recall the "blue scout" incident?), are out of the picture.

Furthermore, human beings in general and dreamers in particular, well, we do have free will! So, in my experience, there is no predetermined fate for dreamers. I certainly don't actively seek association with other beings, the astral entities being quite off my list. Astral level beings have quite limited awareness, they are self-centered and are depending heavily on the energy from others. Who in his right mind would want their company?

As wise and powerful as Don Juan was, his lineage depended (and still does?) heavily upon these low astral level beings. It is quite understandable that in his lineage those astral beings are described as having superb consciousness. That's their perspective which has been presented to them by previous generations of dreamers. Besides, we do not really know what exactly Don Juan taught, what we know is what Castaneda wrote. And his perspective was quite fogged by the astral energy and indulgence.
From a wider perspective, however, these inorganic beings are only low astral entities and their realm is the closest to ours, meaning, there are not so advanced beings.

Moreover, Don Juan's lineage was (is?) under the strong influence of the so-called dark death defiers, another kind of astral level beings. Those beings are not friendly at all, and all they want is the energy from others. Why? Because they are still limited by their astral level awareness, meaning, full of glamour, self-serving mentality, manipulative emotional attitude towards other beings, the self-centered perception of the reality, etc...

There are, on the other hand, quite advanced beings out there, beings that seek energy from no one and manipulate no one.

One has to raise his awareness beyond the astral dimensions to encounter them and to learn from them, however.

And here enters the Maya Path to Freedom which is not based upon the energy of "friendly" inorganic beings, but on the faster, the deeper and non-manipulative presence of Maya "god-forms"...
...and thus on the ever-increasing self-awareness.

Jaguar, one of the main Maya Totem Animals