Toltec Wisdom

By Deb Kline

Presented:            1/20/02 UU Fellowship of Ames

7/14/02 First Unitarian Church of DSM

Thousands of years ago, in Southern Mexico, artists and scientists formed a society to practice ancient spiritual knowledge known as Toltec teachings. They became masters, or naguals, in the pyramids near present day Mexico City. These pyramids are still called the place where “Man Becomes God.” The Toltec knowledge is not a religion, but rather a way of engaging in the world with personal freedom and happiness. These ideas were introduced to me in a book I read called, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I will share Ruiz’s interpretation of Toltec teachings as a beginning path for you own personal freedom and happiness.

In the Toltec tradition, there is an ancient tale of a man who sought enlightenment, believing there was more to the world than what was seen and taught. One night, upon gazing at stars her realized that he and the stars were both reflections of the same light source. In fact he realized that everyone and everything was radiating a reflection of this one light. He saw himself in everyone and in everything. He couldn’t help but share this new understanding with each person he encountered.

But the people did not understand him. They knew he had a miraculous transformation and called him a man of God. But he called himself The Smokey Mirror, to remind himself that though he was a reflection of light, others couldn’t see themselves in him. He realized that everyone, as he had previously, was living in a smoky fog, a dream state, unaware of what they truly were—reflections of the light of the universe.

In the spirit of this dream state, I ask that you indulge me as I lead you in a childhood song, a round we all know well. (Lead singing of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, 2 or 3 part round: “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”) We know how the song goes, “Life is but a dream.” Is life but a dream? The Toltec teachings use this analogy. So does the Buddhist tradition in a passage by Vairacchedika. “Regard this phantom world, as a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp—a phantom—and a dream.” Toltec teachings go beyond abstract imagery to explain our dream-state existence. The Toltec teachings tell us that most people are like the people in the story of Smokey Mirror. We do not see the universal light reflecting in ourselves or in others. We go about our own business, living our own lives without perceiving our interconnectedness. To be aware of one’s own dream state in life is the first step on the path to personal freedom and happiness.

The Toltecs refer to the process of our own domestication in passing the life dream phenomenon to each consecutive generation. This can be likened to Behavioral Psychology theory. As children our parents domesticate us. Our parents through rewards and punishments attempt to elicit desired behaviors from us. Based on the reaction of parents to our behaviors, we learn to judge ourselves and others. When we receive approval for a behavior, we judge it as good. When we receive disapproval for a behavior, we judge it as bad. This rapidly translates beyond the behavior to, “I am good. I am bad.”

Our own mind replaces our parent voices and continues to domesticate us by judging everything based on our own belief system or our “Book of Law.” Our domestication experiences assume that everything in our “Book of Law” is true. There is a “Judge” in our mind that compares everything we do to our “Book of Law” and dictates punishments to your mind’s “Victim.” This victim is the voice in your head that praises or berates your success and failures. This is the dream state we live in. This is the smoke that keeps us from seeing who we really are.

The reality is, the Toltecs say, is that we all have our own “Book of Law” that is unique to our domestication experience.  We are judging everyone and everything around us by our “Book of Law.” The mistake we make is believing that others are judging us by our laws as well. But others have their own “Book of Law” and are judging us by their “Books of Law”. The thing to know about our “Book of Law” and others’, is that it is filled with beliefs, not truths. Thich Nhat Hanh from the Buddhist tradition explains, “All systems of thought are guiding means, they are not absolute truths…Do not think the knowledge that you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth.”

An example from The Four Agreements explains this more clearly: A child is amusing herself by singing. She is having so much fun she sings louder and louder. Her mother is in the other room and has had a long day and longs for peace and quiet. In a moment of frustration, she calls to her daughter, “Will you please be quiet. I can’t stand your awful singing anymore!” The daughter stops singing and tells herself, “My singing is awful.” It gets written into her book of law. Because she now believes her singing is awful, she sings less and less. But in reality, the mother thought her daughter had a beautiful singing voice—it was just at that moment that anything loud would have been “awful” to the mother. The daughter grows up and longs in her soul to be a singer, but unless she recognizes and challenges her beliefs, it may prove too difficult to achieve. She has terrible stage fright from her belief, “my singing is awful” even though she knows others enjoy her singing.

This is just one example of how our experiences shape the beliefs that get translated into the “Book of Law.” How many beliefs in your own book of law are not based on truth, but based on reactive assumptions? What if you could change your “Book of Law”? What if you could realize the “Judge” in your mind is using agreements you made with yourself against you that may not even be true? What if you no longer had to be the “Victim” of the critic voice in you mind?

Don Miguel Ruiz suggests there are four “Agreements” you can adopt to silence your “Judge,” free your “Victim” and rewrite your “Book of Law.”

The first agreement is: “Be Impeccable with Your Word.” Sounds simple, but is quite difficult due to the automatic pilot of our thoughts and speech. Words are powerful energy we expel into the universe. To be impeccable is to use your words to reflect universal light, or universal love to yourself and the world. If your words are of light and love, they can cast spells of white magic that influence and change the world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. But words that are not impeccable, words of darkness, fear and hate, cast spells of black magic that influence and change the world. Adolph Hitler also had a dream. We are challenged to be careful with our words, knowing they cast spells, to rightly project the energy of intent behind them.

