Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/83

 In ancient Toltec thought the Sun was the creator of everything, but at the same time, needed the spiritual energy that men produced through their being consciousness. The Calmécatl trained those human beings, men and women, that would follow the Toltequity doctrine and after being initiated, became Jaguars and Eagles warriors; that is, warriors that undertook the most important war a man can take: the Flower Battle, culminating point to flourishing their heart.

The Aztecs took the form of this ancient knowledge, but changed the foundation. Quetzalcoatl was no longer the most important figure but Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs assumed themselves as the holders of the dying Fifth Sun and injected vitality into this new process in which matters obtained supremacy over the spirit. Thus, only sons of noblemen entered the Calmécatl, and learnt the art of war; therefore ceased to have a symbolic, spiritual and mystical sense. The empire also made wars called Florida, but their main objective was political, economic and military domination of the vanquished peoples. In these wars they tried to capture their enemies alive to be taken to Tenochtitlan and sacrifice them to the Sun, taking the heart out and offering it as food to the Eagle.

The Aztecs human sacrifices were, in principle, aimed to feed the Sun-Eagle. The monoliths known today and which were used for this purpose, have many the solar Eagle representations. The container where the sacrificed heart was placed was called "the Eagle recipient".

Here it is important to note a major historical error: there is nothing in common between the Aztecs human sacrifice by their florid wars and the Toltec florid wars and the Toltecáyotl or Toltequity, where sacrifice was the being purification to reach enlightenment or total consciousness.

It is possible that who has worked this process in the history of ancient Mexico with the utmost sensitivity has been professor Laurette Séjourné in her most beautiful work "Thought and Religion in Ancient Mexico".

According to Don Juan, what constitutes "the world" are the "Eagle" emanations; ancient seers, through plants of power and hundreds of years experimenting and failing were able to "see" the force, origin of all. This force was called "the Eagle" because when briefly glimpsing at it, they found it similar to a white and black eagle of infinite size. But it is not an eagle nor resembles it; it is just a way of humanizing or conceptualizing something that is impossible to describe.

Ancient seers also discovered that, due to our being consciousness, we believe to be surrounded by a world of objects, but that in fact are the eagle emanations, fluid, in motion, unchangeable, eternal. The Eagle provides being consciousness for us to develop and enhance throughout our life, but at the end, our being awareness is devoured or absorbed by the Eagle (the force, the infinity, the total). For ancient viewers human being existence reason, among other living beings is to develop and enhance being consciousness, and this energy produced by being consciousness, is required by the Eagle. ____________________