When I am asked what I know about the teachings and Toltec wisdom of Don Miguel Ruiz, I answer with this honesty.
"Not a lot, but I feel there is a special beauty and truth in what he has written."
Don Miguel Ruiz, is the author of The Four Agreements. I wrote about reading his book on this blog previously and subsequently listed it as pt. 1. It is the type of book that you gain something more from every time you read it. My posting outlined a deeper level of understanding in myself of what my motivation was to create inspirational jewelry.
It was very brief. My writing that is. I feel that I did not spend the appropriate amount of time out of respect to Dr. Don Miguel Ruiz.
I pulled a copy of The Four Agreements from my personal library, all three shelves full that it is. I wanted to share this excerpt from The Four Agreements as a gift to my friend who is working through big changes in her life.
My friend recently lost her job, and I have been doing my best to listen and be a good friend. When I read Don Miguel Ruiz's work, it shows what a really warm kind teacher he is. It is great to have friends to talk things through with. Then one needs to push out to deep water with the Great Whale as your friend and find the wisdom that lies in the deep blue restful water of the ocean.
Don Miguel Ruiz, author ~ The Four Agreements ~ A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. A Toltec Wisdom Book.
Bio:
Don Miguel Ruiz was born into a family of healers, and raised in rural Mexico by a "curandera" (healer) mother and a "nagual" (shaman) grandfather. The family anticipated that Miguel would embrace their centuries-old legacy of healing and teaching, and carry forward the esoteric Toltec knowledge. Instead, distracted by modern life, Miguel chose to attend medical school and become a surgeon.
A near-death experience changed his life. Late one night in the early 1970s, he awoke suddenly, having fallen asleep at the wheel of his car. At that instant the car careened into a wall of concrete and Don Miguel remembers that he was not in his physical body as he pulled his two friends to safety.
Stunned by this experience, he began an intensive practice of self-inquiry. He devoted himself to the mastery of the ancient ancestral wisdom, studying earnestly with his mother, and completing an apprenticeship with a powerful shaman in the Mexican desert. His grandfather, who had since passed on, continued to teach him in his dreams.
In the tradition of the Toltec, a "nagual" guides an individual to personal freedom. Don Miguel Ruiz, a "nagual" from the Eagle Knight lineage, has dedicated his life to sharing the wisdom of the ancient Toltec.
Excerpt from The Four Agreements ~ The First Agreement; Be Impeccable with Your Word.
There was a woman, who was intelligent and had a very good heart. She had a daughter whom she adored and loved very much. One night she came home from a very bad day at work, tired, full of emotional tension, and with a terrible headache. She wanted peace and quiet, but her daughter was singing and jumping happily. The daughter was unaware of how her mother was feeling; she was in her own world, in her own dream. She felt so wonderful, and she was jumping and singing louder and louder, expressing her joy and her love. She was singing so loud that it made her mother's headache even worse, and at a certain moment, the mother lost control. Angrily she looked at her beautiful little girl and said, "Shut up! You have an ugly voice. Can you just shut up!"
The truth is that the mother's tolerance for any noise was nonexistent; it was not that the little girl's voice was ugly. But the daughter believed what her mother said, and in that moment she made an agreement with herself. After that she no longer sang, because she believed her voice was ugly and would bother anyone who heard it. She became shy at school, and if she was asked to sing, she refused. Even speaking to others became difficult for her.
Everything changed in the little girl because of this new agreement: She believed she must repress her emotions in order to be accepted and loved.
Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement, and it becomes part of our belief system. This little girl grew up, and even though she had a beautiful voice, she never sang again. She developed a whole complex from one spell. This spell was cast upon her by the one who loved her the most: her own mother. Her mother didn't notice what she did with her word. She didn't notice that she used black magic and put a spell on her daughter. She didn't know the power of her word, and therefore she isn't to blame. She did what her own mother, father, and others had done to her in many ways. They misused the word.
How many times do we do this with our own children? We give them these types of opinions and our children carry that black magic for years and years. People who love us do black magic on us, but they don't know what they do. That is why we must forgive them; they don't know what they do.
Another example: You awake in the morning feeling very happy. You feel so wonderful, you stay one or two hours in front of the mirror, making yourself beautiful. Well, one of your best friends says, "What happened to you? You look so ugly. Look at the dress you are wearing; you look ridiculous." That's it; that is enough to put you all the way down in hell. Maybe this girlfriend just told you this to hurt you. And she did. She gave you an opinion with all the power of her word behind it. If you accept the opinion, it becomes an agreement now, and you put all your power into that opinion. That opinion becomes black magic.
