Quest Magazine

By Richard Smoley

Originally printed in the Winter 2010 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard. "Against Blavatsky: Rene Guenon's Critique of Theosophy." Quest  98. 1 (Winter 2010): 28-34.

Over the past two decades, academic scholars have begun to investigate the long-neglected field of esoteric spirituality. They have singled out five figures as the chief guiding lights of Western esotericism in the twentieth century: H.P. Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, C.G. Jung, G.I. Gurdjieff, and Rene Guenon. Of these, Guenon is by far the least-known. Reclusive and contemptuous of the modern world, he did little to make himself famous. Nevertheless, even before his death in 1951, he had become a cult figure, and over the last half-century his influence has only increased—particularly among those who regard contemporary civilization as a spiritual blight.

Guenon's thought resembles Theosophy in certain important ways. They share a common emphasis on a central esoteric teaching that underlies all religions, and they even agree about many aspects of this teaching. Nonetheless, Guenon was extremely vitriolic about Theosophy and denounced it at great length in his 1921 book Le theosophisme: Histoire d'une pseudo-religion. This work was not published in English until 2003, when it appeared under the title Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion. This translation is not entirely accurate. The original French title refers not to "theosophy" (theosophie) but "theosophism" (theosophisme), a word coined by Guenon to suggest that Blavatsky's Theosophy had nothing to do with genuine theosophy as practiced by the Western esoteric traditions but was a counterfeit, and a dangerous one at that.

Born in Blois, France, in 1886, Guenon had a conventional education in mathematics. In his youth he began to explore occult currents in Paris and was initiated into esoteric groups connected with Freemasonry, Taoism, Advaita Vedanta, and Sufism. Like Blavatsky, he held that there was a universal esoteric tradition that was the source of all religions, but he differed very much with her about what constituted a genuine continuation of this lineage. Theosophy, he insisted, was not. Why was he so contemptuous of it? The question becomes more perplexing when we learn that Guenon was first introduced to esotericism by Gerard Encausse (better known under his pseudonym Papus), who was a correspondent of HPB and cofounder of the Theosophical Society in France (Quinn, 111).

Ironically, one reason for Guenon's attitude may be that he and Blavatsky were in many ways not so far apart. In fact scholar Mark Sedgwick, whose book Against the Modern World is the best introduction to the impact of Guenon's thought, sees Theosophy as one of Guenon's chief influences (Sedgwick, 40—44). We have already seen that Blavatsky and Guenon agreed about the existence of a universal esoteric tradition. They both made liberal use of Sanskrit terms in expounding their ideas, and they agreed about the dangers of spiritualism, arguing that spiritualistic seances do not enable one to make contact with dead individuals but merely with their astral shells, which have been shucked off as the spirit ascends to higher planes. Guenon devoted an entire book, L'erreur spirite ("The Spiritist Error"), to this issue. In it he writes: "It is well known that what can be evoked [in a seance] does not at all represent the real, personal being, which is henceforth beyond reach because it has passed to another state of existence...but only the inferior elements that the individual has in a manner left behind in the terrestrial domain following the dissolution of the human composite which we call death" (Guenon, L'erreur spirite, 54—55).*

This bears more than a faint resemblance to Theosophical teaching. Guenon himself quotes Blavatsky as saying that spiritualist phenomena are frequently due to astral elementals or "shells" that have been left behind by the departed. Nonetheless, he insists that the Theosophists are wrong: "The Theosophists believe that a 'shell' is an 'astral cadaver,' that is, the remains of a decomposing body. And, apart from the fact that this body is thought not to have been abandoned by the spirit for a more or less long time after death, rather than being essentially tied to the 'physical body,' the very conception of 'invisible bodies' seems to us to be greatly in error" (Guenon, L'erreur spirite, 57). While Guenon admits that the distinction between his view and Blavatsky's is a subtle one, it is difficult to see any distinction at all except in terminology. But this is a common problem in most forms of thought, particularly esotericism: the smaller a difference is, the more vehemently one insists upon it. The history of religion offers countless examples.

Guenon also contends that HPB talked out of both sides of her mouth regarding spiritualism. And in fact she was deeply engaged in the spiritualist movement in the early 1870s. Speaking of her later claims that mediums are generally either fraudulent or seriously imbalanced, he writes: "It seems that she was faced with the following dilemma: either she was only a fake medium at the time of her 'miracles clubs' or else she was a sick person" (Guenon, Theosophy, 115—16). Blavatsky's supporters may reply that she always intended to sift the truth from the false in spiritualism—to acknowledge the reality of life after death and even to a degree of spiritualistic phenomena, while showing that these are of a low and sinister kind. One letter of hers, dated to 1872, says, "[The spiritualists'] spirits are no spirits but spooks—rags, the cast off second skins of their personalities that the dead shed in the astral light as serpents shed theirs on earth, leaving no connection between the reptile and his previous garment" (Blavatsky, Letters, 1:20). Another letter, however, written in 1875, contends, "Those that seek to overturn the truth of Spiritualism will find a furious Dragon in me and a merciless exposer whoever they are" (Blavatsky, Letters, 1:101).

What HPB really meant to accomplish by participating in the spiritualist movement is hard to fathom, especially since anyone wanting to collect contradictory statements in her writings, on this subject or on many others, could readily do so. Nevertheless, her attitudes toward spiritualism in the last fifteen years of her life are hard to distinguish from Guenon's.

