Twelve Truths

My reintroduction into the world of spirituality, after some preparation in the world of American Indian teachings, was Don Miguel Ruiz. Since he comes out of the South American Indian tradition, it was a natural intermediary for me. His exposition was simple and direct, but eye-opening, as if I had always known this truth, but needed this reminder.

Since then, I’ve traveled forward through Eckhart Tolle, Anthony DeMello, Gurdjieff, Christian Sacred Wisdom, Adyashanti, Robert Adams, Sailor Bob and Neo-Advaita, all the way to Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, and finally back to the ancient truths of the Bhagavad Gita and even further back to the crystalline and wondrous Upanishads. And I’m sure I’ve left out several others as well.

Still, when I look back at Ruiz and what I learned, I realize that his teachings still hold true. I am very grateful to his presence, and thank the universe for leading me to his books. This posting is just another note of gratitude. There can never be enough of those.

I recently reviewed my summary of his teaching which I had written for my own use, and still see its truth. His teaching is a perfect elementary introduction for seekers. Personally, I needed to locate the sources, get to the ultimate truth of the self and Self, but in many ways, one could do no better than be where I began.

The Twelve Truths of Don Miguel Ruiz

Three Pre-Conditions
-The original sin is belief in the lies of knowledge (thought).
-I was domesticated into this knowledge and its main lie of my imperfection.
-All human suffering is caused by believing in these lies.

Two Current Situations
-With knowledge I am dreaming my virtual reality.
-I only know the stories (dreams) I create about others and myself, but I mistakenly believe them as Truth.

Four Resolutions
-Don't believe myself or anyone else, but just listen in the event something rings true.
-Feel the reality of my emotions, and pay attention to their source: especially the lies I believe causing suffering.
-Pray and perform rituals to recover my faith which has been invested in these lies.
-Practice the Four Agreements and take Action:
   ~be impeccable with my word, for my word is my dream
   ~don’t take things personally, for that is their dream and this is mine
   ~don’t make assumptions; these only lead to lies
   ~always do my best, for my best conscious action will quiet the voice of knowledge

Three Directions
-Create my second dream by loving What I am.
-I am the ecstatic force of Life, the great mystery that cannot be described by words or knowledge, but only known directly.
-Tell my new story with the silent voice of Spirit.

A New Year’s Story

A Blissful New Year to One and All!:

This is what he discovered: Everything in existence is a manifestation of the one living being we call God. Everything is God. And he came to the conclusion that human perception is merely light perceiving light. He also saw that matter is a mirror—everything is a mirror that reflects light and creates images of that light—and the world of illusion, the Dream, is just like smoke which doesn't allow us to see what we really are. "The real us is pure love, pure light," he said.

This realization changed his life. Once he knew what he really was, he looked around at other humans and the rest of nature, and he was amazed at what he saw. He saw himself in everything—in every human, in every animal, in every tree, in the water, in the rain, in the clouds, in the earth. And he saw that Life mixed the tonal and the nagual in different ways to create billions of manifestations of Life.

In those few moments he comprehended everything. He was very excited, and his heart was filled with peace. He could hardly wait to tell his people what he had discovered. But there were no words to explain it. He tried to tell others, but they could not understand. They could see that he had changed, that something beautiful was radiating from his eyes and his voice. They noticed that he no longer had judgment about anything or anyone. He was no longer like anyone else.

He could understand everyone very well, but no one could understand him. They believed that he was an incarnation of God, and he smiled when he heard this and he said, "It is true. I am God. But you are also God. We are the same, you and I. We are images of light. We are God." But they still did not understand him.

He had discovered that he was a mirror for the rest of the people, a mirror in which he could see himself. "Everyone is a mirror," he said. He saw himself in everyone, but nobody saw him as themself. And he realized that everyone was dreaming, but without awareness, without knowing what they really are. They couldn't see him as themselves because there was a wall of fog or smoke between the mirrors. And that wall of fog was made by the interpretation of images of light—the Dream of humans.

