Keys to the Pyramids
Miguel Ruiz - Interviewed by Laurence Andrews
originally printed in Magical Blend Magazine Issue #47
The pyramids of Teotihuacan rise as high as twenty-story buildings, above the central Mexican highlands with a grandeur and mystery that stirs the imagination and inspires the soul. As a civil engineer, I have often been intrigued by the surveying and construction skills of so-called primitive societies; this site is truly exceptional. All of the buildings are aligned with the stars and the solar system from precise survey points in the nearby mountain range, using an advanced understanding of mathematics, geometry and astronomy.

Little is known by traditional researchers about the pyramids of Teotihuacan (pronounced tay-oh-tee-wah-con, and simply referred to as "Teo" by the locals). Built bythe Toltecs, Teo was once a city the size of ancient Athens and Rome. It thrived as the primary center of learning and culture in America for over one thousand years, before it was abandoned about fifteen-hundred years ago. According to legend, after the fall of Teotihuacan, two major paths of sacred knowledge formed. One Toltec path went to Tula near present day Hidalgo. The magic of Tula can be compared to what our culture might term "black magic." The generally more enlightened path called the Path of Freedom went south toward Xochicalco, near present day Cuernavaca, and also eventually went into hiding.

The term "Toltec" as used by the Aztecs (who came many years after the Toltecs) meant either a "great wise one" or a native healer or artist who followed a certain tradition; it was not necessarily meant to define a specific ethnic group. In fact there is evidence that Toltec society was a relatively harmonious blend of several of America's early native cultures.

The Olmecs and the builders of Monte Alban in Oaxaca, with whom the Toltecs traded, revered the Toltecs and regarded them as the most highly advanced society in religion, magic and art. Yet, unlike the art of other early American societies, Toltec art depicts only two gods: the earth goddess and the rain/sky god. The fact that Toltec art does not prominently portray many gods for worship, supports the belief, common throughout America for over one thousand years, that the Toltecs were able to communicate directly with the gods in the sun, the moon and the stars.

The name Teotihuacan means "the place where Man becomes God." A Toltec myth told that the first true humans emerged from a spring in a cave upon which the great Pyramid of the Sun was built. Central to Toltec belief was the notion that the soul of an individual could return to its source in the sun from the top of that same pyramid. Another myth states that for each soul that left the world there, another soul would descend into the earth from the stars. Thus the steps up the side of the Pyramid of the Sun formed a two-way ladder to a portal into the universe.

I had been to Teo about seven years before on a journey to Cuernavaca. But without the key to understand the spiritual mysteries of this powerful place, I had been unable to appreciate its significance. Gazing at the majestic Pyramid of the Sun, I had wondered what dreams had inspired Tezcatlipotl, the mythical builder of Teo, whose name means "the smoky mirror." Now I was in Teo again but seeing the place through new eyes-the eyes of a Toltec shaman, don Miguel Angel Ruiz.

Don Miguel, known to his apprentices and friends as a "medicine man" or a "messenger of spirit," is a nagual of the Toltec tradition. He was raised by a family of traditional healers and studied the esoteric Toltec knowledge with his grandfather. At first don Miguel shunned this background and pursued a career as a medical doctor. Then a nearly fatal accident dramatically changed his life, leading him to fully embrace the Toltec Path of Freedom. He studied with his mother, Sarita, a famous curandera, or spiritual healer, and with a shaman in the Sonoran desert. In later years he continued to have dreams in which both his grandfather and his teacher gave him detailed information and instructions about the ancient Toltec knowledge and practices.

In recent decades some of the carriers of the ancient tradition called the Path of Freedom, decided to openly share this knowledge. Don Miguel learned the Path of Freedom through a lineage called the Eagle Knight. Recently, a shift in the subtle qualities of the light from the sun occurred, according to Don Miguel. This shift, which was predicted in the ancient prophecies as the appearance of the "Sixth Sun," has reactivated the energies stored in the pyramids, making it available to humans for their evolution for the first time in over fifteen centuries.

My first exposure to the Toltec Path of Freedom had been through the writings of several popular American anthropologists with whom don Miguel has no direct connection. While there appear at first to be some similarities between the teachings of don Miguel and those teachers, there are also many significant differences. Most notable is don Miguel's continual references to the power of love. It should be noted, however, that the Toltec concept of love, at least as used by don Miguel, does not refer to a sentimental attachment to romantic emotions. Rather, it is the life energy that connects us with all living beings. Another significant difference is that don Miguel freely draws from a wide variety of cultural wisdom and mystery, including the traditions of the Christian faith in which he was raised. It is also his firm belief that the use of drugs and power plants weaken our spirit and hurts our chance of attaining freedom.

