Center Point Newsletter

Over the years I have found that it can sometimes be useful to see the world as those from other cultures have seen it.

This can be especially true when it comes to past civilizations which are very different from our own. As we learn something about them we often find that, despite significant dissimilarities between our views of reality and theirs, there are some truths which we share in common.

We could hardly find a world more opposite to our own in many ways that of the ancient Maya, who existed primarily in southern Mexico from 2600 BC to 1200 AD. Yet they had one way of seeing reality which I think can be meaningful for us today.

In Mayan religion mirrors were regarded as portals through which one might behold the realm of the gods. When Mayan kings wished to divine the future, they first entered into a meditative trance - which today we might call interiorization. Then they gazed into a mirror until they received a revelation of what was to come.

Their use of trance (or interiorization) in this regard is not especially remarkable.

After all, the English word "trance" (which is closely related to “transit”) originally referred to a midpoint or “way station” on the journey between this earthly world and the spiritual world beyond. *

What seems remarkable to me, however, is the Mayan use of the mirror. At first glance, so to speak, it appears that in order to discover the secrets of the future the king looks into his own reflection. This makes sense because, in the Mayan belief system, the king himself is the reflection on earth of the divine reality above.

Thus the key to understanding the future lies in how he sees himself for that will determine the choices he makes and those choices will have a lot to do with future events and their outcomes.

But there is more to it than that. If we remember that the mirror is a portal, then we realize that the king is doing more than simply gazing at himself. He is seeing past his own image and through it into the other world where spiritual forces disclose more to him than self-reflection alone could unveil.

In the Mayan tradition, such things as the coming of a flood, drought, war, or other cataclysm as well as positive events might be revealed through the skilled use of this means of interiorization.

Now, this is all very interesting to anthropologists, archeologists, and scholars of religion, but what does it mean to the rest of us?

Again, the focus is on the mirror and on seeing through our own self-image into the deeper reality of which it is but a reflection.

Do I want to succeed? Do I want to achieve something in particular? Do I want make some personal changes which will benefit my family, my business, my community?

I must take a “good look in the mirror” and reflect on who I think I am because who I think I am determines how free I am to accomplish anything.

And I must do more. I must see beyond my own reflection. I must get past the way I am reflected in my own eyes and in the eyes of others. I must see through my self-image so that my true self, with all its natural talents and abilities and creativity, is revealed and becomes free to act without being blocked.

This brings us back from the mirror to interiorization. As a way station between the outer and the inner dimensions of our lives, centering trance enables us to see from the one into the other.

In our time and culture hypnosis and self-hypnosis are excellent and increasingly popular ways to interiorize through that kind of centeredness. There are other ways of doing so as well. Whatever the method or whether the experience seem "light" or "deep" does not matter.

What counts is the fact that we keep still for a while and let ourselves see within.

We are not all in the world in the same way. The more clearly we see into ourselves, the more clearly we see our own way of being in the world and therefore who we can become indeed who we ought to become outwardly based on who we truly are within.

The more clearly we see through ourselves, the more objectively we see the world and at the same time, although in a different way, the more intuitively we understand it. We are then far better able to make the choices and changes that enable us to have and do the things we really desire through right action.

This leads us away from such modern afflictions as anxiety, worry, confusion, and situational depression.

It is therefore important that we find a path for interiorization which suits us, learn to practice it - and then watch as the seeing begins.

* T. Sarbin and R. Coe, Hypnosis: A Social Psychological Analysis of Influence Communication (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1972), 107.

Search Terms: achievement, action, ancient cultures, anxiety, choice, change, confusion, depression, desire, divination, hypnosis, interiorization, Maya, Mayan religion, Mayan kings, mirror gazing, reflection, right action, self-image, self-reflection, situational depression, success, trance, worry.