Miguel Ruiz - Toltec Spirit

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/

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

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.

Mother Sarita

Mother Sarita and don Miguel Ruiz Today Sara Macias Vasquez left her body behind and journeyed into the Spirit. We know her as Mother Sarita. She is don Miguel Ruiz’s mother, an amazing healer, and a Spiritual Guide to many. I had the pleasure of her company many times. And every time was an inspiring example of unconditional love, passion, and faith. In her ninety’s she has more passion about life than most people I know. To witness her presence each time was a gift of life. She was 98.

Raised in rural Mexico, she learned ancient Toltec wisdom from her shaman grandfather, and passed this wisdom on to her son, author don Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements). In 2007, Mother Sarita was inducted into The San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame for her contributions to healing and teaching, and for her role as an influential mentor. Her message “Si se puede,” (Yes, it¹s possible) was an inspiration to many. Her courageous and loving spirit will be greatly missed.

(Born January 8, 1910; deceased May 22, 2008)

Her Spirit, her teachings, her wisdom, passion, and Faith will live on in her many students, children and grandchildren, including don Miguel, and his sons.

She lived beautifully, and her dream lives beautifully in many.

Thank you

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.

Inorganic Beings and the Parasite

In his book The Four Agreements, don Miguel Ruiz describes what he calls the parasite. This concept, and others similar to it such as “inorganic beings” often bring up questions in people’s minds. Someone sent me such a question and I decided to post my answer below. I hope to bring some common sense awareness to the issue and dissipate some of the superstition and fears around it. (please be patient with the grammar as English was not this person’s first language.)

DEAR GARY,

AS I AM NEW TO THE TOLTEC PATH, I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU A QUESTION.

IT´S ABOUT INORGANIC BEINGS

I DID A SEARCH ON THE NET AND FOUND THAT SOME PEOPLE TALK ABOUT ANGELS, ALLIES, FRIENDS, AND INORGANIC BEINGS. SOME SAID THAT THEY TAKE ALL OUR ENERGY, AND WE ARE LIKE SLAVES TO THEM, WE GIVE THEM ENERGY THEY GIVE US INFORMATION ABOUT OTHERS DIMENSIONS.

OTHER SAYS THAT WE HAVE TO FEAR THEM. THEY ARE ALL POWERFUL. I FOUND ONE GUY WHO SELLS CRYSTALS WHICH TAKE ALL THEIR ENERGY BACK TO US. HE SAYS THEY ARE LIKE VAMPIRES AND DEMONS AND WE CANNOT DO ANYTHING IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD WITHOUT THEM. THERE’S A LOT OF THINGS WHICH SEEMS THEY ARE GODS, AND WE SLAVES.

COULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT INORGANIC BEINGS?

THANKS, JORGE
FROM RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
(SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH)

__________

Hello Jorge,

Carlos Castenada mentions this in the Active Side of Infinity. Don Juan describes it as the “topic of topics.”

I’ve let this question sit in my mailbox for a few days deciding what to do with it. Just the name “inorganic beings” conjures up mystery and for many that means confusion. Confusion leads to guesses, assumptions, and wanderings of the imagination in speculation. Sometimes this can lead to superstition and fear. The more you write and speak about it the more attention, discussion, and distortion people are likely to stir up. It’s not my intent to stir up fear and superstition but rather to dispel it. At the risk of more confusion and distortion I decided to publish my response anyways.

When we make explanations about these energy beings they are generally done in metaphor. It has to be done in metaphor because that is what words are. Abstract terminology like “energy, entity, dreams, taking our energy, gods, slaves, and power” all add to the confusion, and often create superstition. That superstition can lead to fear. Fear is the big demon that sucks your energy. Of course once you have fear of some “entity” that can not be seen you then might want to protect your self as a reaction to unknown threat. Trade your money for a crystal to protect your self and you have compensated for your fear. You sill have your fear, but you have put your faith in the idea that the crystal will protect you so you balance it out emotionally with a feeling of safety.

And so the chain reaction of personal power bleeding events goes.

In short, inorganic beings exist. Don Miguel Ruiz even refers to them as a “parasite” that eats our energy and doesn’t’ give us anything back. Ekhardt Tolle refers to the “pain body” as behaving as a living being. In the West we might be more familiar with the term “ego” or the term collective unconscious is used by psychologist. It’s no different than what we are used to, but since the culture has a different language we don’t know what they are referring to and that can cause confusion.

Fears are one example of something inorganic that you can feel possessed by. Very simply you can consider your mind such an energy being. All the voices in your head talking have taken on a life of their own. The mind is not you and for most people it doesn’t obey your wishes. It keeps chattering even though you want it to be silent at times. Very simply it is a living being with a life of its own and for most people it is not under control. A simple test of this is to sit still and do your best to quiet your mind. When you do that you will see what I mean.

In heightened states of awareness you can see the field of energy that don Miguel calls a parasite. They can look like clouds of smoke, or fog that surrounds a person’s body. It is a cloud of beliefs and emotions that distort a person’s perceptions. If you were talking to someone and you didn’t believe a word they said, you might say, “They live in a dream world.” We’ll imagine that that dream world that surrounds a person is the belief system of their ego and that it looks like a field of fog. You can visualize that field of illusions in someones mind a different way, but this is the way I visualize it.

