From the Mayan calendar we learned that cycles of time come with qualities of time: an analogy -- at one time it may be raining, another time sunny, these changes in the weather are connected to time. Likewise the cycles of time are influential in human behavior and human affairs.

With the Gregorian calendar used in the present world we associate Saturday with a day off and Monday with going back to work. If Pope Gregory had his way Sunday would always be a church day. The dates of the month simply tell the number of days but have no meaning, no quality, flavor or effect whatsoever. The number of the year indicates how many years it has been since the theoretical birth of Jesus Christ and nothing else that the general public knows about. Perhaps the “church fathers" know more than they say.

At any rate, the meaning of time has been lost in our calendar system and replaced with a useless measurement that is highly precise when it comes to being “on time” to catch your plane, but does not tell you anything about where the plane may be going. We could say that our current lifestyle and the consumer society is similarly a measurement of our accumulation and progress, but we have not stopped think of where that progress is actually taking us. Linear time tells only how far we have come since some event in the far distant past.

The Mayan, Hindu, Tibetan, Egyptian and perhaps Chinese calendars all related to time as going in cycles, circles or actually spirals rather than straight off to infinity. The moon goes around the earth, earth and other planets go around the sun, the sun is moving around in a slow spiraling galaxy. The moon, planets and sun (stars) are all spinning around in circular motions that repeat themselves. So, these ancient cultures saw the cyclical nature of life and observed the quality of time that came with each cycle and noticed there were many different lengths of cycles like days months and years. They saw that as the sun passed through different regions of the sky, signs of the zodiac, there were different effects on the minds of humans, and subsequently in human affairs.

The observations went on through centuries and began at some point in time so far back that no one knows the origin. Looking at the larger, or should we say longer picture, calculations were precision made that go all the way back to the rebirth of the universe, and from there grand cycles of time and ages of man and his civilizations were mapped out in both retrospective and foreseeable perspectives.

This may be seen in modern times as an almost mystical perspective on life, but the mathematical precision with which the Mayans calculated all astronomical events like planetary alignments and eclipses is very scientific, and their understanding of the influences these events have on human affairs goes far beyond Western psychology or philosophy.

The quality of time itself was the most important aspect of understanding time. In yoga there is a similar system and calendar which comes in the form of yantra yoga. In the calendar system of the Mayan they had nine lords of time, symbolizing the nine major qualities of time itself. In the yantra yoga system there are only nine numbers, (no 0, since nothing has no meaning), each one of which has specific qualities and characteristics, while these are laid out in a repetitive cyclical calendar. In fact there are more than one calendars operating at different levels of physical, mental, and spiritual realities. Also to be noted that there are many different Mayan calendars relating to the various levels of time cycles and influences that affect the life of humans. We could say that this is a coincidence or we could understand that this is another synchronistic discovery.

This science yantra yoga is known through its geometry in the designing of symmetrical formations which are called mandalas. Anyone who has studied geometry at any level of grade school or high school will understand that geometry is also based on mathematics. Geometry is the measurement of lines, angles and distances in relation to each other, giving us squares rectangles triangles and circles. The art of mandala is the geometric layout of very symmetrical patterns with one center and concentric unfolding of outer layers.