For the last two years, I had been studying with don Miguel, learning the Path of Freedom. It is a rigorous path, which has required a strong willingness to reexamine the way I had lived and the courage to let go of self-destructive habits. This work requires self-discipline since there is no formally organized group and few written teachings. The reward is the opportunity for rapid personal growth. There are three stages on the Path of Freedom: Mastery of Awareness, Mastery of Transformation and Mastery of Intent.

The first part of the Mystery of Awareness begins with an examination of who and what we really are. The essence of this teaching is that the life that animates us is a form of light that is connected with everything else in the universe. As we begin to ng through our bodies and minds, this life energy begins to awaken from the illusionary spell of the world-dream.

When this awakening occurs in us, it is time to begin our work of changing the agreements we have made with the world and make four new agreements.

The first of the Four Agreements is to refrain from making assumptions. The next is to overcome self-importance by learning to not take the actions of anyone personally. The third is recognizing the great power in our speech and becoming impeccable with every word that we speak. The fourth agreement is simply to make a commitment to do our best with every action we take. As we commit ourselves to these agreements, we begin to break the subconscious agreements we have with the world, which keep us in a state of fear. Each time we break an old agreement, we have more energy to break the next one. Then we can make new agreements with ourselves and the world, agreements based in genuine love-for ourselves and for our fellow humans.

The next part of the Mastery of Awareness awakens the awareness of our bodies as channels of living energy, through a series of specific movements called the "stalking mitote," which shift the awareness away from the reason to the realization that we are really "energy bodies."

The second step after the Mastery of Awareness is called the Mastery of Transformation. This consists of two fundamental practices called stalking and dreaming.

Stalking prey (hunting) was a critical skill to early Americans. Mastery of stalking required a high degree of courage and self-discipline. The shaman used stalking not to hunt animals, but to retrieve souls and return them. Stalking can be considered the basis of most soul retrieval practices in many shamanic cultures and potentially a vital part of our own healing process. Don Miguel believes that recovery of one's energy is essential. In the process called "the inventory," we go into our past and reclaim the energy we have lost in every encounter with others in our lifetime.

The key to stalking the emotions and healing the soul, according to don Miguel, is forgiving those who have hurt us (regardless of whether we believe they "deserve" to be forgiven), then forgiving ourselves for having carried the wound with us for so many years. We can then replace our self-pity with unconditional love. We must shift our self-image away from being a victim to one of self-love. Gradually we learn to make stalking a way of life, reclaiming energy throughout the day.

Don Miguel pointed to the ancient Toltecs as masters of the art of stalking. I observed that the Toltec murals possess a studied simplicity, compared to the flowery art forms of other contemporary cultures. This tends to shows the value placed on conserving one's energy, not unlike some zen art forms. Another basic tenet of stalking is that self-importance leads to failure, and that every individual is neither more nor less important than any other. It is remarkable that while the Mayans, Olmecs and others proudly portrayed the lineage of their royal families, not a single ruler is portrayed at Teo. Even more remarkable is the fact that the thousands of residences found around the pyramids are some of the finest ever built in early America, showing that the Toltecs were among the first to experiment with some form of democracy and social and economic equality. The next process of transformation don Miguel reviewed with us was the art of dreaming. The Toltec concept of dreaming includes much more than what we consider ordinary dreams. Dreaming includes visions, shamanic journeys to the spirit world and even what we might call "daydreaming."

Shamanic dreaming practices of the Toltecs in the days of Teo included the use of incense and masks. Incense was burned in elaborately decorated clay pots, many of which have been found in the ruins here. Shamanic seers would gaze into the smoke to contact spirits from the other world. Masks were used in ritual to act out the sacred tales which contained the original teachings.

Learning to dream involves mastering the art of what is now called lucid dreaming, as well as participating in all night "dreaming mitotes." The ultimate goal of these dreaming practices is to finally awaken one's awareness to the fact that every "waking" moment is in fact a dream, filled with personal interpretation and emotional content, which can be changed at will by a person who has developed enough energy and awareness to do so.

One version of this dreaming could be described as a kind of "dreaming while awake." In this practice one puts aside the reason and goes into a dreamlike state while being fully awake. In this state one may begin to perceive spirits around the stones of the pyramids, and to experience direct communication with them.

The third step on the Path of Freedom is the Mastery of Intent. After an individual has reclaimed enough of their energy through stalking, dreaming or both, they find that their entire life has been transformed. This transformation leads to a reawakening to one's original "purpose" or "intent." The Mastery of Intent occurs when one is able to align one's individual destiny with the destiny of our species and the overall destiny of life energy.

