Aztec Human Sacrifices

[Angelo John Gage]

Was watching the Aztec nonduality video and couldn't help but think "how could such a wise people engage in such barbarism." 

 

The Aztecs were known to sacrifice human beings to appease their many gods. Perhaps Ometeotl was their primary god, but they had idols or avatars which needed blood for some reason.

History is littered with human sacrifices from different cultures; I can understand the insanity of the Abrahamic faiths; when you see someone not part of god its easy to dispose of them, but I don't see how a nondualist could harm "itself" for any reason. Perhaps they are thinking " well this is me, so I can kill this me and its fine because its god killing himself?"

what are your thoughts?

[Forestluv]

Perhaps humans will look back on our time in history as barbaric as well. Consider how we treat animals, such as factory farming. From a nondual perspective, do you think humans are granted more worth than other animals? Imo, speciesism is one of the most challenging mind states to overcome when evolving into nonduality.

From a nondual perspective your statement "Perhaps they are thinking  'well this is me, so I can kill this me and its fine because its god killing himself?'", is equally valid regarding killing an ant.

[Rilles]

You have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Every culture has had something you can frown upon. 

[Angelo John Gage]

Right this isn't an attack on their culture; it just makes no sense how nondualists could commit such atrocities even on their own tribe. The Abrahamic faiths are dualistic in nature, so one can easily say burn the witch or heretic because they are not considered to be one.

[Forestluv]

Just now, Angelo John Gage said:

Right this isn't an attack on their culture; it just makes no sense how nondualists could commit such atrocities even on their own tribe. 

Nondualists don't see it as "their own tribe". That's part of the essence of nonduality. By your rationale, the cells in your body are committing the same atrocities right now. Some of your cells are killing your own cells.

You are adding personal dualistic meaning and value onto nonduality. 

[Angelo John Gage]

That still doesn't address why they would do it and furthers my point. If they Aztecs were nondualists, why would they kill themselves in that manner?

[Forestluv]

15 minutes ago, Angelo John Gage said:

If they Aztecs were nondualists, why would they kill themselves in that manner?

Notice how you used nonduality with a dualistic usage of "themselves". What do you mean by "themselves"? It seems like you are using that term to refer to other humans. From a nondualistic perspective everything is "themself". So, killing an insect or plant is equally as relevant as killing another human. Yet, a dualistic mind set will not accept that.

You are adding meaning. Your mind is adding in that it is wrong to kill other humans and it is barbaric to kill other humans within one's tribe. To reach full nonduality, the mind must let go of all meaning. 

From a dualistic perspective, you ask a very interesting psychological and social question. From a nondualistic perspective, it doesn't make any sense. It would be like asking "Why would palithiz skalid jocab in plooxic?"

[Angelo John Gage]

Well I'm asking the latter questions. 

Someone who is nondual would not do such things is my point; right or wrong is irrelevant in this case I would think.

[Rilles]

3 minutes ago, Angelo John Gage said:

Well I'm asking the latter questions. 

Someone who is nondual would not do such things is my point; right or wrong is irrelevant in this case I would think.

Have you heard about Chogyam Trungpa? Look up his story.

[Forestluv]

Just now, Angelo John Gage said:

Someone who is nondual would not do such things is my point; right or wrong is irrelevant in this case I would think.

Exactly. If there is no right or wrong, then there just is. So, why does anything happen?

It seems like you are assuming that nonduality is correlated with some type of goodness. 

Consider the questions: "If they were nondualists, how could they care for each other?" and "If they were nondualists, how could they kill each other"? Do those two questions stir up a different feel? I think it would for most humans because the human mind wants to associate nonduality with things we consider "good" - like caring for each other.

Imo, this is one of the most challenging aspects of gaining nondual experience. From a full nondual perspective, there is no difference between drinking a glass of water and stabbing myself. This revelation and experience is deeply disturbing to a psychological self.

[Angelo John Gage]

Yes in that view of course all this is just motion of "god" and none of it is good or bad, but it is very hard to say its "good" when you go watch a drug cartel video of someone getting flayed alive. So I am speaking as a human here.

[Forestluv]

48 minutes ago, Angelo John Gage said:

but it is very hard to say its "good" when you go watch a drug cartel video of someone getting flayed alive. So I am speaking as a human here.

Just because it isn't considered bad, it would not default to becoming good. It would be neither bad nor good. Meaninglessness is neither bad nor good.

I agree at the human level it is disturbing to see and difficult to comprehend how humans can treat each other that way. One of the hardest parts of nondual experience from my egos perspective is the collapse of relative morality.

[Salvijus]

Human sacrifice could be a spiritual thing. Some use human sacrifice for occult purposes. Maybe that's your answer

Edited February 19, 2019 by Salvijus

[Angelo John Gage]

Well yes, they sacrificed to appease their deities 

[Yoshy]

Hey im going to give you le typical blue dualistic opinion : 

They were pushed to do blood scarified because this cult was satanic .

Bye . 

[Nahm]

2 hours ago, Angelo John Gage said:

Well yes, they sacrificed to appease their deities 

I don’t think so. 

[TheAvatarState]

4 hours ago, Angelo John Gage said:

Was watching the Aztec nonduality video and couldn't help but think "how could such a wise people engage in such barbarism."

You think you have a point here, but there's actually none at all. Leo has talked about this extensively in many of his videos.

The self-deception occurs when you evaluate a people from your own, wildly different perspective. For instance, the same argument can be made against Muhammad. The culture was vastly different back then.

Not only that, the vast majority of Aztec people were not enlightened or knew about this high level of non dualism. Thousands of Aztec people were sacrificed for the inauguration of the Templo Mayor under a tyrannical emperor. Like any spiritual tradition, it can easily be corrupted to do the Devil's work.  

[Angelo John Gage]

Which is what I implied. Some sort of corruption. We can see in many cultures torture, inquisitions, burning at the stake, etc... So perhaps the Sages of the Aztec were simply outnumbered by egotistical masses.

[Leo Gura]

@Angelo John Gage The mistake you're making is conflating the Aztec state with their highest shamanic wisdom.

Let's apply your logic to the USA. How come Donald Trump is putting children in cages and bombing the Midde East when we have people like Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, and Peter Ralston teaching nonduality?

How come we have Catholic priests molesting children when the truth of nonduality is readily available in thousands of YT videos?

Every culture has vast diversity, from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high.

The wisest people are never in charge, never in politics, never mainstream.

And don't forget stages of development. Although the Aztec shamans accessed nondual states they were not high on the Spiral. They were mostly Purple, Red, and a bit of Blue. A stage Red person may access a mystical state and then cut out your heart and eat it.

[Angelo John Gage]

@Leo Gura  That's what I'm trying to figure out. Like I implied in my first post, I know religions and cultures throughout history have done horrendous things to their own group and outgroups too. 

So then the only logical explanation is that, like you said, the Shamans had no power over the corrupted Aztec state, which would make sense.