The Voice of Knowledge Part 3 of 4: Emotions are Real
January 21, 2009 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
In The Voice of Knowledge, Ruiz conceives of emotions as an effect (rather than a cause) and genuine (rather than false). What? Let’s take the example of a dog. A dog does not know that he is a dog. He is just living his life (as we did as children before the voice of knowledge entered our lives). Let’s say that you come home every day and pet the dog, feed the dog, walk the dog, and hug the dog. The dog will mature as a dog that is affable, fun-loving, and positively responsive. Let’s say that instead when you come home in an angry state, you kick the dog, you beat the dog, and you ignore the dog. The dog will live in fear, might bite you, or run away. Are the emotions that the dog is feeling genuine or false? They are genuine, real emotions that are in response to an external cause.
This analogy will help you understand that when we respond in a certain way, our emotions are real and authentic. However, they are an effect that we may not want to have, e.g., anger, envy, hatred, etc. They are an effect that must have a cause. The cause (if we are talking about a negative cause) is the cause that is created by our telling each other lies and not being true to ourselves. If we live by the four agreements (be impeccable with your word; don’t take anything personally; don’t make assumptions; and always do your best), we will be free of the cause and thereby free of the effect. If someone tells you his or her lie that you are not good enough, you might respond naturally with self-pity, hatred toward the other person, etc. However, if you don’t believe that lie and remain free of the emotional poison that is leveled at you, then you will not suffer a negative emotional effect. Tomorrow, we will end our discussion with how do we begin to escape the unwanted causes so that we don’t have unwanted effects obviously with reference to the four agreements as the bedrock source material.
The Voice of Knowledge Part 2 of 4: Storytelling
January 20, 2009 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
Ruiz imagines that our lives are a dream and that we tell our stories of our life through imagining how we want to live that life. In essence, we are our own creators of our story like an artist. Ruiz’s grandfather presents the scenario that Ruiz asks Pablo Picasso to paint a portrait of him: ”When you see it finally, you say, ‘That’s not me. It does not look like me.’ Picasso replies, ‘But, of course, that is how I see you.’” We are all artists creating our own imagined story. If we see ourselves as an artist creating our story, then we do not have issues with someone else telling us that our story should be so and so. We create our own story based on our own perception.
However, sometimes we create a false story because we do not see the truth of ourselves or refuse to do so. We believe our own lies and we believe the lies that others tell of us. How do we begin to tell an authentic story of ourselves? How do we scrub away the voice of knowledge so that we see ourselves without the dense fog of mitote? The answer is straightforward but not easy: we follow the four agreements outlined last week. We stay impeccable with our word; we do not take anything personally; we do not make assumptions; and we always do our best (not more and not less).
When we start living by the principles of the four agreements, we start to see the obvious qualities of the lies that we tell ourselves and we see how others lie about us. If we remain impeccable with our word, we approach a condition in which we cannot lie to ourselves because it is against our very nature. The voice of knowledge that tells us that we are not worthy or when someone else screams that to us must be gently erased through the process of self awareness. If we remain impeccable with our word, we become authentic and truthful. The greatest lie that we tell is not one told to others, it is the one that we tell ourselves every day. What is that lie? Once you start living by the four agreements, you will start to see your own lies and begin to free yourself from those lies. You start to become an authentic individual, unfettered by the shackles of our own self-imposed hell. We become the perfect creatures that God created and reflect His light. We stop becoming a product of our own untruth. Tomorrow, we will investigate how emotions play in our lives and how we should perceive emotions in our lives.
The Four Agreements Part 2 of 5: Be Impeccable With Your Word
January 13, 2009 by dr. lam · 11 Comments
The first agreement is the most important agreement that you must have with yourself; it is at once the most powerful but also the most difficult to keep. We must struggle with it on a daily basis but we must not let a failure from yesterday influence our decision to continue with our fulfillment of this agreement. Many times we live either in the past or in the future, but we must live in the present moment so that we maintain each agreement as a daily renewable contract with ourselves.
Words are magical. The words that we use reflect more of ourselves than of those we speak. In the Gospel of John, it says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word is God.” The words we choose to use can either be pure magic filled with love, compassion, and generosity or be black magic that casts a spell on all those who hear it. One man in Germany stirred up an intelligent nation to commit the most grievous atrocities and acts of violence 70 years ago simply through the use of his word.
To be impeccable with your word means to be without sin in your use of words. Impeccable comes from the Latin “im-” meaning without and “peccatus” meaning sin. We sin against ourselves first and foremost but we sin against others when we use words in a harmful way. When a child singing beautifully hears her mother say, “Stop singing! You have an ugly voice.” That child carries that agreement, or belief system, for the rest of her life. Even though the mother may have been irritated by any voice in her proximity no matter how angelic, the child will bear the burden of not wanting to sing forever until someone might break her spell with a new agreement, “Wow, you have the most amazing voice! Why don’t you sing for me?”
When we call someone “stupid”, we are not being impeccable with our word. If someone called you stupid in the past, and you are living with that legacy, you must make a new agreement with yourself to free yourself from the chains of another’s black magic. That person calling you stupid, uneducated, foolish, or whatever is pointing his or own finger at himself not at you.
The most emotionally poisonous black magic that we can throw is gossip. When we speak ill of someone else around us, we cast a terrible spell. If you are impeccable with your word, the spell cannot be cast on you no matter how black the magic the person uses. Being impeccable with your word creates an aura of love and acceptance that does not accept the black magic of the other person’s word. But you cannot be impeccable with your word if you cast that black magic. Using words to demean others reflects more on the person that speaks it than it does on the person against whom the words are used.
This first agreement must be made with yourself. It is an agreement to leave your own self-imposed hell. It allows you to only use words in an impeccable way. If you fail, do not abandon your quest. But begin anew. Be impeccable with your word.