The Toltec Masteries
Wisdom of The Four Agreements and Beyond
Musings on The Four Agreements, Toltec Lore and the Path to The Ultimate Freedom
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The Challenge of a Spiritual Warrior
Posted on June 16th, 2009 No commentsThe challenge of the spiritual warrior is daunting.
A recent email from a client working his way through an emotionally challenging divorce caused me to share with him something about the challenge of a spiritual warrior. In his breakup he is often overwhelmed with anger, sadness and frustration. Outbursts still happen as he does not yet have control over his attention. My reply:
It is a war,,, that’s why we call it being a Warrior.
In the beginning we will lose most, or almost all of the day to day, moment to moment battles for our attention. In a way that is to be expected. The benefit of understanding this is that you will not beat your self up when you fall into a story of drama, anger, or sadness etc. The danger of telling you this is that your judge and victim in your belief system might distort the challenge into being so hard and convince you to not even try.
What will you do with the information that this is a challenge? What will the judge and victim of your parasite do with the same information?
It is a risk to share this with you, and a risk to keep it from you.
My advice… do not measure the progress of your war by the results of a single moment, or even one day.
God Speed
Some of the bet guidance I can give can be found in the free audio and Self Mastery exercises at PathwayToHappiness.com The program is derived from my personal study with don Miguel Ruiz and the principles of the Four Agreements.
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The Challenge of a Spiritual Warrior
Posted on June 16th, 2009 No commentsThe challenge of the spiritual warrior is daunting.
A recent email from a client working his way through an emotionally challenging divorce caused me to share with him something about the challenge of a spiritual warrior. In his breakup he is often overwhelmed with anger, sadness and frustration. Outbursts still happen as he does not yet have control over his attention. My reply:
It is a war,,, that’s why we call it being a Warrior.
In the beginning we will lose most, or almost all of the day to day, moment to moment battles for our attention. In a way that is to be expected. The benefit of understanding this is that you will not beat your self up when you fall into a story of drama, anger, or sadness etc. The danger of telling you this is that your judge and victim in your belief system might distort the challenge into being so hard and convince you to not even try.
What will you do with the information that this is a challenge? What will the judge and victim of your parasite do with the same information?
It is a risk to share this with you, and a risk to keep it from you.
My advice… do not measure the progress of your war by the results of a single moment, or even one day.
God Speed
Some of the bet guidance I can give can be found in the free audio and Self Mastery exercises at PathwayToHappiness.com The program is derived from my personal study with don Miguel Ruiz and the principles of the Four Agreements.
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Speak to us of Love
Posted on June 14th, 2009 No commentsExcerpt from The Prophet by Kahlil Gilbran
“Speak to us of Love,” someone asked.
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.
And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
The book is worth reading more than once, as well are his other works.
This post originally posted at
http://www.toltecspirit.com/2009/06/love/
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When Relationship Are Confusing
Posted on June 9th, 2009 No commentsWhen a man describes his relationship as “confusing” or “It’s complicated…
It doesn’t mean that it’s really confusing or complicated. It usually means there are 3 or more emotions present and he doesn’t know how to make logical sense of what’s going on with that many responses .
To help you sort out what emotions are going on in your relationships, listen and practice the exercises in the Self Mastery audio program at Pathway to Happiness You might also take advantage of the free audio on awareness.
This post is by Gary van Warmerdam and the original is located at his website about the Four Agreements
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The Four Agreements – Why is it so Hard?
Posted on June 6th, 2009 No commentsLiving by the Four Agreements,,, why is it so hard?
We read the book the Four Agreements and feel better by the simple clarity it presents. It tells us something about our self, other people, and the world that we have always known, but not been able to put into words. With that clarity we have a sense of hope and excitement about changing our life and our relationships. It is possible to end the drama of emotional suffering and be happy.
We take the next step and adopt the four agreements as principles and practices that we continually live by. We are excited about the possibility, but then the reality sets in. Living our lives by the Four Agreements is challenging. It can even appear impossible. Why is it so hard when they are so simple?
We Make Endless Assumptions
It is because we have been practicing doing the exact opposite for almost our entire life. From the time we were 2 or 3 years old we have been making assumptions. We do it so continually we aren’t even aware how automatically we do it so often.
We Take Everything Personally
We also assume that we are the center of the world. We assume that people do things because of us. People react to what we say or do and we think it is about us. We aren’t aware that they have their own beliefs and interpretations that cause them to react. This assumption blinds us to personalize everything to our own point of view. We have done this for years and practiced it until we do it automatically. We have become masters of taking things personally.
We don’t believe we do our best.
The judge in our mind has been hard at work telling us what to do for years. It has been a constant reminder of what we should and shouldn’t do. In our child hood we learned to follow it as a god like authority in our life. We wouldn’t dare question what it tells us we should be. Because our obedience to that inner judge we never feel like we are doing our best.
