Category: spiritual warrior

Addicted to Suffering

Are people in love with their suffering?

People are not in love with their suffering.  Rather I’d say that either it saddens them, or they hate it.  In either case their emotional reaction of hate and sadness to their suffering causes them to suffer more.

What is important to breaking this cycle is the awareness that our emotional reactions are not something that we control.  But this very idea that we are not in control,,,  this frightens people more.  So to avoid their fear they cling to the idea that it is reasonable or justified to hate or feel sad about their condition.  In effect they close themselves off to the truth out of fear of acknowledging something that is already happening.

 

Originally posted at Addicted to Suffering

Published at ToltecSpirit.com   Guidance based in the Four Agreements for  Spiritual Warriors seeking happiness and love.

 

Free Your Mind

The challenge is not to free your mind.

The challenge is to free your self from your mind.

 

This post by Gary van Warmerdam at https://www.toltecspirit.com/2010/02/free-your-mind/

Where you can find Wisdom of the Four Agreements for Spiritual Warriors

For practical steps and exercises to inventory and change your own beliefs/agreements there are exercises in the Self Mastery course.

A Word about Truth

Words aren’t the truth.  Words are symbolic meanings for something real or abstract.  Words are not truth so there is no sense in investing any faith in them.

But if you listen carefully to honest people you might find kernels of truth within the packaging of their words.

Four Agreements Companion Book

A question from a subscriber to my on line course in Self Mastery,,,

Hello Gary,

I started reading The Four Agreements Companion Book yesterday and noticed that it had exercises like your Self Mastery program.  The first exercise in the book was dealing with image of perfection but I’m still about ten sessions away from your Image of Perfection session.

I am aware that the sessions in your program are in an order for a purpose, so I wasn’t sure if it would be okay to continue reading the book or not.

Should I… continue reading the book and do the book exercises with your program? or stop reading the book until I finish your program?

Thanks for your time,

Curious

Hi Curious,

The Four Agreements Companion book is great and I recommend that you read it.  However most people I’ve talked to that have attempted the exercises have gotten overwhelmed.   They see so much of their belief system so fast without first having control over their attention that they slip into a victim point of view.  That induces a feeling of overwhelm, powerlessness, and then hopelessness.   Then their inner judge kicks in and berates them for failing.   They lose motivation and close the book,,, stop the exercises…  defeated.   They end up feeling worse than when they started.

So that’s one of the reasons why I don’t start with the  Image of Perfection beliefs.  It’s also why I have people develop some other skills over their attention and beliefs before trying to change their whole belief system.  It’s like eating beef.  It’s much easier to do one bite at a time so you don’t get crushed by the whole animal.

By all means read the Four Agreements Companion Book.  But, I’d suggest doing the exercises in the Self Mastery before starting the exercises in the book.  And if you want to challenge and dissolve your Image of Perfection beliefs, (which is a necessary step to eliminating self judgments) then I suggest the using the steps in the Advanced Series of the Self Mastery program instead of the Four Agreements Companion book approach.   In the Advanced Series I not only walk you through changing the Image of Perfection beliefs, but also walk you through the different issues of resistance that come up to letting these go.

After that, you’ll be better prepared to do the exercises suggested  in the Four Agreements Companion book.

Hope that helps,

Gary

Original post at ToltecSpirit.com a Four Agreements resource for Spiritual Warriors
https://www.toltecspirit.com/2009/12/four-agreements-companion-book/

The Big Lie: Change is Hard

It’s actually a much harder life if you don’t change the fears and false beliefs that are driving your unhappiness.

The most common comment of resistance that I hear while guiding people through the process to change their beliefs and emotional driven behaviors is:  “This is Hard.”

It’s a simple enough comment and we might easily accept it as true.    But here’s the trap.  It’s a lie that makes the changes you are attempting more difficult.

Yes it is difficult to change beliefs.  It is challenging.  However to say that it is hard, implies that doing nothing is easier.  And this is a lie.  It is actually harder to continue to live with the same false beliefs that are driving your unhappiness.

This post originally at Change is Hard

ToltecSpirit.com is a guide for Spiritual Warriors using the Four Agreements

Some people say change is hard.  It’s one of those things that sounds true, but turns into a big lie.   Change is challenging,,, but not to change,,,, that is a really hard way to live.

