The people had the belief that their lives did not belong to them - thus their deaths had no personal meaning. 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.