Tag: Four Agreements

The Mitote

The “mitote” (me-toe-tay) as described in The Four Agreements, refers to the cacophony of voices in your head.  They are all talking but none of them seem to listen.

The mitote is driven by all those false beliefs, self importance, fears, layers of denial and justifications.  As you become aware the mitote can appear to be an endless stream of useless chatter talking over itself.  Try to turn it off in the beginning and you get a lesson in humility.    As you learn to observe it with neutrality, which is a critical step in dissolving the mitote, you find that it often tricks you by pulling your attention into the conversation.

Yes,,, it is a matrix of illusions.   But you can keep it all straight when you are aware that the truth is simple, so simple that it doesn’t need words.

Domestication

We were socialized to be anti-social.

Don’t talk to Strangers… instead fear strangers.

It’s important to be right… that means that you are probably going to alienate someone by pointing out how the are wrong.

You have to earn respect.

Happiness and feeling good comes with accomplishment.  Therefore it is not intrinsic to what and who you are.  Hold off feeling good about your self.

Lock your doors.  Be afraid.

If you do something wrong you deserve to be punished.   Not forgiven.

We learned to live by other people’s rules of punishment and reward.  When we grow up we eventually discover that living by other people’s rules doesn’t work for us anymore.

Until we understand our socialization, what don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements calls Domestication, we won’t be able to change it.   The key to change is an inventory of your beliefs.

Personal Power

There is often an interest to acquire more personal power.  This approach becomes a common trap in a spiritual warrior’s path.  The desire to gather personal power is often a compensating strategy for that feeling of not being powerful enough.

When you gain personal power based in this motivation your “I’m not powerful enough” story is being fed.  Gaining personal power becomes a remedy that doesn’t address the source of the problem, and can even makes it bigger.

Turn your attention to your desires, and the fears, beliefs, and self importance that spawn them and you will have a chance to become free.

Spiritual Warrior

I use to be in awe of my fellow spiritual warriors.  I had the utmost respect for them.  There are very few people who have the courage to challenge their fears, judgments, and inner demons.

Spiritual Warriors still have my utmost respect.

However I am no longer hold them in awe.

I have come to realize that all those inner demons, fears, and that great big inner judge are not real.  They do exist, but they are not real.  They are creations of your imagination and only exist in the abstract.  The only power they have is from the faith you put in them.   They have no sustaining power of their own, or are any more real than a dream you had last night.  They exist only in the abstract imagination of the mind.

What you are really facing are projections of your imagination.  When put in that perspective, you realize that your inner demons are illusions.  Then it doesn’t take as much courage as I first assumed.

I still have the utmost respect for spiritual warriors that challenge the fears, judgments, and illusions in their mind.  However I no longer see it as taking extraordinary courage.    It’s really just a matter of common sense to rid your mind of these emotional drama making illusions.

Teachings of Miguel Ruiz

These are the words of don Miguel Ruiz. He is the author of the Four Agreements and The Mastery of Love. I don’t know which book they are from. Perhaps The Voice of Knowledge. The creator of this video didn’t seem to give a reference to the work. If these aren’t his exact words, then at least this is in alignment with his message.

These are the layers of the onion to be unraveled. To be free of your identity of the body. Then to be free of your identity of the mind. Then to be free to move beyond the Soul. To be life, the force that moves through all things. That is immortality. Life everlasting.

Control Folly

JW. asks about Control Folly

So I’m battling with this idea of controlled folly. ( I think I know what you would say, don’t believe in controlled folly, lol). Do you have your own personal idea of what that is? I have a couple of interpretations of what that means. One would be to live in a state of love and grace while still respecting peoples fear boundary’s. Another would be to extract deeper meaning from what people say while still acting like there is little meaning in the way things happen.

Thanks for your time Gary, I always appreciate hearing from you.

JW

Dear JW.

For a Spiritual Warrior Control Folly doesn’t have much value as a practice until they have cleaned their mind of all old beliefs and social domestication. At that point a warrior has the option to act in any circumstance with an infinite number of choices. Any one of his actions is completely unimportant. However if a Spiritual Warrior chooses, he will engage in the experience in a way that is deeply connected and meaningful. That is Control Folley.

To engage in a way that is with complete respect and with unconditional love is just the common sense choice to be Impeccable.

Control Folly is really only something that can be done once a Warrior has cleaned their mind of old beliefs and dispensed with all their old habits.  Until then a person can too easily delude themselves into believing they are making a choice.

Gary