At the heart of #Aztec #metaphysics stands the ontological thesis that there exists just one thing: continually dynamic, vivifying, self-generating and self-regenerating sacred power, force, or energy. The Aztecs referred to this energy as teotl. #Teotl is identical with #reality per se and hence identical with everything that exists. What’s more, teotl is the basic stuff of reality. That which is real, in other words, is both identical with teotl and consists of teotl. Aztec #metaphysics thus holds that there exists numerically only one thing– #energy– as well as only one kind of thing– energy. Reality consists of just one thing, teotl, and this one thing is metaphysically homogeneous. Reality consists of just one kind of stuff: #power or force. Taking a page from the metaphysical views of contemporary Mixtec-speaking #Nuyootecos of the #Mixteca Alta, we might think of teotl as something akin to electricity. Nuyootecos speak of a single, all-encompassing energy, yii, which they liken to electricity.2 What’s more, the Aztecs regarded teotl as sacred. Although everywhere and in everything, teotl presents itself most dramatically – and is accordingly sensed most vibrantly by humans – in the vivifying potency of water, sexual activity, blood, heat, sunlight, jade, the singing of birds, and the iridescent blue-green plumage of the quetzal bird. As the single, all-encompassing life force of the cosmos, teotl vivifies the cosmos and all its contents. Everything that happens does so through teotl’s perpetual energy-in-motion. Teotl is the continuing “life-flow of creation”: 3 “a vast ocean of impersonal creative energy.”

Aztec metaphysics is monistic in two distinct senses. First, it claims that there exists only one numerically countable thing: teotl. This is #ontological #monism. Aztec metaphysics thus rejects ontological #pluralism or the view that there exists more than one numerically countable thing. Second, it claims that this single existing thing consists of just one kind of stuff, to wit, force, energy or power. Teotl is metaphysically uniform and homogenous. I call this view #constitutional monism. Since the #cosmos and all its contents are identical with teotl as well as constituted by teotl, it follows that the cosmos and all its contents consist uniformly of energy, power, or force. Everything consists of electricity-like energy-in-motion. Aztec metaphysics thus denies constitutional pluralism or the thesis that reality consists of more than one kind of stuff (e.g., #spiritual stuff and #physical stuff). Together, ontological and constitutional monism entail that the apparent plurality of existing things (e.g., sun, mountains, trees, stones, and humans) as well as plurality of different kinds of stuff (e.g., spiritual vs. material) are both derivable from and hence explainable in terms of one existent and one kind of stuff: teotl. In the final analysis, the nature of things is to be understood in terms of teotl.

Teotl is #nonpersonal, nonminded, nonagentive, and nonintentional. It is not a deity, person, or subject possessing emotions, cognitions, grand intentions, or #goals. It is not an all-powerful benevolent or malevolent #god. It is neither a legislative agent characterized by free will nor an omniscient #intellect. Teotl is thoroughly #amoral, that is, it is wholly lacking in moral qualities such as #good and #evil. Like the changing of the seasons, teotl’s constant changing lacks #moral properties.

Teotl is essentially power: continually active, actualized, and actualizing energy-in-motion. It is essentially dynamic: ever-moving, ever-circulating, and ever-becoming. As ever-actualizing power, teotl consists of creating, doing, making, changing, effecting, and destroying. Generating, degenerating, and regenerating are what teotl does and therefore what teotl is. Yet teotl no more chooses to do this than electricity chooses to flow or the seasons choose to change. This is simply teotl’s nature. The power by which teotl generates and regenerates itself and the cosmos is teotl’s essence. Similarly, the power by which teotl and all things exist is also its essence. In the final analysis, then, the existence and nature of all things are functions of and ultimately explainable in terms of the generative and regenerative power of teotl.

~ James Maffie, Aztec Philosophy