It is quite another matter when it comes to two other Theosophical doctrines: karma and reincarnation. In both cases, Guenon insists that the Theosophical view is a pure fabrication and has nothing to do with genuine Eastern teaching: "The idea of reincarnation . . ., like that of evolution, is a very modern idea; it appears to have materialized around 1830 or 1848 in certain French socialist circles" (Guenon, Theosophy, 104). This may be true of the term "reincarnation" per se, but the teaching can be found in the West as far back as Pythagoras, and is discussed at length in Plato's Republic and Phaedo, not to mention its long heritage in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Guenon denies all this. Regarding the transmigration of human souls into animals, he says:

In reality, the ancients never conceived of such transmigration, any more than they did of a human into other humans, which is how one might define reincarnation. There are expressions, more or less symbolic, that could give rise to such misunderstandings, but only when one does not know what they are really saying, which is this: There are psychic elements in the human being which separate themselves after death, and which can pass into other living beings, human or animal, although this has no more importance than the fact that, after the dissolution of the same individual, the elements that made him up can be used to make up other bodies (Guenon, L'erreur spirite, 206—07).

Unfortunately, the ancient accounts of reincarnation say nothing of the kind. At the end of the Republic, Plato tells the myth of Er, a soldier who has a kind of near-death experience in which he learns the fates of individuals after death (Plato, Republic, 614b-621d). In one famous passage, Er sees the dead choosing their lots for new incarnations. Odysseus, the shrewdest of men, refuses lives of riches and honor and instead chooses that of an ordinary citizen. However "symbolic" this story might be, it is hard to see how it might accommodate itself to a theory like Guenon's. One could make the same point about a similar myth in the Phaedo and about the teachings of the Orphic and Pythagorean mysteries, to the extent that we know anything specific about them.

Guenon's own views about the fate of the spirit after death are complex. Defining transmigration in what he considers the true sense, he contends, "It is not a matter of a return to the same state of existence....but on the contrary, the passage of the being to other states of existence, which are defined...by completely different conditions from those to which the human being is subject....Whoever speaks of transmigration is essentially speaking about a change of state. This is what all the traditional doctrines of the East teach, and we have many reasons to believe that this was also the teaching of the 'mysteries' of antiquity; it is the same thing even in heterodox doctrines such as Buddhism" (Guenon, L'erreur spirite, 211).**

Guenon conceives of existence as a kind of three-dimensional grid, with a vertical axis transecting an infinite number of horizontal planes. The vertical axis represents the Self, the true essence of a given being; each of the innumerable horizontal planes constitutes a separate plane of manifestation. Human life on earth is only one of these planes. A given being can manifest itself only once on any particular plane. Therefore you cannot be born more than once as a human.

Like much of Guenon's thought, this is rigorously precise and would seem to be irrefutable except for one thing. Guenon assumes that any given plane—such as earthly, human life—is static. But in fact there is nothing to prove that this is so. On the contrary, the earth and earthly life are themselves changing form ceaselessly, whether we look at them from the perspective of geological ages or even of human history. The possibilities for human life on earth today are not the same as they were in ad 1000 or will be in ad 3000. You can never be born onto the same earth twice, any more than you can be born as the same person twice.

Moreover, there is little evidence for Guenon's claim that his view is the true teaching of Hinduism and Buddhism. Teachers of these lineages frequently speak of reincarnation in ways that are far more similar to the Theosophical view than to his. The Dalai Lama writes: "There have been and are found at the present time, many incidents illustrating rebirth, from many countries in the world. From time to time small children talk about their work in a previous life and can name the family in which they lived. Sometimes it is possible to check such cases and so prove that the facts remembered by the child are not at all nonsense but are indeed true" (Dalai Lama, 28—29). This does not jibe with Guenon's claims that incarnation as a human takes place only once, yet the Dalai Lama's status as the exponent of a "traditional" doctrine is far higher than Guenon's own.

For a Hindu perspective, we might turn to Paramhansa Yogananda's classic Autobiography of a Yogi. Yogananda quotes his guru, Sri Yukteswar, as saying, "Beings with unredeemed earthly karma are not permitted after astral death to go the high causal sphere of cosmic ideas, but must shuttle to and fro from the physical and astral worlds only" (Yogananda, 428). The process of shuttling to and fro from the physical world would suggest that physical incarnation is not a once-only option. And again, the credentials of both Yogananda and Sri Yukteswar as transmitters of traditional teaching are far higher than Guenon's.

Guenon's denunciation of Theosophy includes its teachings on karma, "by which [say the Theosophists] the conditions of each existence are determined by actions committed during previous existences." He counters: "The word 'karma' quite simply means 'action' and nothing else. It has never had the sense of causality, and even less has it ever designated that special causation whose nature we have just indicated" (Guenon, Theosophy, 107-08). While it is true that karma can simply mean "action," as Guenon says, it is used in more senses than that.

Again, practically every discussion of these matters by a Hindu or Buddhist teacher agrees not with Guenon, but with Theosophy. Pandit Rajmani Tigunait of the Himalayan Institute writes, "Each school of Hindu philosophy accepts the immutable law of karma, which states that for every effect there is a cause, and for every action there is a reaction. A man performs his actions and receives remunerations for them" (Tigunait, 24). As we have seen above, Sri Yukteswar also uses the word in this sense.

