Twenty Count: Secret Mathematical System of the Aztec/Maya - Softcover

Montgomery, Roger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1879181266 ISBN 13: 9781879181267

Publisher: Bear & Co, 1995

Synopsis

The sacred number system of ancient Mesoamerica has emerged in recent decades as a teaching paradigm for writers as diverse as Jose Arguelles and Carlos Castaneda. In this book, Roger Montgomery provides yet another entryway into this multidimensional view of our universe. His pathway is one of meditation and study that open one's awareness to a multitude of inner guides. The guides in turn reveal sacred teachings that illuminate the pathway itself. Weaving a complex set of numerological teachings through a series of semi-autobiographical stories, the author step-by-step builds a spiritual philosophy that demonstrates the universality and the relevance of ancient Native American spiritual thought.

Taking the root of its teachings from the mathematical layout associated with the well-known Aztec Sunstone and Maya calendars, Twenty Count articulates a type of spiritual trip common to a generation of spiritual seekers during the last of the 20th Century. It's a trip that starts with an awakening awareness of the sacred power of Native American traditions during the hippie days of the 1960s and then progresses to an expanded awareness of the oneness at the heart of the world's religious traditions. Montgomery's story, while dedicated to ancient Aztec and Maya scribes, opens on a mountaintop in upstate New York and closes at the foot of the unclimbed Himalayan peak Machhupachare. Having experienced in-depth teachings of many cultures, the author has molded a writing and teaching focus that refuses to romanticize any culture-specific religious model.

While the sacred Twenty Count serves as a powerful backdrop, Montbomery's story-telling style is one of creative suggestion, allowing readers the opportunity to see themselves in spiritually challenging situations whose solutions offer wisdom as a reward. In other words, the more spiritual preparation readers bring to this book, the more they'll get out of it. Each chapter includes an original meditation diagram based on the Twenty Count paradigm, and various meditation techniques are related for serious seekers whose goal it is to bring clear-minded inner awareness to our life in the outer world.

About this title

About the Author

Roger Montgomery is the coauthor, along with Haleh Pourafzal, of The Spiritual Wisdom of Hafz: Teachings of the Philosopher of Love. Montgomery and Ms. Pourafzal are also the founders of both WisdomSolutions business consulting and Circle of Scribes publishing services in Berkeley, California. A former journalist, he works with individuals and groups committed to expanding the creative vision of contemporary culture through spirituality, art, science, and philosophy. The Twenty Count paradigm serves as a basic teaching and awareness model throughout this work.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

FOR THE SCRIBES

Long ago on a dark day, invading priests collected the beaten-bark library of ancient scribes and burned the books to cinders.

These pious conquerors were horrified that the native culture honored the serpent -- the coiled spiral-- as a spiritual symbol. Aas children, the invaders were told a serpent corrupted them through a woman. They believed it literally, the great metaphor dangling powerless amidst their obsessive passion for honoring a power greater than themselves. As grown men, they rejected women and cloaked their bodies to search for redemption by converting all creation to their solitary vision of misery and lost virtue.

Compounding the native spiritual and intellectual transgressions was yet another symbol, a seashell-like image derived from ancient perceptions of the Milky Way -- an oval with a line through it. The symbol surfaced everywhere, repeating continually throughout mathematical accounts that soared back 400 million years. To the scribes, the symbol represented Zero. To the invading friars, it looked like a vagina.

Entranced by self-righteous zealotry and fear, the priests condemned a culture because they could not see its vision. They piled up and ignited an eon of mathematics, theology, art, astronomy, literature, history, mythology, architecture, and navigation. To expunge the spiral from native souls, the invaders established sacred policy of killing, converting, torturing, mutilating, and enslaving. The murderous violence, a force more enduring than the invaders themselves, continues today.

On that dark day of burning, flames shrieked red and orange and high, cursing into oblivion pages laden with observations and perceptions of learned scribes. Black smoke billowed and curled into clouds. Yet even as markings scorched away and bark paper crackled to black ash, the essence of that recorded knowledge also rose to the sky. Winds gathered that essence, reshaped it, and bore it aloft for centuries.

Now a time has come when many people no longer fear the serpent. The small mind of fervid fantasy has commenced its inevitable relapse into fetid decay and has lost its stranglehold on the creative soul of global culture. The winds breath the lost wisdom back into our midst, and scholars and seekers have reawakened to long-silent secrets. Like the old ones, we study the past to prepare for the future. We see silent patterns persisting throughout the web of our universe, filling us with awe.

This writing, to whatever degree and in whatever dimension it reflects the spirit of that ancient wisdom, is dedicated to every scribe whose work went up in smoke. You are not forgotten.

May we never again fear the serpent.

May we open heart and mind to the journey from and to Zero.

May the killing cease.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bear & Co
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1879181266
• ISBN 13: 9781879181267
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 252