What does your ego or parasite eat and how do they get our energy? They principally eat our emotions, and our faith. Faith is a life force energy or one type of personal power that we can express. When we put faith into a conceptual idea or an opinion we give it life in our mind. When we believe thoughts in our head, we give them power and life. They become bigger. The more we believe them, the bigger and more powerful forces they become in our life. When we believe strongly in something that has a lot of emotion we can then react to those beliefs and that emotion.

When we put enough faith in those conceptual ideas in our head we start acting upon them. Those beliefs start dictating our actions. For example if we believe: “Inorganic beings can suck our energy, then we will fear them. If we get this crystal and wear it we will be protected.” These are just conceptual ideas, and if we believe them they become alive in our mind. We are in effect giving life to conceptual ideas in an effort to keep other conceptual ideas at bay. The conceptual ideas tell us what we have to do to protect ourselves from other conceptual ideas. These are just assumptions. We give up our free will to these assumptions, opinions, beliefs and fears. That is how humans become slaves to these beliefs in the mind.

Years ago different societies created grandiose ideas that they believed in as a society. Because everyone believed in them together they became gods over large numbers of people. There was Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon, etc. The people put their faith and emotions of love and fear into those conceptual ideas. Those conceptual ideas became powerful forces in their life. They were gods that the people served but they were not real. They only existed as conceptual ideas in people’s mind. Yet the faith and emotion they created around these gods were real. The amount of faith and emotion invested by humans made these gods powerful.

Years later, nobody believes in those gods and because nobody puts their faith in them they have no power. Because no one believed in them they could no longer exist. If you don’t want to be under the influence of inorganic beings and entities, then don’t believe them. Yes they exist as dreams, but don’t believe in assumptions, opinions, judgments, or conceptual ideas that they convey. Very simply don’t believe in lies. That is all the protection you need.

The challenge is that they can be very tricky and subtle. Today we wouldn’t believe in silly gods of Zeus and Apollo. But we might believe our own opinions. We often believe the voice in our head that is speaking to us. It tells us “I shouldn’t have done that” and we believe. It is just habit. It is a little god in our head that judge’s us that we are wrong, or ugly, or an idiot. It rules our life like a tyrant. The inner judge tells us bad things will happen if we disobey it. We create fear and feed it fear when we think about disobeying that voice in our head.

Often the little gods in our head (“parasite”) are backed up by larger gods of society and culture. Religions and expectations of society support the little gods in our mind and that congruency of assumptions make the little voice appear to be telling the truth. In reality these norms are just conceptual ideas that are accepted and believed by the majority of the people in that culture. If you go into another culture they have a different set of beliefs and to them your beliefs look like silly superstitions.

Years ago people believed that slavery was an acceptable way of treating people. Very recently apartheid was an acceptable social norm in South Africa. You can see that apartheid is just a conceptual idea. It doesn’t exist as anything more than a set of beliefs. When people change what they believe, apartheid laws no longer have power over their mind. We could say that apartheid was just a dream of conceptual ideas powered by the energy of people’s faith. It was an idea that humans give life to, and then that idea ruled their behavior.

Not all inorganic beings, entities, and dreams drain on our energy. If you listen to the first session of my Self Mastery Program you will notice that I am inviting you to create the emotion of gratitude. By creating that emotion you are developing your own personal living dream of emotion. It is your own god of gratitude. Except that it doesn’t rule you. You create it. What you will notice about this meditation is that I don’t invite or suggest that you believe anything in order to do this. It is a simple exercise of perceiving and expressing. In this way you don’t expend any personal power of your faith but you still benefit with the enjoyment of a beautiful dream of emotion.

By expressing the emotion of gratitude you are creating your own cloud made of the emotions that come from love. We are going to create and feel emotions so why not create emotions that we enjoy. It is your creation and is dependent on you. You created it and you give it life. In return it gives you a good feeling. Because it doesn’t require you to believe anything, it doesn’t drain your faith. That means it is not a parasite. Because it helps to keep your eyes open and enjoying life. It is an ally that helps you stay in love and gratitude.

By staying in love and gratitude you are not expressing fear and feeding the dream of the parasite. The more you practice this exercise, the less you are directing your faith into conceptual ideas that create fear. Expressing love and gratitude will help you to be free of the parasite more than a crystal.

In the rest of the Self Mastery exercises I teach about taking an inventory of your beliefs so that you can identify these conceptual ideas and recover your faith and emotions from those dreams in the mind.

There is no need to fear inorganic beings, entities, the parasite, or any of those things. They are just dreams. As humans we create them. They are completely dependent on us for life. As we become more aware they will no longer be able to hypnotize us with their conceptual ideas. Those beings might be afraid of us gaining this awareness because it will be their end. But their fear is not our fear. It is the nature of the conscious evolution of the humans that we create and dream with more love and less fear.

That is just the evolution of consciousness. In your personal dream of consciousness you can go as fast as you wish beyond fear and into clarity and love. The more you change your personal dream from one of fear to a dream of love, the more your personal dream affects the collective dream of humanity. This is why one of the greatest gifts you can give humanity is to be express love and be happy in your life. If you do this, then when you die you will leave a giant inorganic field of love for the people you leave behind.

I hope this helps.

Gary van Warmerdam