The 2012 Story

Rooted in a spiritual center, civilization can flower. Rooted in the shortsighted agenda of ego, it is doomed to collapse.

Second, can we recognize that sacrificing the monopoly of egoism is essential for facilitating world renewal? Well, there is only one being on the planet who would disagree: Seven Macaw. In explicating the profound teachings of the Perennial Philosophy I’ve tried to make the case on rational grounds. Intellectuals will have to do some soul- searching to determine if they agree or disagree, and carefully discern what is motivating their decision. I suspect that those who believe self-serving egoism should continue to run the world, as some kind of benevolent automatically self-regulating over-being within global capitalism and politics, are probably hearing the demented whisperings of Seven Macaw. And they are probably motivated by the fear of annihilation, because they confuse ego with Self, and consequently ego’s loss of power is seen as a mortal threat. Ego fears losing; the Self does not.

Third, how do we do it? How do we embrace the big picture? How do we put ego back into correct relationship with the unitary Self, and how do we actively midwife the renewed world that unfolds from that fundamental shift? How is One Hunahpu reborn? This is the second part of the Maya prophecy for era-2012, and is the focus of this chapter.

TURNING IT ALL INSIDE OUT

Our playbook should be The Popol Vuh, which elaborates in archetypal terms the process of transforming Seven Macaw into One Hunahpu, utilizing the necessary key, which is: sacrifice. Yes, a big scary word with lots of blood and violence oozing out. But all the world’s religions and metaphysical systems of spiritual transformation agree: Sacrifice is the key. Preferably self-sacrifice, for the simple reason that if we don’t do it, the universe will do it for us. The former method can be quite exquisite and fulfilling while the latter alternative is not so pretty. Luckily, the thing that needs to be sacrificed is the thing that runs the show at the end of the cycle: illusion. The macabre interpretation of sacrifice is unnecessarily literal. So far, so good. Unfortunately, illusion is deeply entangled with ego, and unraveling the ego-illusion mess can seem as difficult as untangling a fifty-pound knotted ball of yarn.

A long laundry list of methods and techniques for freeing the ego-identity from the tangled knot of illusion is well known, including yoga and meditation, sacred plants and shamanic healing work, and devotional prayer or chanting. I personally believe that developing a meditation practice is a very good thing to do—and best of all, it’s free! Vipassana meditation (breathing meditation), in particular, can have beautiful and profound effects on one’s life. We want to bring a presence of mind to our actions and awaken a deeper field in which the results of our actions can be directly perceived and felt. We shouldn’t expect to sustain this mode of consciousness constantly, but an initiatory glimpse of the deep interrelationship between our thoughts and actions and the larger field of other beings and nature can radically change how we behave in normal consciousness.

For example, if one experiences (by whatever means) a spiritual opening in which one feels, for a second or a minute, a deep compassion for all created beings and a deep knowing that all life is interdependent and connected, your lifestyle and behavorial choices are going to reform around this conviction. I’m trying to ease into this slowly, so I used the word “conviction,” but really the experience is more of a revelation of truth than a decisive commitment to a particular belief. The experience imprints the soul with a deep knowing, a true vision of the way reality operates. This doesn’t mean peace and harmony and the lion lying down with the lamb. As Joseph Campbell said, “No, the lion is going to eat the lamb, but that is the way of nature.”¹ This is being in the Tao, the flow, allowing the thing-in-itself, including the thing that you are, to be. Talk to your friends, coworkers, and family members. You might be surprised to discover, after a little gentle prodding, how many people will say they have had an experience something like this at some point in their lives.

HEALING MODES OF BEING WHOLE

There are many ways to awaken a sense of wholeness, of being and acting in congruence with the unfolding of life. This effort is predicated on the understanding that the tower of ego is an unsatisfactory place to be, that it has gone rogue, turned pathological, dislocating human beings from their humanness. There are many ways to catch a glimpse of essential wholeness, the unity consciousness of One Hunahpu restored, and different temperaments will benefit from different approaches. I’ll discuss three methods representing three broad categories: sacred plants (initiation/transforming), meditation (knowing/being), and service work (action/doing). Ideally, all human beings should have some direct experience with all of these areas.

In the first example (sacred plants), the concept of initiation is centrally important. Sacred plants and shamanic techniques of transforming the consciousness are not the only methods that can result in an initiatory experience; others include any safe initiatory process that supplies the seeker with a death-rebirth journey in which the egoic reference point is temporarily suspended. I’ve chosen sacred plants (psychoactive tools of shamanism such as peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, ergot) for two reasons: (1) they have a prominent role in the 2012 discussion, both popular and academic; and (2) they informed the beginnings of Western philosophy.

Shamanic rites of initiation are intended to induce a transformative death-rebirth experience for the initiate. Purification of irrelevant dross, negative thoughts and emotional patterns, and unhealthy intentions is the goal of these rites. In addition to the all-encompassing rite of passage induced by the use of sacred plants, which Stanislav Grof likens to a death-rebirth experience, these traditional ceremonies usually also involve fire transformation. From Siberia to Amazonia, shamanic fire ceremonies follow the same patterns and share the same intentions.

The [shaman’s] mastery of fire also often includes control over symbolic actions, especially initiation rites that “cook” candidates or subject them to the heat of incubation. The shamanic master of fire is responsible for transformative processes burning at the core of spiritual life: the symbolism at the center of the hearth or social units, community groups, all civilized life, and the cosmos itself… the shamanic experience of consumption correlates directly with ecstasy. Consumption by fire signifies the death inflicted by supernatural powers during ecstatic trance. Ecstatic death consumes the spiritually awakened or inflamed human being, who is transported to an illumined state of consciousness.²

Subjecting initiates to “the heat of incubation” pertains to the spiritual heat that transforms; the imagery here is reminiscent of that used in alchemical transformations. Fire is, after all, the great transformer. These shamanic rites survive primarily in indigenous societies that draw time-tested methods for transformation from the storehouse of what works. Curiously, their practices directly parallel initiatory trials in Western mystery schools and Roman Mithraism. A long lineage of more ancient wisdom schools goes far back to Egypt (for example, the Hem-Shu school), not to mention shamanic schools in ancient China. These effective transformational rites survived as an underground stream of esoteric knowledge, passed down as ancient lore to initiates who would visit their shrines and oracles. The oracle at Delphi, for example, was one of many conduits of initiatory wisdom that were visited frequently by Plato, Socrates, and other Greek thinkers. Historically, Egyptian mystery schools influenced Greek thought as a result of pre-Socratic philosophers having interactions with Egypt and the Middle East. These visits by Greek thinkers to the founts of ancient Egyptian wisdom triggered the Greco- Hellenic renaissance. The mysterious figures of Parmenides and Pythagoras occupy an early place in the formulation of Greek philosophy, prior to Plato. Western philosophy and politics, it should be recalled, look to Greek philosophy as their prototype.

For the Greeks, oracles served much as shamans do for indigenous societies, as intermediaries between this earth realm and a supernatural higher source of knowledge and information. The oracle at Delphi was associated with a goddess and snake cult, evoking the Hindu doctrine of the kundalini “serpent energy” that rises and awakens spiritual seekers. The primary mystery religion in the Greek world was enacted annually at Eleusis for more than a thousand years. It finally succumbed to the destructive intolerance of Christianity around 300 AD. The practices of this fascinating initiatory school were shrouded in mystery and its participants were forbidden to reveal