One way to describe our purpose for being alive is to say that we are here to experience love-love for life, love for ourselves and love for our fellow living beings. Thus we can also say that the Mastery of Intent is the final step in learning to live life in a state of love.

These three practices-the Mastery of Awareness, the Mastery of Transformation and the Mastery of Intent-form the core of Toltec spirituality as taught by don Miguel. These sacred inner teachings are also the basis for the "sacred geometry" behind the site layout and architecture of Teo.

The large area at the east end of Teo called the Citadel of Quetzelcoatl was once the intermediary between the residential and commercial city of Teo and the sacred grounds of the pyramids. This was the place where the Mastery of Awareness was taught through dance and drama. The Mastery of Transformation was taught in various temples along the Avenue of the Dead, culminating at the Place of Sacrifice at the foot of the Pyramid of the Moon. From here one went into other states of reality through the practices of shamanic dreaming, leading one to the Spirit of the Earth, in the Temple of the Jaguars, and ending on the Pyramid of the Moon. Only after one had "sacrificed the etheric double and arisen anew to ascend the steps of the Pyramid of the Moon had one mastered the art of transformation," don Miguel explained. The final process in the Path of Freedom, the Mastery of Intent, was undertaken at the Pyramid of the Sun, a place dedicated to transcending the limits of the human experience. Here one merged one's own intent (or "nagual" as it was also called) with the intent of the being of the Sun. According to Toltec legend these beings would lose their bodies in a flash of fire and disappear into eternity.

The Citadel of Quetzelcoatl is connected to the main complex of pyramids by a bridge crossing the small San Juan River. According to don Miguel, this is the river that mythology says divides heaven and hell. For him heaven and hell are not the popular Christian myths. His description of hell is what most of us call "life." Hell is our common experience, what he calls the "dream of the planet." Heaven is what we create when we break our agreements with the dream of the planet and create a "new dream."

The entrance to that world of Spirit at Teo begins at the Temple of Quetzelcoatl (the Feathered Serpent). The Feathered Serpent represents the great duality of the human spirit. One half of its being is the serpent, close to the earth, in touch with our instincts and desires. The other half has wings and lives in the sky, communing with the sun and stars. It is our reason, our ego. The battle between these two halves of our being is wonderfully depicted in the national emblem of Mexico, an eagle in a life-and-death struggle with a snake. Here at Teo, gazing into the mouth of the enormous carved feathered snake, it is easy to be drawn back in time to feel the power of this great archetype of humanity.

Don Miguel explained that the grand roadway down the center, called "The Avenue of the Dead" was the main part of the body of a two-headed snake through which an initiate passed. I remarked to don Miguel how the path through the body of the snake could be compared to the journey described in eastern Tantric yoga traditions, in which one ascended through the spine, which is also depicted as a serpent, through the various chakras. He replied what I already knew, that true knowledge is universal. He went on to add that if one perceived the whole planet as a living being, which he believes it is, one would see that this being also had "chakras" at the "power places of the earth." He listed the local energy centers as Peru, Tibet, the North and South Pole, Egypt and Teotihuacan."

Teo," he said, "is the heart chakra. It had a great mission at the time it was built. The work of awakening the power of love in the heart at a critical time in history was taken as serious work by the builders of Teo. That dream was not a failure though. Those builders also predicted that people would go through a vitally important phase of developing the reason further, resulting in a dark period for all living beings. But they also predicted that when the time of the sixth sun appeared, an age of spirit would begin again. The pyramids would be reawakened by a group of people, who belonged to no single race but were a blend of many cultures." Don Miguel believes that part of his destiny is to be an agent for this greater destiny of humankind. "We cannot rush the unfolding of destiny," don Miguel once told me, "but neither can we waste one precious moment in doing the work we are here to do, while we have the gift of life in these bodies."

Looking over an aerial photograph of the temple complexes in the museum, don Miguel showed us how the architecture and site formed a model of the human body and spirit. "But ultimately the pyramids were intentionally designed as a powerful tool of awakening, following the steps on the Path of Freedom," don Miguel explained. "The pyramids were built only for one purpose, and that is to provide the minimal chance for freedom, just as the teacher, the nagual, provides the minimal chance. The pull of forgetfulness and delusion are so great on the human spirit that almost every person goes to their grave never knowing the intent of their life, their purpose for being alive. Warriors of Spirit who have conquered themselves and regained their lost energy have a chance at freedom in this life. It can be a difficult battle, but if people would live what they know in their hearts is the truth and have the courage to fully experience love in every moment of their lives, then everything else they need will come on its own."