Four Agreements Workshops in Your Area

A request for workshops in your local area.   Part of why I created the Self Mastery on line study course at www.PathwayToHappiness.com

Gary,

I recently purchased the book Beyond Fear. I have found that Don MIguel’s words speak to me on a very deep level. I had no idea that the ancient people of my country had such a rich spiritual tradition of their own. I’m thinking that it would probably have been better to start off reading The Four Agreements first, but I guess I can just make that my next book.

Anyway, I am really interested in working with a spiritual guide, one who can teach me on Toltec Wisdom. I live in Wisconsin, and I notice that most workshops, events, etc are not in my area. Do you have any suggestions on where to start?
Any info would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time.   —  Dan

Hi Dan,

I don’t think there is a wrong order to reading don Miguel’s material.  Just add his other books to your list.

I live in California so I’m not local to your area.  However I do travel for events. If people wish to create a workshop or event in their area and invite me to teach and share, then I will do so.  Aside from that, no there are not a lot of teachers of his work.  He taught a small group of people very intensely, focusing on quality more than quantity.  Even then, most of those people don’t teach as they choose to do other things with their life.  Some are doctors, lawyers, yoga teachers, graphic artists, or raising their children.

Not having a widespread cadre of teachers has been a problem for a while.  One that has improved greatly since I started when it was just don Miguel in a limited number of locations.  It is something that I began addressing by putting a lot of material on line.  It’s at my other site http://pathwaytohappiness.com/index.htm

Where to start?

I suggest here – http://pathwaytohappiness.com/insights.htm
This page has a lot of free audio.  They are from my free podcasts.   You can also find them on iTunes in the Self Help section.   Search under “Happiness through Self Awareness”

The free audio addresses the lay of the land in terms of beliefs, emotions, will power, perception, assumptions etc that make up our minds.   The Self Mastery sessions are the action steps of what to do.   You will find entry to that work on this page.  http://pathwaytohappiness.com/self_mastery.htm

This is where the real work is done.  These are specific exercises and practices that I have put together based on my years of study with don Miguel, and teaching my own clients.  It is a paced on line audio workbook process where you learn many skills to gain control over your attention, raise your awareness, and inventory and change your core beliefs.

For people who are more focused, or want specific guidance, I also do coaching over the phone.  Often this is in support or in addition to the exercises people are doing from my Self Mastery program.

Hope that helps.   Send me an email if you have any questions.

Gary

For specific exercises for identifying and dissolving fear based beliefs based in the Four Agreements, begin with the free practices in the Self Mastery audio program.

The original  post located at Four Agreements Events and Workshops

Spiritual Warrior’s Journey

A spiritual warrior’s life is faithful journey through two worlds.  With one arm, he reaches out.  With complete abandon he grasps hold of intent which hurls him through unknown worlds of his fears, to exploding fields of light, and a completely irrational, and unreasonable, experience of unconditional love.

With the other hand, he strains to touch the earth and walk a path of clear and impeccable actions in a material world of full of nonsense.

Dirty Spirituality

We like our Spirituality clean.  That is to say we like our spiritual journey to be clean, neat, filled with lots of wonderful happy experiences, and love.   If that’s all you want you can at best go,,, half way.

That kind of spiritual journey ignores or denies dealing with the ego, self importance, fears, and various other illusions in the mind.  Coming face to face with your inner demons like the Judge, or Victim aspects of your personality are a dirty affair.  Being honest with our lack of impeccability, how we judge our self,  or other people, is humbling.  Miss those opportunities, and you miss out on dissolving the ego.

This business of cleaning up and dissolving your fears is dirty as well.  You can’t move through your fear of death, loneliness, or what others think of you, by looking at it from afar.  Nope.  You have to get dirty.  Be present with with those fears,,, and stay aware and awake at the same time.   That’s how your emotional body gets cleaned of fears and emotional wounds.  If you try and stay “clean” in this work you will miss those wounds.  You’ll end up having a nicely spiritual coat over your emotional wounds.

Challenge your inner demons and you will lose your attention to their tricks more often in the beginning than you will win.  You will take your licks as you learn to play their game better than they do.  You will have some falls into muddy emotions of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and perhaps even touch hopelessness now and again.  With some good training, and practice you can keep your self clean.  But you will get dirty along the way.