Then he knew that he would soon forget all that he had learned. He wanted to remember all that he had learned. He wanted to remember all the visions he had had, so he decided to call himself the Smokey Mirror, so that he would always know that matter is a mirror and the smoke in-between keeps us from knowing what we are. He said, "I am the Smokey Mirror, because I am looking at myself in all of you, but we don't recognize each other because of the smoke in-between us. That smoke is the Dream, and the mirror is you, the dreamer."

~Don Miguel Ruiz in 'The Four Agreements'

4 Way Dreams: Van, Thoreau, Ruiz, & Ramana

1. Disconnecting

There comes a point inside the dream when you start to see that the true vantage point is actually outside the dream.

But first you need to question the dream itself.

It might start slowly with some seeing of some disconnect. A long strange trip indeed.

For me, it started in the late Sixties with the Viet Nam war, and an understanding that things weren’t what they had been sold to be. So of course it took on a political counter-cultural tone. Lennon. Dylan.

Working Class Hero Tangled Up in Blue...

Moreover there was poetry and song. Walt Whitman and Van Morrison were my lyrical gurus: Song of Myself Into the Mystic. And there was lots of American literature as well, including a degree.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. So life happened for me, and conformities beckoned.

Until I fundamentally broke down.


2. Thoreauvian Interlude

Nature was prescribed and Thoreau became my doctor.

One summer I reread Walden, and I can’t tell you how many times I heard it said that Thoreau was fine for idealists, but not practical enough for the real world.

But he made more sense to me than anything I had ever come across in that world.

His genius resided not only in his common sense, but in his connection to a spiritual sense rooted in the earth itself. It wasn’t idealistic at all. It was truly grounded, and not lost in some rarified dream of lace and gold.

And then I decided to see how this country got to be what it was, and went back to school for a Masters in American History. I was sure something went wrong somewhere, until I realized it was wrong from the very start: I sided with the Anti-federalists.

The disconnect was increasing.

It wasn’t conformity this time that beckoned, but merely so-called responsibilities. While Acadia kept my sanity.

Until I was laid off, went Native, traveled to Arizona and experienced the eternal now in the Canyon del Muerte.


3. Awakening

Arriving back home I read Miguel Ruiz, and for the first time I knew a metaphysical explanation for that disconnect involving not only social conditioning, but more importantly the virtual reality of belief and the ego.

I felt as if I had discovered the meaning of life.

The disconnect was now not just some philosophical disagreement; it was as clear as the divide between sleep and waking. It was obvious that life was but a dream. And I was waking up inside of it.

Soon after I read Eckhart Tolle, and then quickly found myself in a world of Sacred Wisdom and Advaita, all the way from the Desert Fathers to Ramana Maharshi's most valuable all-important Who Am I, with folks like Adams, Adya, Jed, Sailor Bob, and many others, mixed inbetween.

And something recently has clicked. There’s more of a real understanding, as I remarked in a recent posting, of that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin quote: we are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

In other words, we are not living in a dream. That still gives the dream the vantage point. Despite all the mystical experiences and feelings of unity with the divine, you are still in the dreaming.

Rather we are dreaming within eternity. I see the vantage point is not inside the dream. It’s outside the dream. It’s in eternity. There is no vantage point. There is no me. There’s only here and now and Being-Consciousness-Bliss.

The disconnect is disappearing.

After Awakening, Then What

Miguel Ruiz calls it the Dream of the Second Attention. You write your new story with love.

Eckhart Tolle calls it Awakened Doing. Consciousness flows through you and into this world in three modalities: Acceptance, Enjoyment, Enthusiasm.

Adyashanti speaks of a New Way of Being, resting in awareness, experiencing the ordinary as extraordinary, more like love than anything else, for no reason or purpose, knowing the story isn’t true.

Robert Adams says that the universe is a manifestation of your mind. And in that realization you become Self, which includes everything you need. The trees do not lack for leaves.

Jesus simply said to consider the lilies of the field. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today is enough for today.

Buddha held up a golden lotus flower silently before his listeners.

So I’m blogging.