Sunday, 16 September 2018

The 5th Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery by Don Miguel Ruiz, Don Jose Ruiz and Janet Mills





Do you still blame your parents for your troubles? Remember, they did the best they could.  If your parents abused you, it wasn’t personal.  It was due to their own fears, it was due to what they believed. If they abused it, it’s because they were also abused.  If they hurt you, it’s because they were also hurt.  It’s an ongoing chain of action-reaction.  Are you going to continue being a part of that chain, or is it over with you?




From the moment you are born, you deliver a message to the world … the message is you, the child. It’s the presence of an angel, a messenger from the infinite in a human body.




Every cell in your body is a universe on its own.  It’s intelligent, it’s complete, and it’s programmed to be whatever it is.  You are programmed to be you, whatever you are, and it makes no difference to the program what your mind thinks you are.




In human domestication, all the rules and values of our family and society are imposed on us.  We don’t have the opportunity to choose our beliefs…. The people we live with tell us their opinions.




 The truth is that all of the knowledge, 100% of it, is nothing more than symbolism or words that we invent for the need to understand and express what we perceive.




Humans are born with awareness; we are born to perceive the truth, but we accumulate knowledge, and learn to deny what we perceive.  We practice not being aware, and we master not being aware.  The word is pure magic, and we learn to use our magic against ourselves, against creation, against our own kind.  To be aware means to open our eyes to see the truth.  When we see the truth, we see everything just as it is, not the way we believe it is, not the way we wish it to be.  Awareness opens the door to millions of possibilities, and if we know that we are the artist of our own life, we can make a choice from all those possibilities.




When we master love, intent, or faith, we master the dream of our life, and when all three masteries are accomplished, we reclaim our divinity.




The mastery of the human mind requires complete control of the attention --- the way we interpret and react to info we perceive from inside of us and outside of us.




Don’t believe everything you learned! Not believing yourself is a huge advantage, because most of what you learned is not the truth.




Self-mastery is all about awareness, and it begins with self-awareness.  First is to be aware of what is real, and then to be aware of what is virtual, which means what we believe about what is real.  With this awareness, we know that we can change what is virtual by changing what we believe.  What is real we cannot change, and it doesn’t matter what we believe.




Nobody judges you more than you judge yourself.




Humans are born with the power of creation, and we are constantly creating stories.




 How can we talk about injustice in the rest of the world when there is no justice in the world inside our own head?




You were programmed to deliver a message, and the creation of the message is your greatest art.  What is the message?  Your life.  With the message, you create mainly the story of you, and then a story about everything you perceive.  You create an entire virtual reality in your mind, and you live out that reality.




The action is self-judgment, the reaction is self-punishment in the form of guilt and shame.




Be skeptical, but learn to listen.  Be skeptical because most of what you hear isn’t true.




Whenever you hear a message from yourself, or from another artist, simply ask: is it truth, or is it not truth? Is it reality or is it virtual reality?




The complete acceptance of whatever you are is what makes the difference.




When all of your attention is not on your story, you can see what is real; you can feel what is real.




If you don’t see God everywhere, its because your attention is focused on all those Gods you really believe in.




Being has nothing to do with knowledge.





You’ll know that you are totally free when you no longer have to be the you that you pretend to be.




When you accept your own divinity, you become a better reflection of life.  You are here to enjoy life.  You aren’t here to suffer over your drama or your personal importance.




Just because you have awareness, it doesn’t mean that you are better than anyone else.  Being aware doesn’t make you superior, and it doesn’t make you more intelligent.




The process of unlearning takes you to a place where there’s no longer a judge and a victim in your story.  It’s just a story, and you know that it’s your creation, but it’s just as if it’s happening to somebody else.



Respect is about the complete acceptance of everything that exists just the way it is, not the way we want it to be.




In every moment, you make the choice of what you want to keep, and what you want to let go of.  But not with words.  You don’t need to make a story, but you can if you want to.