Living by the Four Agreements is a Life Changing Commitment
All of this, making assumptions, interpreting everything from our own personal point of view, and living by the voice of the inner judge is the exact opposite of the Four Agreements. And we have been doing it for years. Practicing it every day for years,,, the exact opposite of the Four Agreements.
When you decide to adopt the Four Agreements you are changing the course of so many of the habits of your life. You will not make these changes in one day, or even one week. However, if you work at it over time, you can make extraordinary changes in your life.
If you decide to adopt the Four Agreements as a means to change your relationships and your life, don’t do it for a day or a week. Decide to do it a little bit each day for a year. Then see how much you have changed. To attempt to measure your results in a week, or a month is to make a gross error assumption in the magnitude of your undertaking.
For practical exercises in implementing the Four Agreements take advantage of the free sessions in the Self Mastery Audio Program.This post originally posted at The Four Agreements by Gary van Warmerdam
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Been Busy
Posted on April 28th, 2009 No commentsWhen I lived in Vermont a friend and I had this standing joke about, “Been busy.” There was an old man that wandered around saying,”Been busy. Been busy.” He was a likable old gent and his mantra about being busy always brought a smile to my face. It was also clear he never really got much done because he spent his day walking around town saying he’d been busy.
That’s what I feel like these days. Since I returned from Mexico I feel like have been busy and I don’t feel like I have accomplished very much. That is one of the reasons I love all the tools in my spiritual tool box. So I have cleaned off a corner of my desk and once again started my daily list of things to do.
Here is a video I made a while ago about overcoming procrastination. Of all the videos I made this one elicited the most comments. I am about to start making a lot more videos, so if you have any topics you would like to have me talk about please let me know!
Feel free to make comments and ask questions. I love interacting with my readers. Have a glorious Easter Sunday, a wonderful day for new beginnings!
With love and aloha,
Susana
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Happiness Statistics
Posted on April 28th, 2009 No commentsPsychologists have been studying happiness lately. Since happiness can’t be measure directly they have to take surveys. To make their studies more credible they take a lot of surveys and apply statistics. But here is the thing statisticians will tell you. Correlation does not mean causation.
From all these surveys on happiness psychologists concluded that there are a number of habits or activities that happy people do. Their conclusion is that if you practice these habits or actions you can raise your level of happiness to be as happy as them. These activities include things like practicing gratitude, having a close social circle, gardening, and giving to the community.
But what if the correlaton is from the opposite direction. Perhaps thos happy people have a lot of love to share. What if the emotion of love coming out of them is so great that they have to share it in some way? Out of that need to express their love they build close social circles, engage in activities and with communities in a way of sharing the love coming out of them.
If your love coming out of you is so strong you will find channels to express that love through social circles, activities like gardening, and caring for your community.
It is the emotion of love that will drive your activities,,, not the activities that that will change your emotion to happiness.
For specific exercises for identifying and dissolving fear based beliefs, begin with the free practices in the Self Mastery audio program.
The original post on Happiness Statistics
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How do you care for someone?
Posted on April 28th, 2009 No commentsSo often we pretend to care about someone. We convince our self that we are concerned for their happiness. But when our emotions become a wave of reaction to them our own well being is now at stake. When this happens our caring for them becomes unduly influenced to try and make our self feel better. At this point our caring for them might more honestly be called selfishness.
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 What it means to Care For Someone
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Search for Truth
Posted on April 27th, 2009 No commentsThe search for truth is often an iterative search.
Let’s say that you have a lot of false beliefs in your mind and they distort your perception and clarity of life, events, other people, and understanding your self. Let’s assume a number and say that 50% of your beliefs are false and 50% of your assumptions and beliefs are true. If you read a book that is 60-70% truth, it could have extraordinary insights on truth. It could open your mind to more truth and help shatter many of your illusions.
While it can be an incredible book that brings you clarity on so many things, you will still have 30-40% illusions in that book, and in your mind. Perhaps what is more interesting is that the clarity that book gives you might inspire you to faith in everything it says, even those things that are illusions. You become inspired and passionate about a book that is 30-40% illusions even though it gave you great insights. For you it is as if you found something that was “The Truth.”
Now imagine another scenario. Imagine that a person that lives under many more false beliefs than you do. Imagine someone’s mind where 70-80% of their beliefs are false, or distorted by false assumptions. Imagine that they read the same book that has truthful clarity of 60-70%.
Do you think that they will just completely understand and accept the information in that book? The truth of what that person reads will be in conflict with their existing set of beliefs. The ideas in that book will be in conflict with so much of what they already accept as true. The belief system in their mind will reject the ideas on the page as not true. To accept as true the material in that book would mean the collapse of so much of the structure of their belief system. This would be uncomfortable and in an effort to avoid that discomfort their mind would reject the new ideas even though they have greater clarity.
