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In 1997, the international bestseller, The Four Agreements, taught us all to be impeccable with our word, not to take anything personally, not to make assumptions and always do our best. The book’s success introduced millions of people to the ways of the Toltec and catapulted its author, a gentle, soft-spoken nagual (shaman/teacher) in this ancient wisdom tradition into the media spotlight.

In The Four Agreements, Ruiz tells us that the esoteric wisdom of the Toltecs can be traced back thousands of years to southern Mexico. He characterizes the Toltecs as a society of spiritual scientists and artists, who came together to “explore and conserve the spiritual knowledge and practices of the ancient ones.” The cornerstone of Toltec teachings, he says, is the belief that life is nothing but a dream, an illusion created by us through our beliefs.

Ruiz names Teotihuacan, an ancient city of pyramids near Mexico City (also known as the place where “Man Becomes God”), as the sacred site where the masters and their students gathered. European conquests, and the misuse of power by some of its apprentices, resulted in centuries of concealment and secrecy. The wisdom of the ancestors was kept alive through the lineages of naguals, and resurfaced — as the Toltec prophecies foretold — at the time in the future when it would be necessary to return the knowledge to the people. Don Miguel Ruiz of the Eagle Knight lineage says that time has come.
Now, 12 years after The Four Agreements was first introduced, don Miguel, in collaboration with his son, don Jose, has added a Fifth Agreement to his Toltec teachings. I had an opportunity to speak with this father/son duo about the new book and their spiritual journeys.

Don Miguel, you were raised in a family of teachers and healers. How much influence do you think those early experiences had on your current work?

Miguel Ruiz: Yes I was born into a family who had those traditions. My Mother was a curandera [healer], my grandfather was a nagual [shaman] and on and on. I had so much respect for the Toltec tradition. So it was easy for me to follow. What I learned was that everything is possible; nothing is impossible. And everybody could be as they are — something I wanted to share with my own children. I taught my family to respect the Toltec tradition. Toltec means artist — the tradition of the artist. My children have learned to be very creative.

You had a near fatal accident many years ago which you have said changed your life and put you on your current path. Do we need to have these kinds of dramatic events in our lives before we can find our direction?

MR: Not at all. My car accident was a result of a very stupid decision that I made. We had a big party and I made a bad decision — I drank too much and then decided to drive home. I slid into a wall and totaled my car. Fortunately, my body was perfectly ok after this accident. But it was a big wake up call. It changed my life completely. We can all learn, as I have, to live our lives as if this is the last day of our life. And to make better decisions. You can choose to make a smart decision or a stupid decision. Toltec’s have common sense.

Why do you think we are here and what is our purpose?

MR: Our purpose here is just to enjoy life and to be happy. That is the mission of every human. It is important to let people know that they could be really happy if they wanted to.

But it seems so many people are unhappy. What keeps getting in the way of our happiness?

MR: I would say to you, if you are not happy, why don’t you make yourself happy? Why you’re not happy I don’t know. You have to answer that for yourself. You are responsible for every decision that you make; you pay the consequences or you enjoy the consequences. If you want to be happy, no longer make the decisions that make you unhappy. What I do know is that I believe in my own happiness.

We talk about changing the world for the better. What do you feel most needs changing?

MR: I ask people everywhere to help me change the world. When I say that I mean the world we humans create in our own minds. Each one of us creates our own world. What we believe is what really rules our lives. The world that we create with our beliefs can take us into the worst nightmare with a lot of drama, or it can take us into what I call heaven on earth. We need to be aware of what is going on in our own minds. We cannot change the world if we do not change ourselves first.

The conversation turned to the new book, The Fifth Agreement. Don Miguel graciously declined my invitation to discuss the book, preferring to let Jose take over. Laughing, Jose takes the phone and shares how much he has enjoyed listening to his father share his wisdom with me.

Don Jose, what can you tell me about this much anticipated sequel to The Four Agreements?

