There is much to be
concerned about in our world today. Yet we
can experience personal peace in our
daily lives. We can move into a place of hope
and positivity. We can move from an inner
orientation of fear to one of trust and knowing.
And we can do this without ignoring global or
personal issues. When we access our inner
trust and knowing, we open windows of
understanding where we may be inspired by
solutions rather than overwhelmed with problems.
It is, however, a place few take time to
explore. Yet moving from fear to
reclaiming our inner knowing ultimately holds
the key to peace on Earth. Each of us
makes many choices every day. Each choice
we make is based either in freedom or from fear.
In her book Beyond
Fear: A Toltec Guide To Freedom and Joy,
Mary Carroll Nelson imparts wisdom gleaned from
interviewing Toltec wisdom keeper, Don Miguel
Ruiz, over a span of three years. Those of
us who read his book The Four Agreements
know his philosophy that we live life in a
dream. This societal dream is one in which we
are immersed from an early age. It reveres
technology while ignoring a sacred relationship
to our Earth and the natural world. It is based
on dominance, control and fear. Though lesser
known, Nelson's book precedes The Four
Agreements and fleshes out Ruiz the healer,
as well as the foundation to the Toltec wisdom
way. We are reminded that knowledge lies
within each one of us, and becoming aware of
this inner knowing is the challenge of
the human condition. Ruiz teaches that "We go
deep into hell and we suffer in order to acquire
awareness ... To get from hell, we need
awareness which we acquire through intent and
spirit ... Heaven is a place without fear." Ruiz
and the Toltecs feel humans are a part of the
Earth's greater ecosystem. As plants convert the
sun's energy back to Source through
photosynthesis, so humans recycle energy back to
Source through emotional energies. "We work for
the earth twenty-four hours a day, just like the
bees and the ants. The work we do for the planet
is to make emotions. Making emotions is the main
function of the human mind." The prime emotion
we can move toward when we release our
fear-based orientation is love.
Love one another, love
your "brother." We've heard it all, from the
teachings of Jesus to the 'sixties and The
Beatles' "love is all there is." Ruiz himself
has studied all the world's major religions, and
finds this common thread of love running
throughout. Churches teach it, so do parents.
Yet in our culture, the kind of love we see
demonstrated most often carries a charge of fear
along with it, from the fire and brimstone
preacher to the individual who gives love with
strings attached. True love cannot exist in the
presence of fear. We cannot experience
true love while under the threat of it being
taken away if we do the wrong thing. Many
Western religions scorn the physical body and
its propensity for desire and physical love. Yet
it is my experience that wisdom and memories
(both good and bad) are embedded within our very
cells. If we dissociate from our bodies because
we've learned not to trust them and to fear
their sensate nature, we break faith with the
natural world and deny our inherent knowing. For
the body is what carries our consciousness into
the world. It lives and breathes all we think
and feel. Denying its wisdom is the root of all
disease.
In addition, doing
spiritual practice with an unquiet mind and in
abandonment of the physical body is like driving
a car with our eyes shut and our hands off the
wheel. Most physical and mental exercise in our
culture is based on a kind of "driven"
philosophy, where we push ourselves beyond
endurance to "perfect" the body or to
"challenge" the mind. I think we are mostly
afraid of being inadequate, of not measuring up
to some social standard. And yet the real work
of moving fear out of the body, mind and
emotions is eschewed by many as being too
intense, expensive, or time-consuming. Yet
what other work do we have, outside of the
illusory dream of materiality and temporality?
Perhaps understanding the Toltec way of working
in harmony with the Universe can keep us hopeful
that, in doing this work, we are aligning to
Divine purpose, expanding both our own energy
and that of All That Is. We are perhaps
fulfilling our Destiny.
I tell my clients what
Ruiz himself tells his students, "If I can do
it, you can do it." Jesus taught the same thing.
I have found my personal journey painful at
times, but ultimately highly rewarding.
Moving beyond fear and into unchartered
territory can bring up resistance we never knew
we had. We "domesticated" humans (to coin Ruiz'
term) stubbornly want to hold on to the dream we
know as Reality. Facing the unfamiliar is
like looking into a yawning Void, and we have
learned over time that Nothing is more
frightening than Something, even if that
Something is struggle and fear. Again I quote
Ruiz, "One mind-boggling Toltec concept is that
we can transfer our consciousness from our
reason to our will. This shift is the source of
our potential power to completely transform the
planet and to become [our own Divinity]. We can
control our own dream and have a beneficial
effect on everyone else's dream." I cannot
imagine more meaningful work.