Other charges of Guenon's are equally erroneous. In one footnote he remarks, "The Theosophists reproduce...a confusion of the 'uninitiated' orientalists: Lamaism has never been a part of Buddhism" (Guenon, Theosophy, 130). But here it is Guenon who is reproducing a confusion of the "orientalists"—the nineteenth-century European scholars who were the first to treat Eastern religion in an academic fashion. The term "Lamaism" does not exist, or have any equivalent, in Tibetan; in fact it is merely a name for Tibetan Buddhism that was invented by the orientalists. As far back as 1835, the scholar Isaac Jacob Schmidt declared, "It hardly seems necessary to remark that Lamaism is a purely European invention and is not known in Asia." Even by Guenon's time the term had fallen into disrepute (Lopez, 15). Elsewhere, challenging the existence of HPB's Mahatmas, Guenon insists, "the very word 'Mahatma' never had the meaning she attributed to it, for in reality the word indicates a metaphysical principle and cannot be applied to human beings" (Guenon, Theosophy, 39). This contention is refuted by the practice of all of India, which uses the word to refer to the revered Mohandas Ghandi.

Having seen all this, we are led to ask what prompted Guenon's assault. One answer lies in this statement: "If so-called Theosophical doctrine is examined as a whole, it is at once apparent that the central point is the idea of 'evolution.' Now this idea is absolutely foreign to Easterners, and even in the West it is of quite recent date" (Guenon, Theosophy, 97). He adds that the Theosophists regard reincarnation "as the means by which evolution is effected, first for each particular human and consequently for all humanity and even for the entire universe" (Guenon, Theosophy, 104). Moreover, he writes, "We have...presented the doctrine of evolution as constituting the very core of the entire Theosophical doctrine" (Guenon, Theosophy, 293).

Here Guenon stands on firmer ground. The concept of an evolving humanity in an evolving universe is very difficult to find in traditional Eastern texts. Blavatsky seems to be aware of this when she writes, "The day may come...when the 'Natural Selection,' as taught by Darwin and Herbert Spencer, will form only a part, in its ultimate modification, of our Eastern doctrine of Evolution, which will be Manu and Kapila esoterically explained" (The Secret Doctrine, I, 600; emphasis Blavatsky's). As the Theosophist Anna F. Lemkow observes, "Blavatsky integrated the idea of evolution with the venerable idea of the hierarchy of being" (Lemkow, 128; emphasis Lemkow's).

Before Blavatsky's time, while the doctrines of karma and reincarnation were known to the East and at least to some in the West, these ideas did not entail evolution. (One tantalizing exception appears in Rumi's famous lines "I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?") That is, an individual monad was not thought to progress or evolve merely by virtue of going through endless incarnations; rather incarnation was viewed as a ceaseless whirligig that runs endlessly round and round and from which only moksha or liberation provides an exit. This is the gist of the Wheel of Life in Buddhist art, which shows the six lokas or realms—those of the gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and denizens of hell—as a cycle of bondage whose chains are the Three Poisons of desire, anger, and obliviousness. By merit an individual may mount to the abode of the gods, with their abundance of pleasures; but when his good karma is exhausted, he falls back down to the hell realms and starts all over again. Only enlightenment can break the cycle. The Wheel of Fortune card in the Tarot contains a similar teaching.

Theosophy, by contrast, often portrays evolution as more or less automatic. By passing through countless incarnations throughout all the races, round, and globes, eventually each monad will attain divinity. Esoteric development is meant chiefly to accelerate this process for those who want to move faster—ideally with the goal of service to others. This version of evolution differs from the conventional Darwinian view in that the latter has no direction or purpose; it is merely the blind and adventitious result of adaptation to natural circumstances.

This integration of evolution with the esoteric doctrine may be the most seminal idea that Theosophy has introduced to world culture. It has been echoed and amplified by any number of thinkers—Henri Bergson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Alfred North Whitehead, Sri Aurobindo—who have little or no connection with Theosophy per se. It has been picked up by the New Age movement and its present-day successors: The Reality Sandwich Web site, for example, has the tag line "Evolving consciousness, bite by bite."

Whether or not the Theosophical view of evolution is right, it seems harmless enough. Why should Guenon have hated it so intensely? For Guenon, tradition is the ne plus ultra of human life. He conceives of tradition as a spiritual hierarchy, with higher knowledge emanating from a now-hidden spiritual center to all of humankind through the "orthodox" traditions, among whom he includes (with many caveats and qualifications) the great world religions as well as certain other lines such as Freemasonry. In the present age, the Kali Yuga, the age of darkness, this transmission of traditional knowledge—the "doctrine," as he often styles it—has become almost completely blocked. Because this is the result of a long cosmic cycle, there is not a great deal one can do about it except wait for its end and in the meantime find refuge in one or another of the last holdouts of genuine tradition. Guenon took his own advice. In 1930 he moved to Cairo, where he converted to Islam and lived until his death in 1951.

For Guenon, the idea of evolution is pernicious because it denies the truth about the present era. We are not in an ascending arc toward greater consciousness; we are at the very nadir of a cycle, in what he called "the reign of quantity" (the title of his most famous book), and to pretend that we are evolving is more than deluded; it smacks of the handiwork of sinister—"counterinitiatic"—forces (see, e.g., Guenon, Theosophy, 272n.).

