NOTE: All unbolded text is taken directly from either “The Four Agreements” or “The Four Agreements Companion Book” by Don Miguel Ruiz, and all credit extends to the author. Bolded text is my personal commentary.
To be aware of what happened with our mind and with the whole of humanity is what the Toltec call the Mastery of Awareness. Awareness means to open your eyes to see the truth, and to no longer be blind. We are born with awareness, but we accumulate knowledge and we practice not being aware, we learn to deny what we perceive. We are born without knowledge, of course, but we accumulate knowledge when we are domesticated. That knowledge is like a wall of focus that doesn’t allow us to perceive what really is; it keeps us from having awareness.
The challenge is to maintain our awareness in the midst of the fog. More than that, to shift the knowledge, lift the fog, and recover our awareness. If we can practice being aware all the time, just the awareness will change our whole reality.
DOMESTICATION
During the process of domestication, we form an image of perfection in order to try to be good enough. We create an image of how we should be in order to be accepted by everybody.
After domestication it is no longer about being good enough for anybody else. We are not good enough for ourselves because we don’t fit with our own image of perfection.
Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves. We know we are not what we believe we are supposed to be and so we feel false, frustrated, and dishonest. We try to hide ourselves, and we pretend to be what we are not. The result is that we feel unauthentic and wear social masks to keep others from noticing this.
We judge others according to our image of perfection as well, and naturally they fall short of our expectations.
Any belief that generates fears or feelings of unworthiness is false; it’s a lie. Our authentic self would never abuse us; it comes from love.
PRACTICING AWARENESS
1. BECOME AWARE OF THE RULES AND AGREEMENTS IN YOUR “BOOK OF LAW”. The Book of Law, even though it isn’t physical, creates a strong and rigid structure made by agreements, and we call it a belief system. Begin to challenge your Book of Law. Ask which agreements lift me up and give me joy? Which ones bring me down? Which ones are based on truth? Which ones are lies?
2. BECOME AWARE OF THE JUDGE INSIDE YOUR MIND, “THE VOICE OF KNOWLEDGE” THAT JUDGES EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. Is your judge very fair and forgiving, or is it always harsh and unforgiving?
3. BECOME AWARE OF THE VICTIM INSIDE YOUR MIND THAT CARRIES THE BLAME, SHAME AND GUILT.
4. IMAGINE IF YOU COULD TAKE BACK THE POWER YOU GAVE TO THE JUDGE YEARS AGO, AND RULE YOUR LIFE BASED ON PRINCIPLES OF LOVE, JOY, AND FREEDOM. IMAGINE IF YOUR VICTIM WAS TRANSFORMED FROM “POOR ME” TO AN EMPOWERED PERSON.
THE POWER OF THE WORD
The word is not just a sound or a written symbol, it is a vibration of sound that has the tendency to manifest its physical equivalent.
The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life.
Through the word we manifest everything; we express our will, our intent, our love, and are faith, which are all the same thing.
Practicing Awareness
1. BEWARE OF COMMON PHRASES AND CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS (example: I’m sick and tired, I’m getting to old for this, I’m dying to, I can’t afford to…) Know that like attracts like when it comes to the word.
2.SELF LOVE BEGINS WITH SELF RESPECT
Notice what you say to yourself about yourself every day, are these words kind, respectful and loving?
3.PUT AN END TO GOSSIP
Notice when, where, and with whom you engage in gossip. Notice how gossip makes you feel, notice what you enjoy about gossiping. Take steps to avoid gossiping (changing the subject, saying something positive, staying silent).
4. LET GO OF THE NEED TO DEFEND YOUR OPINIONS AND ALWAYS BE RIGHT
Your opinion is nothing but your point of view. It is not necessarily true.
5. USE THE POWER OF YOUR WORD IN THE DIRECTION OF TRUTH AND LOVE
DREAMING: AWARENESS OF YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF
From the Toltec perspective, your entire life has been a dream. You are dreaming right now with the brain awake, and you also dream with the brain asleep.
The dream is ongoing everywhere, not just in humans, but in plants, in rocks, in everything because light puts all the information that comes from Life inside each form of matter. Light is the messenger of Life; it contains all information, all power, all possibilities, and all potential of Life.
There is only one living being manifesting in billions of forms.
I know this may be a little difficult to understand, but if you use your imagination it will be very clear. Imagine a perfect mirror that reflects what exists outside of it. Of course, we cannot touch what is inside the mirror because it’s only an illusion. What we see inside the mirror is a virtual reality, and we know that it’s not real. It’s the same with the human mind. The eyes, the brain, the mind work so perfectly together that we can swear the image is real. But what we see inside our mind is a virtual reality created by images of light. This reflection of light is the dream.
The dream is alive, and it can change as fast as light, as fast as Life. When our awareness is there - in the light instead of the fog, in our faith instead of our knowledge - we recover our faith, our will, and our power. And we find that we have the power to make choices, to take risks, to project, to perceive, to interact, and to master the dream.
Practicing Awareness
1. UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE DREAMING AND EVERYBODY AROUND US IS DREAMING, WITH OR WITHOUT AWARENESS
2. BECAUSE WE KNOW OTHERS ARE DREAMING, AND IT IS ONLY THEIR POINT OF VIEW, WE NO LONGER TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY
3. BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THE DREAM AND THE DREAMER ARE CONSTANTLY CHANGING, IT BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
4. WE THEN NATURALLY USE OUR INTEGRITY TO GUIDE OUR ACTIONS, REACTIONS, AND OUR INTERACTIONS WITH ALL THOSE DREAMERS WHO DON’T HAVE AWARENESS
Our Closing Meditation:
Your integrity is who you really are, what you really are, the totality of your authentic self. Spend a few moments every day to get in touch with the memory of what you are. Allow yourself to imagine the possibility that you are made by a certain frequency of Light. Light is the messenger of God; it contains all the information, all possibilities, and all power. Imagine that you are made of Light, of Spirit. There is nothing you need to do. There is nothing you need to be except what you really are. Remember what you are, and the dream of your Life will have no limits.
Dear wise women, if you made it this far, congratulations! I captured and summarized a lot of information here! I hope that you are all able to gleam some gems that feel reachable for you. As you go forward, and as we go forward together, I invite you to ponder Don Miguel’s words:
Humanity has progressed a lot. Just by having the awareness that the whole society is dreaming, you can see all the possibilities; you can see that we are going in the right direction. But of course, in order to change the whole society, we first have to change ourselves.
With tremendous excitement for the possibilities…
xoxo
Patti