When the mind is full of illusions there is no room for the truth. The existing set of beliefs rejects any ideas that are contradictory to it’s current structure. When in search of The Truth it can be more valuable to empty your mind of false beliefs than to attempt to fill it up with more truthful ones.
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 The Search for Truth
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The Four Agreements of Small Business
Posted on April 13th, 2009 No comments
Brian Golbourne asked:
In the words of don Miguel Ruiz and don Jose Ruiz, “Everything we do is based on agreements we have made – agreements with ourselves, with other people, with God, with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible. One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreements that come from fear, deplete our energy, and diminish our self-worth. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible.”
You may be familiar with the powerful book, “The Four Agreements,” which was on the New York Times best seller list for over eight years. In this book, Ruiz explains the agreements which we make that dictate our being. What most aspiring entrepreneurs and the future business owners of the world don’t realize is – if you take these same principals and apply them to your small business, you will be guaranteed success. That’s right – guaranteed.
The first agreement that you must make with yourself and the commitment that you must make to your small business, is that you will be impeccable with your word. If you practice saying only what you mean and make a habit of that, you will gain trust and a positive reputation for yourself and your business. The same applies no matter what your field or business of choice is. In sales, marketing, hospitality or general managerial / leadership qualities, a person or establishment which is impeccable with their word is usually held to a higher standard than others. If an individual is notorious for constantly doing what they said they were going to do – chances are you will go back to them the next time you need something done. Your word is all you have. Once you go back on your word- in the eyes of others, your personal value or the value of your business has depreciated. Practice using the power of your word to drive you to success.
Next – don’t take anything personally. Business is business and the sooner you realize that nothing that anyone else does is because of you (or your fault), the better off you’ll be. Everyone is in business for one reason – profitability. All of us have one goal – and that is to maximize revenue and decrease cost. If something is done in what might be seen as a selfish manner or “cut throat,” remember its just business. What others say and or do is only a projection of their perception or reality. Think about this – if you were to call someone a green frog they may not react poorly since they acknowledge the fact that they are not a green frog. However if you were to call that person ugly instead, they may react differently! You shouldn’t take this personally. It has nothing to do with what you are actually saying to that person – but instead their perception or reality of themselves. Notice the difference in reactions when you call them ugly vs. the green frog. You’ve pushed one of their buttons and it sounds like it may be a confidence issue that they need to work out with themselves, not concerning anything that you may have said or done. The issue was pre-existing before you made any comments – so don’t take it personally! Making business decisions that are influenced by personal feelings or bias can be detrimental to your establishment. Put your personal feelings aside and always put the best interest of your business and assets first.
The third agreement that is an absolute requirement to the success of your business is to never make assumptions. By definition, an assumption is a proposition that is taken for granted, as if it were known to be true. Have you ever been around the President, CEO or Owner of a company? My experience of them is being very meticulous and they all seem to have a tendency to ask a lot of questions. This is because they know better. We can really set ourselves up for failure if we continue to take action on important business decisions based off of assumptions. Never assume that someone is going to handle a situation or task that you asked them to. Never assume that your customers or guests are satisfied. Never assume that anything will be okay. This is why CEOs are CEOs. Instead of assuming, they ask the necessary questions to make sure they are correct. If your business is your lifeline, why would you put even the smallest piece of it in jeopardy by believing something about it, with little or no evidence? Stay true to this agreement and you will flourish in your personal and entrepreneurial life.
The last agreement – always do your best. Why wouldn’t you? It sounds like a simple agreement to make, but how often do you say you do your best, when in fact, you know you could have done more? Think about it and be honest with yourself. There are too many things that we all do in our lifetimes that we are not giving our best. Imagine how powerful you would be if you shifted your focus, and gave 100%, 100% of the time. Believe it or not, its harder than it seems. But think about the possibilities that are available to you, if you were to always give your best towards your business. Unless you had a horrible, horrible business concept, I think there’s no way your efforts won’t pay off.
In conclusion, I am a firm believe that your success in your business is mind over matter. If you make an agreement with yourself and to your business that you will be impeccable with your word, never take anything personally, never make assumptions and always do your best, you will be amazed at the outstanding results you will achieve. It sounds easy, but unfortunately, it’s not. We break commitments and agreements to ourselves and each other every day. There’s always tomorrow or some good excuse as to why we are putting something off or not doing it at all. Be responsible, acknowledge your breakdown and get back on the horse. “Say only what you mean. The word is the most powerful tool we have as human beings,” says Don Miguel Ruiz and Jose Ruiz. This gift of knowledge that they give us is something they encourage us to use in our lives. I encourage you to start by applying it to your small business. It’s time to start taking committed action towards your success. What legacy will you leave behind?
Willa