These types of spells are difficult to break. The only thing that can break a spell is to make a new agreement based on truth. The truth is the most important part of being impeccable with your word. On one side of the sword are the lies, which create black magic, and on the other side of the sword is the truth which has the power to break the spell of black magic. Only the truth will set us free.
This thing we call gossip.
Looking at everyday human interactions, imagine how many times we cast spells on each other with our word. Over time this interaction has become the worst form of black magic, and we call it gossip.
Gossip is black magic at its very worst because it is pure poison. We learned how to gossip by agreement. When we were children, we heard the adults around us gossiping all the time, openly giving their opinions about other people. They even had opinions about people they didn't know. Emotional poison was transferred along with the opinions, and we learned this as the normal way to communicate.
Gossiping has become the main form of communication in human society. It has become the way we feel close to each other, because it makes us feel better to see someone else feel as badly as we do. There is an old expression that says, "Misery likes company," and people who are suffering in hell don't want to be all alone. Fear and suffering are an important part of the dream of the planet; they are how the dream of the planet keeps us down.
Using this analogy of the human mind as a computer, gossip can be compared to a computer virus. A computer virus is a piece of computer language written in the same language all the other codes are written in, but with a harmful intent. This code is inserted into the program of your computer when you least expect it and most of the time without your awareness. After this code has been introduced, your computer doesn't work quite right, or it doesn't function at all because the codes get so mixed up with so many conflicting messages that it stops producing good results.
Human gossip works exactly the same way. For example, you are beginning a new class with a new teacher and you have looked forward to it for a long time. On the first day of class, you run into someone who took the class before, who tells you, "Oh that instructor was such a pompous jerk! He didn't know what he was talking about, and he was a pervert too, so watch out!"
You are immediately imprinted with the word and the emotional code the person had when saying this, but what you are not aware of is his or her motivation in telling you. This person could be angry for failing the class or simply making an assumption based on fears and prejudices, but because you have learned to ingest information like a child, some part of you believes the gossip, and you go on to the class.
As the teacher speaks, you feel the poison come up inside you and you don't realize you see the teacher through the eyes of the person who gave you that gossip. Then you start talking to other people in the class about this, and they start to see the teacher in the same way: as a jerk and a pervert. You really hate the class, and soon you decide to drop out. You blame the teacher, but it is gossip that is to blame.
All of this mess can be caused by one little computer virus. One little piece of misinformation can break down communication between people, causing every person it touches to become infected and contagious to others. Imagine that every single time others gossip to you, they insert a computer virus into your mind, causing you to think a little less clearly every time. Then imagine that in an effort to clean up your own confusion and get some relief from the poison, you gossip and spread these viruses to someone else.
Now imagine this pattern going on in a never-ending chain between all the humans on earth. The result is a world full of humans who can only read information through circuits that are clogged with a poisonous, contagious virus. Once again, this poisonous virus is what the Toltecs called the "mitote", the chaos of a thousand different voices all trying to talk at once in the mind.
Even worse are the black magicians or "computer hackers" who intentionally spread the virus. Think back to a time when you or someone you know was angry with someone else and desired revenge. In order to seek revenge you said something to or about that person with the intention of spreading poison and making that person feel bad about him - or herself. As children we do this quite thoughtlessly, but as we grow older we become much more calculated in our efforts to bring other people down. Then we lie to ourselves and say that person received a just punishment for their wrong-doing.
When we see the world through a computer virus, it is easy to justify the cruelest behavior. What we don't see is that misuse of our word is putting us deeper into hell.
I told you it was deep....
The following videos are of Don Miguel Ruiz 10 year anniversary of being a heart attack survivor and subsequently a successful recipient of a heart transplant. The video is intimately raw in its format, with Dr. Ruiz sitting in a chair which appears to be a home. I almost felt like looking away at times because of the depth of his sincerity of speaking his truth. I felt that he was having a conversation with some close family members and I just happened upon the video and was extended the invitation to watch in and listen.Whether you connect with the Toltec wisdom or not, the love that he speaks with I feel resonates across all fields.
My girlfriend was smiling when I told her I had created this particular posting with her in mind to offer her something to really ponder. From the shore of losing a job, to the deepness of life and death itself....
We all need to find our own way. Don Miguel Ruiz speaks of how he has found peace for himself on his path, of this life dream.
Video: 10 year anniversary Don Miguel Ruiz pt. 1
Video: 10 year anniversary Don Miguel Ruiz pt. 2
Now go outside and play....
Have a beautiful day,
Photo: 'almost there' rc
Joy,
Rena
www.talktotheturtle.com
No comments:
Post a Comment