When you were born, the Tonal was there only as potential. It was surrounding you, nurturing you. You knew the Tonal only as an all-encompassing feeling. You did not distinguish between one feature of it and another. You did not say, “This is my mother, and this is a crib.” It was all the same. It was feeding you; it was carrying you into sleep, protecting your form. That’s all you knew.
As time went by, your assemblage point was fixed, and the world became what it is now, and you were able to name and distinguish things. So you looked at your mother and said, “Mama,” and you looked at your father and said, “Not the mama.” And you looked at your toys and said, “Mine.” And then you looked at your neighbor’s toys and said, “Mine.” And then someone beat you up—usually your neighbor’s kid when you took his toys—and you learned to share, out of the goodness of your heart.
From my upcoming book: The Teachings of a Toltec Survivor