 And we are also challenged to consciously decide which words to receive from other people. Has this ever happened to you? Someone tells you, “You look pale. Are you feeling okay? I think you may be coming down with something. You look like I did last week just before I got the flu.” Perhaps you actually looked and felt fine. But, if you believe the other person, you are likely to become ill due to the belief that you must be coming down with something. If you are intent on being impeccable with your word, there is also gossip to steer clear of. Ruiz compares our mind to a computer, with gossip as a computer virus.

The Buddha upholds the power of words with this passage: “The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love Born out of concern for all beings.” The power of suggestion is the magic of words. What powers do your words suggest? What powers do your beliefs suggest? Be impeccable with you word.

The second agreement: “Don’t Take Anything Personally.” In light of the power of words, I prefer to restate this agreement in the positive, take nothing personally, that is, no thing is personal. Everyone is living and projecting their own dream, using their own Book of Law. Everything they do or say, even if it involves you, is really about them, not about you.

Ruiz describes it as each of us being the producer, director and star of our own movie. Everyone else in our movie plays a secondary role and the movie is not really about them. The movie is about us, and how our character relates to the secondary actors. Just as we star in our own movie, everyone else is the star of their own movie, and we are their secondary roles for the star to react to.

 So, if someone compliments you, do not take it personally. Or if someone insults you, do not take it personally. If someone hurts your feelings, look for the wound within your own beliefs that were touched upon. For instance, someone says, “You are stupid.” If you do not believe it, you say to yourself, “He must be having a rotten day,” and do not take it personally and your feelings are not hurt. If you believe the statement, you take it personally and become depressed about how stupid you are, or angry about how stupid he must be for daring to call you stupid!

 By not taking things personally, you can become immune to the emotional baggage of others and in tune with beliefs about yourself that are enabling or preventing your own happiness. Take nothing personally.

Agreement number three: “Don’t make assumptions,” or what I rephrase to the positive, “Make no assumptions”, or “assume nothing.” Our assumptions are based on our own dream. Perhaps we do not understand another’s words or actions. But instead of clarifying by asking questions, we make our own interpretive assumption. We most often believe our assumptions are true, without actively seeking the truth.

Let’s look at a number of possible assumptions that could be made from a given situation. Think about it and I’ll ask some of you to share your answers: You are at work. There is a note from your boss. “Please come see me ASAP.” What do you assume from this? Just visualizing this scenario increases my heart rate and shortens my breath. Our assumptions create dramas of their own and can have us worrying for nothing, inventing our own dreams of Hell that we create and live in.

We also are prone to assume that those closest to us know us so well that they must know what we are thinking and feeling and can predict our reactions in given situations. Regardless of the scenario, do you ever hear yourself or significant others say, “What do you want me to do?” “I want you to do whatever you want to do.” So you or they do whatever, but then hear, “You should have known I didn’t want you to do that!” There are two problems here (1) not being impeccable with your word, and (2) assuming. The other person doesn’t know what you want them to do, nor should they if you have not stated your preference. The other person also does not know what you don’t want them to do, nor should they if you have not stated your preference. And yet we hear or say, “If you just think about it, you know what I wanted you to do.” Clear communication without assumptions is your best bet in ridding your life of unwanted drama. Assume nothing. 

The Fourth and Final Agreement: “Always Do Your Best.” Always do my best? This can sound like a lot of pressure, especially to type A personalities and perfectionists. But it does not say, “Always do the best” or be the best. Just do your best. At any given time your best is going to fluctuate. Your best when you are feeling sick, tired or depressed is going to be different than your best when you are healthy, well rested and happy. If you always do your best at any given time and in any given state, you can silence your judge. The judge cannot ask you to do more than your best.

So should you not ask yourself to do more than your best. Sometimes we aspire to go above and beyond our best so we can really “Wow” them. We want everything we do to be just perfect. Perfectionism and overachieving is not doing your best, it is doing you a disservice. Let’s say you are a high performance racecar. Your engine is finely tuned and can operate at tremendous speeds. You would do the best for yourself by driving at reasonable speeds, getting better gas mileage and protecting the longevity of your engine. Attempting to do more than your best is like driving full speed all the time. Sure you went really fast, faster than anyone else, but you burned up your engine and you are out of gas. If you are doing more than your best in one area, than you are doing less than your best in another area, in this case preventive maintenance. Do your best, no more, no less.

This is just a brief summary of some of the insightful ideas I have been implementing from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements. If any of these ideas have sparked your interest, I encourage you to get the first hand information in greater detail by reading the book. There are more implicit descriptions and thorough explanations of The Smokey Mirror, our dream state, and our domestication process. There is more in depth discussion of our mind’s Book of Law, Judge and Victim, and how to implement the Four Agreements. Ruiz’s writing has given me new ways to view myself, and my relationship with others—a mirror of kindness and compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, “Plant the seeds of joy, peace and understanding in order to facilitate the work of transformation in the depths of your consciousness.”

Now the challenge is to practice what I preach. I will do my best, no more, no less to be impeccable with my word, take nothing personally, and assume nothing. Then I can respond to the world from a neutral center instead reacting to the emotionally charged and unpredictable forces outside of myself.  We are all living our own dream within a collective world dream. Let us do our best, no more no less, to go gently and merrily down the stream.