The Mayab' were wise people who understood many facets of this existence. They were not only brilliant counters of time, wonderful at agriculture, arts, and many other things, but they also had a lovely structure for maintaining a civilization. They designed a system called the pyramid of community development to help people find balance and harmony when living together. This pyramid contains seven levels, just like the rainbow has seven hues. And it is a system for finding humility and balance with Mother Earth and all of the beings around us. It was the foundation upon which the Mayab’ formed themselves, and their communities were inextricably linked to it.


The first level of this pyramid, which served as the foundation for everything was food safety. The idea is that every single person in a community needs to have access to healthy food, and this is where their outstanding science behind agriculture comes from. This was the pyramid's foundation because food is what gives us life and sustenance, and we need it to do everything else.

This would take us to the second level which was health. This came in second since you can't have health unless you eat nutritious food, and health is essential for doing everything in life. For this reason, they made it a priority to ensure that everyone had access to good health and healthcare. This is where several traditional treatments, such as herbal remedies, came into play.

The third level was education. Good health enables good education, because how can you nurture your intellect if the rest of your body is malnourished? It was essential that everyone in the community had access to a good education in a variety of subjects like astronomy, agriculture, mathematics, and so on. This would benefit not only the individual but also society's well-being.

This was very much connected to the fourth level, which was the level of organization. Having an integrative education increases community organization allowing everyone to work together in a good and structured manner. Being able to do this, to be able to function as a team, was an important element of their development.

The first four levels of the pyramid were all about humans on a physical level, ensuring that everyone was nurturing and caring for their physical body. This is necessary for us to work on our spiritual transcendence, which is why they are the primary foundations of it. The last 3 levels had everything to do with the more subtle and spiritual part of humans.

As a result, the last three levels are inextricably linked. The first was religion, although it is essential to note that this term is merely used as an illustration because there was no such thing as religion for the Mayab'. This really meant that it was necessary to include a spiritual practice into your daily life and to live through consciousness. This led to the level of philosophy, which stated that understanding yourself and how you interpret the world is vital, especially connecting to spirituality and the environment around and within us in order to transform knowledge into wisdom. All of these levels united would lead to spiritual transcendence.

This was the foundation of how the Mayab' lived, they placed a high value on caring for not just themselves but also the entire community. We have lost our feeling of belonging, of coming together and supporting one another. But for the Mayab', this was critical because when we unite we move forward as one, and no one falls behind.

Many of the beings around us who are outstanding teachers demonstrate this vital lesson through example. Different animals, such as birds, assist each other in times of need, and trees give nutrients to one another. It is critical that we live in community, not only as humans, but also with all other beings. Plants provide us with nutrition, vitamins, and minerals that are necessary for our survival, and we care for them and advocate for their well-being out of appreciation. The streams and rivers offer us drinking water, and we should not only be eternally grateful to them, but we should also give back. Let us be thankful beings who help each other in this vast community known as planet Earth.

​- By Eline Baeza from The Mayan Wisdom Project