Toltec Spirit | based on the four agreements™

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.

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
http://www.toltecspirit.com/2009/12/four-agreements-companion-book/

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.

Awakening Consciousness

The human being is a pod.  It is essentially a cocoon,,, for a seed of consciousness to mature and become self realized.  Most human beings live their lives in varying degrees of unconsciousness, never giving birth to a fully mature consciousness.

There are associations that our mind makes, particularly where our self importance is concerned.  We build a self image structure of beliefs.   In that structure of beliefs we usually think of people in powerful positions, as being more important.  The associated belief is that if we have less power, then we are less important.  And to our belief system less importance means less worth.

The emotional math we do with our self image is to associate our self worth to our power.  The more power we wield, the more important and valued we are.  The less power we have, the the less we feel we are worth.

This is all to say that we use the subject of power to create beliefs about our self worth.  While that may seem to make sense to some people,,,, what gets really weird is when you become aware of the kinds of power we usually use to base our self worth on.

Being a moral person has gotten confused by a lot of people to mean being right.   I don’t think it really means that.  Being moral person has more to do with being kind, compassionate, and respectful.

Living 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

The 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

What is forgiveness?

Forgiveness is the process of detaching your faith from your belief in what “should” have happened, or what someone “should” have done.   When you no longer hold on to that expectations, you are left accepting life as it is.

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 is Forgiveness?

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