Still other charges of Guenon's against Theosophy are true, but most readers today would hesitate to take his side on the issues. He correctly contends, for example, that the Theosophical Society in India struggled against the caste system, adding, "Europeans generally display so much hostility to caste because they are incapable of understanding the profound principles on which it rests" (Guenon, Theosophy, 276). It is true that the Vedas, the Laws of Manu, and the Bhagavad Gita all validate the caste system on the grounds that each of the castes represent one of the bodily parts of the cosmic man. But there are probably not many today who would want to support such a system, no matter how many holy texts endorse it.

There are more elements to Guenon's critique of Theosophy than I can do justice to here, principally his denial of HPB's bona fides and of the existence of the Masters. Dealing with these issues—which have been explored from any number of angles—is beyond the scope of this article.

What can we make of all this? To begin with, Guenon deserves his place among the foremost esotericists of the twentieth century. His metaphysical writings—such as Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, The Multiple States of Being, The Symbolism of the Cross—are models of depth and lucidity in a field that is overgrown with profuse and meaningless verbiage. But in a curious way Guenon's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. His view of "traditional" metaphysics is of a Cartesian clarity and precision (although Guenon would have hated the analogy). And yet it is precisely this Cartesian precision that constitutes the chief problem with his thought. It cannot accommodate anything that does not fit into its elegantly geometrical grid, that partakes of the untidiness of ordinary reality; hence Guenon's relentless and indiscriminate hatred of the modern world. Everything of the Kali Yuga is reprehensible. There is nothing to do but hide in one of the last holdouts of "tradition" until a new age dawns.

It is not a hopeful vision; or rather its hope is based on the complete and utter ruin of the world that we see around us. Years ago one former Traditionalist (as Guenon's followers are often known) confessed to me that he had to drop it all because it was making him too depressed. Some Traditionalists have not been satisfied with Guenon's rather passive position and have sought to undermine what they see as the evil, materialistic milieu of the contemporary West. Thus in Europe Traditionalism has often fueled an impulse toward extreme rightist politics. One well-known Traditionalist, the Romanian scholar of comparative religions Mircea Eliade, supported the fascist Legion of the Archangel Michael (which he unsuccessfully tried to influence along Traditionalist lines) in pre—World War II Romania (Sedgwick, 113—15); another, the Italian nobleman Julius Evola, was not only connected with Mussolini's Fascist party (which he also tried to turn in a Traditionalist direction, equally unsuccessfully; he would later make the same attempt with Germany's Nazi party) but served as the doyen of far right elements in postwar Europe, some of them terrorists (Sedgwick, 98—109; 179—87). Still another form of Traditionalism penetrated to Russia during and after the Soviet era, where it mutated into an increasingly influential movement called Neo-Eurasianism, which holds that Russia should dominate the Eurasian land mass as a counterweight to American influence (Sedgwick, ch. 12).

Traditionalism has also fueled the anti-Western reaction in the Muslim world. While Traditionalism is an extremely obscure philosophy in the West, "in Iran and Turkey Traditionalism occupies a far more important position in public discourse than is the case elsewhere," as Mark Sedgwick observes on his blog. (A Web site moderated by Sedgwick, http://traditionalistblog.blogspot.com , is a good resource for delving into these issues.) In prerevolutionary Iran, the Traditionalist scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr was a protege of the Shah, under whose patronage Nasr established the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy as a Traditionalist bastion. Nasr's Traditionalism backfired in his native country: it helped inspire the Islamic revolution of 1979, forcing him to emigrate to the U.S., where today he is a professor of Islamic studies at the George Washington University.

In the English-speaking world, Traditionalism has been more benign and less politicized. Its most prominent advocate in the U.S. is Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions, who published a book in 1976 entitled Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions containing his exposition of Guenon's thought (including a chapter echoing Guenon's critique of evolution called "Hope, Yes; Progress, No.") In Britain, the most prominent adherent of this school is the Prince of Wales, who set up the Traditionalist-oriented Temenos Academy in 1990 as an umbrella for his cultural projects (Sedgwick, 214).

There has even been some recent interpenetration between Traditionalism and Theosophy: William Quinn's 1997 book The Only Tradition attempted to reconcile the two, while the Theosophical Society's imprint Quest Books has published The Transcendent Unity of Religions, an important work by Frithjof Schuon, Guenon's most influential disciple.

Guenon remains unknown to the larger culture (Bill Moyers's 1996 PBS documentary on Huston Smith made no reference to
Guenon's influence on Smith), and yet his presence has been remarkably pervasive in the modern world he so despised. Today we must, I think, approach Guenon with the same clarity and discrimination that we must apply to any esoteric teaching—including Theosophy. He is a figure of uncommon brilliance, but contrary to his own self-portrayal, he does not come across as a figure of Olympian remoteness and serenity. He had a grudge against the world around him—one that was no doubt as much personal and psychological as it was spiritual—and following him too far in this direction will most likely lead to confusion and distress.

References

Blavatsky, H.P. The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky: Vol. 1, 1861—79. John Algeo, ed. Wheaton: Quest, 2003.
———. The Secret Doctrine. Two volumes. Wheaton: Quest, 1993 [1888].
The Dalai Lama XIV. The Opening of the Wisdom-Eye. 2nd ed. Wheaton: Quest, 1991.
Guenon, Rene. L'erreur spirite. 2nd ed. Paris: Editions Traditionelles, 1952.
———. Symbolism of the Cross. Angus McNabb, trans. London: Luzac, 1958.
———. Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion. Alvin Moore Jr. et al., trans. Hillsdale, N.Y.: Sophia Perennis, 2003.
Lemkow, Anna F. The Wholeness Principle: Dynamics of Unity within Science, Religion, and Society. 2nd ed. Wheaton: Quest, 1995.
Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Quinn, William W., Jr. The Only Tradition. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
Sedgwick, Mark. Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Tigunait, Pandit Rajmani. Seven Systems of Hindu Philosophy. Honesdale, Pa.: Himalayan Institute, 1983.
Yoganananda, Paramhansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 6th ed. Los Angeles: Self Realization Fellowship, 1955.