Yes this spiritual journey is dirty business.  At least it can be that way in the beginning.  Later, if you’ve cleaned up your emotional wounds, and dissolved your self importance, it takes on that bright sparkling look, and may even have a lemon fresh scent to it.

But for now, it’s okay that this spiritual work is dirty business.

Humility

There’s a tube down his throat to help him breathe.  The tube comes out of his neck and his breath bypasses his mouth.  They call it a trachea.   The doctors had to do it.  The infection had gotten so bad that his airway had almost swollen closed.  The previous set of doctors had dismissed the periodic coughing episodes as unimportant.  Now it was close to closing off his breathing.  The coughing had gotten worse and difficulty breathing couldn’t be dismissed anymore.

Phlegm builds up in his throat and trachea tube every hour or two.  It starts gurgling in his throat.  His body convulses in a coughing gag reflex effort to clear his airway.

We tell the nurse who calls the respiratory therapist.  The respiratory therapist puts a tube deep down his trachea and sucks out the phlegm.  She puts it down so far that it touches is internals.  It makes him heave a cough that lifts his whole upper body.  It looks like torture.  Not being able to breath normally.  Not even being able to clear one’s own throat.  Not being able to help him do something so simple that we all do so naturally all the time.  So easy to take your breath for granted when it comes so easily most of the time.

With the trachea tube in his throat bypassing his vocal cords he can’t talk.  He tries to write some words but that is difficult.  The farm equipment accident injured his left hand years ago.  That coupled with years of arthritis makes small hand manipulations difficult and his letters sloppy.  The morphine he’s on for the pain tends to make his mind fuzzy so he misspells words.   With sloppy writing and fuzzy spelling it is difficult to understand what he’s trying to write.   He’s beyond frustrated that he can’t tell us the simplest things that he wants… needs.  No way to clearly tell us what would make him more comfortable.

I can’t make him breathe easier.  I can’t make his fear go away that is a reflex from choking and gagging while the phlegm blocks his throat.  I can’t clear his throat.  I can’t make the infection in his throat go away that started this cascading of events and discomforts.  I can’t go back in time and change what transpired to have my dad end up in this hospital bed.

I’m not powerless and I don’t feel victimized.  There are simply things that I can do, and others that I don’t have power over. I’m not frustrated or angry.  I’m just aware that I don’t control the bodily functions, immune system, or emotions, of another human being.

I think knowing what you can’t change, and accepting it falls into the category of humility.  It’s not a joy in itself.  However it is far more peaceful than fighting what you can not change.  Life is a big place and respecting the forces of it is part of being impeccable. Death is one of those forces on the human body to respect.  Doing so can teach you a lot about savoring the moments of your life.  Little moments like breathing, or being able to speak and ask for what you want.

I don’t think those folks who proclaim, “If you can dream it, you can achieve it,” ever sat with their dad through the challenges of old age and a body with ailing health.

Humility isn’t about following the overly optimistic positive side of your personality to think you can create and change anything in life.  Nor is it about falling into the negative side of self importance and feeling victimized about life either.  Humility has to do with transcending both sides of self importance all together: the aspect that says you are helpless, and the aspect that says you can accomplish anything you can dream.  There is a middle way.

In the west our mind is so apt to put things into categories of being a winner or a loser,,, a success or a failure.   These are the dual images of self importance to avoid.  When you practice humility, you are no longer trapped by either of those limiting roles or labels.

Fear of Death

A spiritual warrior doesn’t fear death. Death is inevitable. A warrior recognizes that to fear death is ridiculous waste of time.

It is also an act of disrespect towards the gift of life.

That a warrior has no fear of death is not extra ordinary.  It’s just common sense.  What is extraordinary is how a warrior is able to face such an inevitable outcome with sobriety and not flinch with fear.  A warrior is able to do this because she has control over her attention.  She is able to look straight into passing of her body with the awareness and will power  to not let her self be distracted by a  thought or belief.

To have control over one’s attention doesn’t just mean to focus on something by controlling your will. You also have to control the point of view you see it all from.  Many people can focus on death but do so from a point of view from fear or uncertainty.

A spiritual warrior is able to hold their attention on the immortality of their body from a point of complete acceptance and love for the unknown.

Overcoming your fear of death is not a major accomplishment.  It is a fairly obvious and straightforward approach to living a satisfying life.   The extraordinary accomplishment is the control a warrior has developed over their attention.