The Birth of the Left-Handed Hummingbird [Huitzilopochtli]

Chapter 8 – The Death of the Ego

The elimination of our many defects (those "Four-Hundred Southerners") is a major task that can only be accomplished by the true warriors of life.

"Then Huitzilopochtli stood and chased the Four-Hundred Southerners, he taunted them and made them disperse down the hillside of the Coatepetl, the mountain of the serpent. And once he got them to the foot of the mountain, he taunted them again and again chased them, as if hares, again up the mountain. Four times he did this." Florentine Codex

Eliminating our defects is not a trivial task. Fortunately there are superior spiritual forces willing to lend us a hand in this difficult work. Beethoven's Choral Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 80, says:

"If a spirit is encouraged, a choir of spirits always echoes for him." Choral Fantasy, Op. 80

These spirits are the masters of the White Brotherhood that we may as well refer to as Angels; they diligently aid those who work intensely upon themselves in a sincere effort to reach an internal revolution.

"The Goddess of War" [Cihuateotl] (Museum of History and Anthropology, Mexico)

But there is also help that comes from within, as there are parts of the Being that aid the sincere aspirant as he works upon himself; these are the Divine Mother and the Intimate Christ, who the Mexica's referred to as "the left-handed hummingbird" [Huitzilopochtli].

The Intimate Christ will aid anyone who sincerely works in the effort of disintegrating their psychological aggregates, but in those who become capable of incarnating it, it will become the sole owner of their will, emotional and mental functions. They will experience a divine-human symbiosis that effectively intensifies the work in the elimination of the practitioner's psychological defects, or "Four-Hundred Southerners".

"The Intimate Christ emerges from within during the work that seeks the dissolution of the psychological aggregates. Obviously the Inner Christ only arrives at the peak of our voluntary sufferings and intentional efforts. The arrival of the Christic fire is the most important event of our lives. It is then that the Internal Christ assumes ownership of all of our mental, emotional, motor, sexual, and instinctive processes. Without a doubt, the Internal Christ is our internal, profound savior." Samael Aun Weor

"And all efforts against him were in vain, in vain they revolted against him as they rattled their handbells and clashed their shields. There were able to do nothing, they achieved nothing, and they could not defend themselves. Huitzilopochtli taunted them, chased them, destroyed them, killed them, and annihilated them. And even so, he did not stop and many of them pleaded and begged: 'Enough!'." Florentine Codex

Medieval Alchemists speak about the three purifications of iron and fire that must be endured as a means to show the depth of the work that must be realized. These are the three works where we seek the mystical death; the three negations that Peter expressed before the rooster crowed.

There are three levels of internal work: we must first eliminate the all of the psychological aggregates on the visible side of our psychological moon, these are the most easily visible defects anyone can see that with a bit of observation, we can also discover. These are aggregates like those of vanity, pride, anger, conceitedness, laziness, etc.

The rest of the work has to do with those many other aggregates that exist within the depths of our sub- and infra-consciousness – in the dark side of our psychological moon – because these also exist and they nourish themselves from our creative energies without us knowing about it.

Cranium, symbol of the death that takes place in battle and out of its mouth, a symbol of burnt water. (Museum of History and Anthropology, Mexico)

The Twelve Works or Labors of Hercules (Roman name for the Greek divine hero Heracles who is a representation of the Christ) show the processes through which our dark psychological aspects must be brought to death.

"Heracles (the Cosmic Christ), the son of Jupiter (IO Patar) and Alcmene, performed the Twelve Labors:
1. Capture and death of the Lion of Nemea (the strength of the uncontrollable instincts and passion that devastates and devours everything).
2. Destruction of the Hydra of Lerna (the psychological defects of the sub-consciousness).
3. Capturing the stag of Cerynitia and the boar of Mount Erymanthus (the lower animal passions).
4. The cleaning of the Augean stables (the submerged depths of the sub-consciousness).
5. Killing the birds of the lake of Stymphalian (witch-like psychic aggregates from the depths of the unconsciousness) with arrows.
6. The capturing of the bull of Crete (passionate, thoughtless sexual impulses, infrahuman elements).
7. Capturing the mares of King Diomedes (passionate, infrahuman elements that are profoundly submerged in our own unconscious abysses).
8. He eliminated the giant thief Cacus (the evil thief that squanders the sexual center in order to satisfy his animal passions).
9. The conquest of the girdle of Hippolyta (the feminine psychic aspect of our own interior nature).
10. The conquest of the cattle of Geryon (related to detachment).
11. The stealing of the golden apples from the garden of Hesperides.
12. The taking of the dog Tricipite (Cerberus) from the realm of Pluto (the guide dog, the sexual instinct).

Heracles, the instructor of the world, has to perform the Twelve Labors, a complete work of pacification, each time that he comes. The Cosmic Christ practices what he preaches. When he is little, the tenebrous serpents of evil come to attack him, Herod persecutes him, etc." Samael Aun Weor

Yet, even farther along there is the germ or seeds of the ego; which means that we must never underestimate the work that is required for self-discovery. The effort on this labor is not only magnificent, but demanding and permanent.

And this is why we see all over the world "death" as a symbol in the foundation of any work relevant to spiritual advancement; whether it is a throne carved as a skull, or monks like St. Francis of Assisi with a skull on his table, or walls in sacred temples showing carvings of skulls. It is all an invitation to embrace psychological death.

A decapitated eagle, symbol of the Death of the Ego.  This particular symbol shows the need to stop the incorrect use of the mind. (Museum of History and Anthropology, Mexico)