Richard Smoley's latest book is The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates the Universe (New World Library).

*Quotations from this book are my own translations. An English version of this work entitled The Spiritist Fallacy was published in 2004.—R.S.

**Guenon's concept of orthodoxy is chiefly based on his understanding of the Hindu Vedanta (with many references to other traditions). Early in his career, he regarded Buddhism as "heterodox" (as it is from the Hindu perspective); although later in life he grudgingly granted it the status of a valid esoteric doctrine.

By Barbara J. Sadtler

Originally printed in the Winter 2010 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Sadtler, Barbara J. "The Coming of the Sixth Sun: Mayan Views of a New Cycle." Quest  98. 1 (Winter 2010): 14-17, 34.

As our world gets smaller and livability issues intensify, indigenous wisdom is making its way into the limelight, spearheaded by a growing awareness of the end date of the Mayan calendar in the year 2012. Ancient Mayan prophecies foretold a time when foreigners would be hungry to learn from the Maya. For more than a decade, Don Alejandro Cirilo Perez Oxlaj, also known as Wakatel Utiw or Wandering Wolf, an esteemed thirteenth-generation elder from Guatemala, has stepped into that teaching role, orally transmitting Mayan prophecies across the globe. He explains that his destiny is to be the messenger and ours is to trust him enough to listen. He talks about our planetary predicament and what we need to do to live more consciously. These teachings, the Maya say, are what we have unwittingly been waiting for.

Ironically, today average Mayans pay little attention to the year 2012. Much of their reality is shaped by abject poverty and requires them to focus on day-to-day survival. Their potentially bleak situation, however, is transformed into something magical by the eloquent languages that they use, the colorful customs the communities support, and the pervasiveness of the Mayan cosmic vision. It is Westerners who have brought their interpretation of 2012 to the Maya. Having spent time among the Maya and studying with Grandfather Cirilo Perez Oxlaj, his wife Elizabeth, and other indigenous shamans and elders, I suspect that if we Westerners venture too far out of context in interpreting their calendars, we may miss the point entirely. The true value of the Mayan calendars is found in synthesizing their wisdom into our hearts and living it moment to moment. What follows is my understanding of the Mayan perspective of time cycles and calendars, embellished with pertinent teachings from Grandfather Cirilo, all of which I hope will add discernment to the 2012 discussion.

The ancient Maya possessed an extraordinary aptitude for creating intricate and intermeshing time cycles. Time was a way of being to them, and they revered each day as a gift from the heavens. The Maya were arguably the most sophisticated timekeepers in human history, and to this day Mayans assign special "daykeepers" to track time in order to assure abundance, direction, and security.

Depending upon which scientific discipline is reporting, the Maya had from three to seventeen calendars. According to Grandfather Cirilo, the Maya kept twenty calendars for various purposes, but many were destroyed during the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Because the Mayans base all of their calendars on a vigesimal system (i.e., multiples of twenty) and frequently refer to the sacred significance of the numbers twenty and thirteen (they say there are twenty digits and thirteen joints in the human body), it would make most sense to say that the Maya used twenty different but interrelated calendars.

Archaeologists commonly refer to a calendar that was shared by all Mesoamerican cultures, the haab calendar, used primarily for bookkeeping and agrarian purposes. This is a solar year system of 360 days divided into an eighteen-month, twenty-day cycle. Because the solar year is longer than 360 days, five days have been inserted between the end of one 360-day cycle and the beginning of another. This period, called the wayeb, has been synchronized with the celebrations of the Catholic Holy Week. This time also marks the change from the dry season to the rainy season. Although the wayeb is considered unlucky or hellish by some Maya, it is also a period of renewal, celebration, chaos, rituals of sacrifice, and ornate, lengthy processions that stream through the streets of Guatemalan towns and villages. By end of the wayeb on resurrection Sunday, a typical Mayan is depleted from all the celebrations, with energy remaining only for reflection and gratitude that this intensity will not happen for another year.

The Maya also use a sacred daily calendar, commonly called the tzolkin calendar, to deepen their connection to the divine nature of the universe and assist them with the inherent challenges of life. The tzolkin is a 260-day divinatory calendar that is based on the cycles of the Pleiades, the "heart of the heavens," as described in their creation story, the Popol Vuh, and in generations of elders' storytelling. In the Popol Vuh the people pledge to honor each day because each day is a deity. This is why the tzolkin calendar has been in continual use over the millennia. It does not exist in a written form, but has been passed down through generations in the oral tradition.

A tzolkin consists of a cycle involving twenty day signs and thirteen numbers, each of which represents a sacred, archetypal energy. Each day is signified by a glyph that represents the lord (deity) of the day in the form of plant, animal, ancestor, or force of nature. Numbers are created using a place rotation system, which combines only three symbols: eggs, dots, and lines, to represent the numerical form of the most important gods and goddesses. These are the sacred "number beings" that influence the twenty "lords of the day." Together each glyph and number creates a frequency that harmonizes with the universe. Working together like two cogged gears, the twenty day signs intermesh with the thirteen numbers, presenting a new combination each day (see figure 1).
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Figure 1. A representation of the Mayan sacred tzolkin. Note the interlocking "gears" of the two calendars. Source: www.mayanmajix.com .