Jose Ruiz: The Fifth Agreement is based on all my father’s teachings. He did a course called “Angel Training” which is about training the mind. It is about bringing awareness to the dream that is your life. All of life is a dream. The world is a mirror that reflects back to us what we believe. We create our beliefs and the mirror of God reflects them back to us. So we begin a practice of living in the mirror where we learn to reflect every thought. We learn to control our emotions and not let the emotions get the best of us. Then you can make the decision to become a master of your own awareness, and direct your own attention to discover what you believe to be true. That’s when we begin to be skeptical of our own lies. That’s what the fifth agreement is — to be skeptical of our own lies and be in truth at all times. Then we can begin to listen with the heart — the heart and common sense. It’s a big opportunity for one to become both his own teacher and his own apprentice.

In order to stop telling ourselves lies, we need to really examine some unpleasant things about ourselves, don’t we?

JR: When it comes to this awareness, we know that we are married to life ’til death do us part. When you have awareness and enlightenment, you see all the negativity in life and you see it because you now can do something about it. All you have to do about it is be yourself. Be you, be free.
When we meditate, when we close our eyes, we enter our mind and that’s where dreams are born. When we open our eyes, that is when we begin to take action. The real healer is the one who can cure himself of his own lies. We can put all our faith into a person who died many years ago that we didn’t even meet, and put him on our altar. Or we can take a picture of ourselves and place it on the altar. When we do that we are respecting that we don’t have to go outside of ourselves to look for the perfection, to know what we already know. When have respect for ourselves, it opens many doors for us and everything becomes possible.

Is this what you would call self mastery?

JR: Self mastery is to be a master in our own language — how we understand our own work, how we understand our own creation. We find out that whatever we believe in is just a story and everybody is living in their own story. We have a great opportunity to change the story and stop being a victim. In life we can all find excuses to be victims and if we focus on that energy, that’s what we’ll be. In our tradition, the ancestors say that [taking on the role of victim] offers “minimal potential” to become a nagual. And I believe that the truth is that everyone has the potential to be a nagual.

When you say everyone can be a Nagual, do you mean we can all become masters?

JR: Nagual, master, shaman, — whatever you want to call it. All those names are just names for angels. Angels are messengers. There comes a point in our dreams where we ask the question — what kind of messengers are we? The answer is in the way we live our life. All men or women who serve truth are angels. It doesn’t matter if they’ve studied for 20 years, or if they’ve just woken up. It doesn’t matter if they’ve studied at all.

When it comes to this awareness, we know that we all can create gold. The ancestors say that the conquistadors looked for the person who could make gold, but the real person who can make gold is one who is happy in their dreams. We are the people who make real gold — the golden moments of life, the beautiful moments of life.

I wanted to ask both of you about 2012. Does Toltec teaching talk about 2012? We’ve heard predictions of everything from a cataclysmic end of the world to something as mundane as a cosmic odometer hitting 99,999 miles and simply needing to be recalibrated.

Miguel Ruiz: It is the end of the Mayan calendar. It’s just the end of one calendar and the beginning again of the same calendar. It’s just the way we measure time.

Where will you be on December 21, 2012?

Miguel Ruiz: If I’m alive, I will be with my son, Jose. We’re going to the place where the Mayan and the Toltec merge: Chichen Itza.

Jose Ruiz:  We are going there to celebrate the end of an era, the end of a dream. It is time to build a new calendar which is a new dream. So I’m inviting all our friends who want to participate in this beautiful experience to come to Chichen Itza and go with us to the jungle that day, because 2012 is the end of superstition, the end of a world that believes in lies. From this point on it’s an opportunity to see how we can live our dream, how we can co-create with life. It is time to take action, to take up the challenge and wake up the warrior — the warrior that is going for peace.

Linda M. Potter is a licensed spiritual counselor, popular speaker and published author. Linda is also the Managing Editor of The Healing Path magazine. lindampotter@comcast.net, www.lindampotter.com

Join us for a long-awaited and rare appearance of don Miguel Ruiz and don Jose Ruiz
Denver, October 4  •  Fort Collins, October 5th
Details available at www.BellaSpark.com