An individual's highest duty was to the cosmos and the society, not to themselves or their family. This eventually led to the belief that a cataclysmic end to society might be required to insure the continued survival of the sun. The rise of Catholicism changed this view by making death a personal event - since the salvation that awaited the faithful was not a collective salvation but a personal one. With the idea of the individual soul and it's survival after death a central feature of Catholicism, Mexican beliefs changed from seeing death as an event with no personal significance to one with great personal significance. Redemption becomes a personal task.
Death is just one more event in life - a fact .
Paz claims that Mexican culture is indifferent to death and to life - if death is meaningless to the individual, so is life.