Since every individual is born on one of these days, the glyph and number combination of your day of birth becomes your "day sign" (also known as "sacred sun sign"). This is the energy you carry in your heart, reflecting your intention for being in this lifetime and your soul's purpose. It is your sacred watermark of creation.

The key to using the tzolkin is to know the Mayan deities. Our chief sources for this pantheon are codices written in the Mayan hieroglyphic script. Although many of these texts were destroyed by the Spaniards, a few survive today. All Mayan deities personify some aspect of the natural world, such as childbirth, prey and predator, climate changes, elements, seasons, and time segments. These deities may be called upon to "inhabit" the body and soul at times of pivotal life experience, including rites of passage, traveling, and giving advice. Even ordinary activities such as weaving at the loom or working in the fields are believed to have greater potential when blessings from the right deity are requested.

Today there are several English versions of the tzolkin that provide easy-to-use descriptions and methods for determining your day sign. Some of these combine the tzolkin with the Gregorian calendar, enabling Westerners to consult the tzolkinon a daily basis. A ritual of morning reflection on the significance of the day's energy and setting an intention for the day's events creates an enlivened sense of purpose not found in a Gregorian Day-Timer. Use of the tzolkin brings a sacred element to each day, enabling the individual to stay present and feel gratitude for the cosmic forces that guide daily life. Many Westerners report an uncanny sense of alignment with cosmic energies and have experienced increased synchronicities and greater centeredness by using this sacred tool.

Understanding and honoring the archetypal energy intrinsic to each day can be accomplished through study, shamanic guidance, and daily meditations. Because the Mayan pantheon is both extensive and overlapping, it is important to learn what the energies are and how to correlate them to events each day. With patience, patterns emerge. Alignment with forces that foster one's greatest good becomes more tangible with practice. A daykeeper's goal is to align every activity with nature's rhythm and manage whatever comes. With practice, connection with the energies may enable one to remain in a reverent attunement with the cosmic flow.

Daykeeping becomes even more fulfilling by knowing one's sacred Mayan cross, la cruz Maya. This comprehensive system is calculated from the tzolkin and provides five additional dimensions to the heart-based day sign. The top position of the cross is the day sign on the date of your conception. The left position is energy that influences your challenges; the right, your gifts; and the bottom position reflects the energy influencing your destiny. Additionally, a year bearer day sign, brought in from the haab calendar, is included. These five glyph names, along with the name of the day sign, may be repeated together as a personal mantra. The number of spirit guides in your auric field is determined by the sum of the galactic tones (numbers) in the cross configuration. La cruz Maya may provide worthy assistance to one on a path of self-realization.

The tzolkin calendar is the focus of Mayan spirituality. Each day is auspicious for connecting with the lord of that day and asking for particular types of assistance. In fire ceremonies, shamans call upon the deities of each of the twenty days, one by one. They will do this all day long, especially on "offering" days. This elegant oratory assists in the healing of the participants, their loved ones, and the village.

The most widely known Mayan calendar, however, is known as the Long Count, and it is the source of the 2012 date. Most of the pyramids and stelae found throughout Maya country contain dates inscribed according to this calendar. The Long Count consists of thirteen baktuns, each baktun equaling 144,000 days, a cycle of 5,126 years. In the twentieth century, British anthropologist Sir J. Eric S. Thompson, in conjunction with John T. Goodman and Juan H. Martinez-Hernandez, correlated the Mayan Long Count with the Gregorian calendar. Their work, widely accepted by Western researchers, dates the beginning of the Long Count to August 11, 3114 bc. There is less agreement among Western researchers about the end date. Many peg it to December 21, 2012, but Swedish microbiologist and author Carl Johan Calleman, author of The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness calculates that this cycle will end on October 28, 2011. Grandfather Cirilo and other indigenous elders do not necessarily agree with these specific dates, but do believe that we are currently in the end stages of a time cycle lasting approximately 5000 years.

Figure 2. Cobe Stele 1. The Mayan Long Count Calendar.

A key artifact of the Long Count calendar was discovered in Cobe, Mexico, in the 1940s. Stele 1 (figure 2) is carbon-dated to be approximately 1300 years old and has been deciphered to reveal dates trillions of years back in time. It is theorized that the Mayan Long Count calendar depicts the hierarchical nature of creation cycles, with each cycle being a multiple of 13 x 20?. This indicates that the Maya had names for time periods dating back 16.4 million years, as well as fourteen earlier unnamed cycles. Some experts believe that the named periods, appearing in the center of the stele, coincide with the evolutionary cycles described by Western science, meaning that the ancient Maya may have been aware of these cycles well before modern science.

Some contemporary research suggests that the Long Count was created by the Maya to time the evolution of consciousness. If this is true, the idea is not unique, as the Vedic yuga system has been linking time cycles with levels of collective consciousness for centuries. In the West, 2012-based theory is growing and encompasses a wide range of ideas relating to consciousness and science: philosopher Jean Gebser's complexification theory; Ken Wilber's integral theory of consciousness; microbiologist Carl Calleman's acceleration of time/creation; John Major Jenkins' precession of the equinoxes; physicist Nassim Haramein's unified field interpretations; and Gregg Braden's fractal time, to name a few.

