Mindshifters and Mayan Calendar Lecture

Last night the Mindshifters group watched the first part of a lecture by Ian Lungold, explaining the nature of the Mayan Calendars, (www.mayanmajix.com).  The biggest thing I took from the first part of the lecture is the validation from a wide variety of cultures that as human beings we are more than just our physical bodies.  The talk begins by explaining how the calendar is the exact dead center of any culture.  This is because the calendar is the culture's agreement about what day and time it is, and how and  when business, rest, and recreation should be conducted.  Ian discusses how our current culture is built around a calendar which was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory and is therefore called the Gregorian Calendar.  He explains that this particular calendar tracks the physical movement of our planet around our sun, and nothing else.  Therefore the use of this calendar forces our entire culture to focus on nothing other than the physical aspect of our existence.  Ian points out that many previous cultures had multiple calendars and most of them had calendars with 360 day cycles.  When 'modern' scientists discovered these calendars they assumed that the culture was primitive and that the calendar was inaccurate and only a rough approximation of the time it takes our earth to travel around the sun, (365.25 days).  

The reality is that most of those cultures knew about the time it took our planet to travel around the sun, and some of them had separate calendars for that purpose, but many of them also had 360 day calendars.  It is just that those cultures had determined that there were other realities which were just as important, or even more important than the physical aspect of their existence.  Ian raises the question about what those other calendars were measuring and tracking for those cultures.  He proposes that those other calendars were tracking different cycles of energy and motion, other than the purely physical and very specific movement of our planet around our sun.  He points out that every planet spins, or turns 360 degrees, and that every circle has 360 degrees, and that since so many cultures had calendars with 360 day cycles, it is worth investigating what those calendars had in common and what they may have been tracking.

Ian also points out that once the Gregorian calendar was adopted by the Catholics, the Spanish and the Catholics went out to "save" and convert different cultures which they conquered.  They had to kill many people in those cultures before they were able to force the culture to give up their existing calendars and adopt the Gregorian calendar.  He points out that much of the spiritual and energetic knowledge from each of those cultures was lost as they were forced to accept a calendar that focused exclusively on the physical motion of our earth around our sun.   Ian goes on to discuss two of the three calendars which were used by the Mayan culture for more than five thousand years before they were "discovered" by "modern" scientists in the jungles of South America. 

Two of the Mayan calendars were related to larger, spiritual, energetic forces, other than the physical energy of our bodies and our planet.  The Mayans believed that souls chose what day they were going to be born, and therefore the first name of every Mayan was the name of the day they were born.  This served as a constant reminder to the person about what they wanted to accomplish in their life.  This means that within the Mayan culture there were constant reminders of the energetic and spiritual aspects of existence.   This got me to thinking about how different life would be if there were as many daily reminders on television, radio and in the movies about compassion, gratitude, service to others, energetic connection to all things, and Love, as there are daily reminders about material wealth, accumulation, competition, 'physical beauty', greed, one-up-manship, and sex.  As I let myself think about this possibility I got very emotional and felt chills running through my body.  I realized that I have no idea what a world like this would look like.  I can only say that it would be radically different from the world I was raised in and the world I am living in today.

I have often heard the quote from Gandhi which says, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world".  And it seems like an overwhelming task when I realize how much the culture invests in sending out messages about the physical world and the material possessions and the instant gratification from external sources.  I started to long for a culture which would honor all things equally, both the energetic/spiritual and the material aspects of our world.  Then I realized that it was up to me to work on my own focus and continuously strive to achieve that balance within my own consciousness, and the focus of my conscious thought and intention.

I felt a bit overwhelmed at first.  Then I thought about the people who attend the Mindshifters group and people like Dr. Michael Ryce, Bruce Lipton, Gregg Braden, and countless others who are working, writing, blogging, lecturing and working on themselves to help change the focus of those who are willing.  I am grateful to be living in the age when the Internet and media, which is spewing so much of the message of materialism, greed, and instant physical gratification, is also available to spread the message of balance, energetic and spiritual awareness, and Love.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.