For the Maya, the end date notation on the true Long Count calendar is 13.0.0.0.0. This dating method makes use of five different measures of time: the day (known as a kin); the twenty-day period (known as a uinal); a 360-day period (a tun); a 7200-day period, roughly equivalent to 19.7 years (a katun), and a period of 144,000 days, roughly equivalent to 394 years (a baktun.). The date 13.0.0.0.0 indicates thirteen baktuns, zero katuns, zero tuns, zero uinals, and zero kins since the beginning of the Long Count in 3114 bc. Grandfather Cirilo states that the next to last phase of this cycle, called the Vale of the Nine Hells, began about 500 years ago, with the arrival of the conquistador Hernando Cortés in Mexico in 1521 and lasted until 1987, which marked the beginning of the "Time of Warning." This was publicized worldwide as the Harmonic Convergence, introducing the Mayan end date of 2012 into Western consciousness. The Time of Warning will be upon us until the Mayan Long Count reaches 13.0.0.0.0. The next day the numbering will be reset to 0.0.0.0.0, and, it is believed, the shift of the ages will begin.

The indigenous peoples of the Americas say these shifts have happened before. Their traditions teach the existence of previous, prehistoric civilizations on our planet. As described in the Popol Vuh, the Quiché Mayan bible, the gods tried several times to create sentient beings with higher capacities. Previous peoples were made from other materials such as mud and wood, but because they did not possess or develop the capacity to worship the creator, those cycles perished. Contemporary humans, made from corn, are the most advanced version of the species to date because they know how to speak, pray, make offerings, and perform ceremonies for the gods. Each of these ages was ruled by a god of an element, such as wind, fire, or water, and was destroyed by its opposite: the world of fire, for example, was destroyed by water. Some hold that we are in the fourth world now, moving to the fifth; others state that we are entering the sixth. This may seem like mythology to Westerners, but Dennis Tedlock, an anthropologist and translator of the Popol Vuh, thinks it is more accurate to use the term "mythistory" because these beliefs are intimately woven into the reality of the Maya.

Grandfather Cirilo speaks of an extended period of darkness that will come at the end of this "sun" or world age. The prophecies foretell that the earth's second sun will pass in front of our existing sun, causing a period of darkness that will last between one and six days. He is ambiguous about the specific date for this occurrence, but indicates it may happen sometime around the Gregorian year 2012.

Clearly one of the most important elements of this teaching is the existence of a mysterious second sun that will eclipse our own and cause several days of darkness. The concept of a twin star can be found in other indigenous beliefs. The Dogon tribe of west Africa, who believe they came from the star cluster Sirius, knew, without the aid of instrumentation, that Sirius possessed two smaller stars that are invisible to the naked eye, as Robert Temple described in his celebrated book The Sirius Mystery. The Vedas refer to a similar idea. In Astrology of the Seers, Vedic scholar David Frawley writes:

We have two suns, an object that modern astronomers may call a Quasar, whose light may be obscured by dust or nebulae in the region of the galactic center. This "dark companion" appears to possess a negative magnetic field that obstructs cosmic light from the galactic center from reaching the Earth. Through this, it creates cycles of advance and decline of civilizations.

I have sought out conversations with astronomers, who agree that this is a feasible scenario given what we know about our universe. The astronomer's problem stems from the difficulty of isolating such a star and predicting whether it will eclipse our sun. As powerful as our telescopes have become, there are too many variables to determine with certainty if, how, and when such an event will occur, although thousands of astronomers worldwide, professional and amateur, are vigorously engaged in the hunt.

The elders say that at the end of the Long Count calendar a new sun, the sixth sun, is approaching. They do not specify exactly what this means. This new sun may replace our old one or continue on another path. Their legends say that this has happened before and will happen again. Herein may lay the basis for the Mayan fascination with time. If the second sun does appear around the year 2012, the Maya will gain a level of mathematical and astronomical credibility they have never before experienced, even at the peak of their civilization 1500 years ago.

Grandfather Cirilo implies that the mechanized world, dissociated from nature and the earth, will be disturbed and destroyed at some level during the hours of darkness. This, we should note, already appears to be occurring. We may be in the shift, right now, in this moment, and this process may have been taking place over a long period of time. The shift of the ages may not be a single cataclysmic event, but a series of them. In any event, it is sometimes said that the prophesied days of darkness will be an optimal time for meditation, as collectively the meditators may hold the biospheric space while the shift of the ages unfolds, helping to usher in the sixth sun and greater levels of consciousness.

For some, this shift could revive ancient wisdom and lead to peace and harmony on our planet. For others, it may not be so. Grandfather Cirilo warns that if humans do not awaken and continue to kill and pollute, a new day will not dawn. He stresses that at this time it is critical to live close to the earth and realize the connections among all of life. He is resolute about the need for unification and cultivation of respect for all humans and for nature. Being privy to these prophecies allows for adequate preparation and adjustment to sustainable, simple, and conscious living. In light of the Mayan teachings, there is ample reason to be fascinated with time, to watch the skies, and to be attentive to indigenous ways. It may be critical for our survival.

Barbara Sadtler, M.A., R.Y.T., has been studying with the Maya for several years and walks a parallel path with Tantra yoga. She teaches workshops and individual sessions to empower Westerners with the use of Mayan and yogic tools. She is actively involved in the Shift of the Ages project, Common Passion, the International Association of Yoga Therapists, and the Himalayan Institute. You can find her monthly blogs on www.maya-portal.net  and http://BreatheAsYouRead.blogspot.com .

By Betty Bland

Originally printed in the Winter 2009 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Bland, Betty. "Viewpoint: From Pebbles to Stepping Stones." Quest 97. 1 (Fall 2009): 8.

Those who know me are aware of my penchant for early morning walks. The fresh air and bracing activity penetrate the morning fuzzy-brain fog like nothing else. On several occasions my heel has gotten quite sore before realizing, "Oh, there is a rock in my shoe!" Then, in order to keep up my pace and circulation, I think, "Can I shake it out without stopping?" Or, if I am almost home, "Should I just continue for a few hundred yards more?"

Why on earth would we decide to keep walking after realizing we have a rock in our shoe, and furthermore, why might it take any time at all to realize that the rock is there? We might ask this question with an air of condescension, thinking that surely we ourselves would have better sense than that. Yet consider this same question from the perspective of how we live our lives.

First of all, most of us live with some pain or anguish that is so familiar that we do not even bring it to our conscious awareness. The daily traffic jams and road rage, irritation with family members, resentment toward whatever life has brought us, feelings of anger or inadequacy—these pebbles may irritate our existence for a number of years before we realize that life can be another way. This is not "just the way it is." We do not have to be trapped in this misery. We are conscious beings with unlimited possibilities for growth and change.

After realizing that something may be wrong and needs to be fixed, we often postpone the stop to make needed changes, but keep going, persisting in the same old ruts. How often do we choose to live with the pain rather than change our way of being? We may even decide to chatter about the pain with our traveling companions while still doing nothing about it. It takes time to seek out those hurtful pebbles and reach a willingness to break our stride. In the subtle reaches of our consciousness, we probably question whether we will ever be able to find that at all. So we travel on, without pause to contemplate.

In my far distant past, I learned in psychology class that kittens raised in a cage with vertical bars were confounded when transferred to one with horizontal bars. It was as if they could not even see the differently aligned obstruction. While I recognize that this is a dreadful image to have remained in my mind all these years, I do see a useful comparison. A cage that becomes extremely familiar can become a part of our accepted landscape and so is no longer a part of our consciousness.

Cultural identity and family traditions into which we were born tend to seem like the only normal and "right" approach to life. Behaviors and attitudes pass down from one generation to the next like an immutable script. Even when we rebel against them, they still form the standards by which we measure life. These patterns, which are built into our psyche from birth, are like a pair of sunglasses before our eyes. Colors, clarity, and the amount of light can be drastically affected. It is not until they are removed that one is struck by the impact they had on the perception of the surrounding scene.

Whether we see these patterns in terms of a pebble, a cage, or dark glasses, the nature of consciousness is to accept them as reality. That is why it is said that we live in maya, the great illusion. Things are not as they seem, but are distorted by years and lifetimes of conditioning. There is a reality to our existence, but it is not as restrictive as we perceive it to be. If we could only turn an about-face within our minds, the whole spectrum of life would appear differently.

The Buddha said that life is suffering, that by its very nature we will all experience anguish and hardships. But he also said the pain is caused by us, by our attitude of clinging to our conditioning and our desires. We want permanency, stability, power, wealth, comfort, respect, appreciation, and all those good things that attract us. The Buddha called this attachment. He said that there is a way out of this dilemma and went on to prescribe the Noble Eightfold Path as the method of deliverance. The Eightfold Path can be summarized as right thought, right motivation, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

From this teaching, we can surmise that the removing the pebble is not all that simple. One could take a lifetime to understand and practice any one of these mandates. However, if we do not begin to address the problem, we will never even hope to succeed. Consider beginning with the first step—that of practicing right thought. If we could begin to control these wayward thoughts, to observe them, cultivate the beneficial ones, and begin to recognize ourselves as spiritual beings, the rest would follow. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that the mind is as difficult to tame as the wind, but that with persistent effort the goal can be achieved. By turning our consciousness in on itself, a gradual shift occurs, one that is almost imperceptible at first. Yet a consistent watchfulness of our thoughts and motives launches a momentum toward awareness. With this turning of our thoughts, we can be assured that the rest will follow. This is what the Greeks called metanoia, a complete turning around or reorientation. This word, which appears often in the New Testament, is usually translated "repentance," and Jesus said it was necessary in order to be born again.

The turning around is not just turning the same old processes in a different direction, but rather it is an inside-out reorientation. Instead of directing our thoughts and energy to the level of our outer personality, something convinces us of an inner reality—the true nature of our inner self, connected with all other selves as a part of a greater whole. If we can see life from this perspective, the light of pure spirit will drive away those fuzzy-brain blues.

The painful pebbles of this world will finally penetrate our awareness. Their presence is a gift that finally directs our attention to the importance of addressing the issue. They draw us toward discovery of the problem, and in that discovery lies the opportunity to change. When given proper attention, those pebbles can become our stepping-stones.

None of you has ever thought of watching, studying and thus profiting by the lessons contained therein, the web of life woven round each of you, yet it is that intangible, yet ever plainly web (to those who would see its working) in that ever open book, sacred in the mystic light around you, that you could learn, aye, even those possessed of no clairvoyant powers.

It is the first rule in the daily life of a student of Occultism never to take off his attention from the smallest circumstances that may happen in his own or other fellow-students' lives.
                                                                       "A Valuable Lesson," The Theosophist, September 1954.