http://www.frumi.com/images/uploads/thefouragreements.pdf

Thanks to fellow intellectual Noey, I found this excellent summary of Don Miguel Ruiz's Four Agreements.

Snip

QuoteHumans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe they should be. Nobody ever abuses us more than we abuse ourselves, and it is the Judge, the Victim, and the belief systems that make us do this.

We have the need o be accepted and loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal.

Who me ? ? ?

  O_o ...

Thanks for the PDF, it's very well laid out.  Maybe I will learn something by reviewing it.

It was a joke, Noey.

^_^ .

I would have realized that if I was a little more intellectual.

This PDF should be stickied.

Quote from: Noey Noonesson on August 26, 2012, 10:49:20 PM
^_^ .

I would have realized that if I was a little more intellectual.

This PDF should be stickied.

When I said you were a "fellow (BTW there should be a feminine form of this word) intellectual," I was claiming that moniker for myself....somewhat facetiously... I am taking a course in "American Intellectual Tradition" 1865 to present. The noun "intellectual" was coined by William James and, in the classic sense, you are definitely an intellectual whether you like it or not. The word got a bad name--like liberal--in the 70s when people were called pseudo-intellectuals.

And, yes, everyone here should download this pdf and keep it for reference and thanks for leading me to it. If I didn't have like 15 novels to read this semester, I would be reading the entire book.

It makes me wonder, by all the applause... who has gone through therapy, actual therapy, and not $$$ charged feel good 'Kaffeklatsch'

It is one of the BASICS of what we ALL have to deal with.

Maybe EST, Primal, Gestalt, Insight, Group? ... not really, gives me a warped idea of what ought to be a pretty much known fact. Our CONDITIONING.

Every awareness-training is dealing with this stuff as a number ONE priority...

Though it makes for a pretty bad "sales-(wo)men attitude" having realized it.

I'm a bit taken aback by this ... cluelessness ... for lack of a better word.

Just saying,
Axélle

Ran the article past a friend, a very savvy Southwest Indian who said, "I have a bridge to sell you, it's bogus!"

Quote from: Shantel on August 27, 2012, 11:20:48 AM
Ran the article past a friend, a very savvy Southwest Indian who said, "I have a bridge to sell you, it's bogus!"

What do you mean by that?


Ruiz says:

Don't Make Assumptions
 Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Quote from: Noey Noonesson on August 26, 2012, 10:49:20 PM
^_^ .

I would have realized that if I was a little more intellectual.

This PDF should be stickied.

The article has a 1997 copyright.  The link will have to do.

Quote from: UCBerkeleyPostop on August 27, 2012, 02:02:15 PM
What do you mean by that?


Ruiz says:

Don't Make Assumptions
 Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Personally I like the concepts and it all definitely is a fit for all of us here, but I'm going on what he has to say about the article not being authentic ancient Toltec wisdom. He has a masters and has studied the Toltec, Aztec and Mayan cultures with all of their trappings with great interest because these are his own roots and he claims that this is not authentic Toltec, although it is worth taking in and understanding.

Quote from: Shantel on August 27, 2012, 02:58:00 PM
Personally I like the concepts and it all definitely is a fit for all of us here, but I'm going on what he has to say about the article not being authentic ancient Toltec wisdom. He has a masters and has studied the Toltec, Aztec and Mayan cultures with all of their trappings with great interest because these are his own roots and he claims that this is not authentic Toltec, although it is worth taking in and understanding.

Well, I wasn't concerned about the Toltec angle but now that you have piqued my curiosity, I might consult  a real authority on the matter.

EDIT: I emailed one of my former professors, an authority on Chicano and Mexican history.

Quote from: UCBerkeleyPostop on August 27, 2012, 03:06:38 PM
Well, I wasn't concerned about the Toltec angle but now that you have piqued my curiosity, I might consult  a real authority on the matter.

EDIT: I emailed one of my former professors, an authority on Chicano and Mexican history.

My friend tends to be curmudgeonly about anything that comes across the Internet so it will be interesting to get their take on the article. I rather liked it because it seems to address a lot of our stuff!

Shantel, your friend was probably right. According to Jose Cuellar, PhD of San Francisco State: "The attached doesn't ring authentic and more like a re-hash of Carlos Castaneda' s teachings."

But the main thing is, as you said,  the article does address many of our issues.

Quote from: UCBerkeleyPostop on August 27, 2012, 05:53:12 PM
Shantel, your friend was probably right. According to Jose Cuellar, PhD of San Francisco State: "The attached doesn't ring authentic and more like a re-hash of Carlos Castaneda' s teachings."

But the main thing is, as you said,  the article does address many of our issues.

Oh I liked Carlos, Mr. Peyote himself! Oh well, it's still something trans folks can relate to.

Sometimes people tell stories that are designed to teach a truth.

Aesop's fables never happened either.  The fox never actually even tried to eat the grapes.   

QuoteDon Miguel Ruiz's son Don Jose Ruiz has subsequently released a sequel, The Fifth Agreement, which adds a further agreement:

    5. Be Skeptical but Learn to Listen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Miguel_Ruiz

QuoteAs a people, the Toltecs lived thousands of years ago in the central valley of Mexico in the cities of Teotihuacan and Tula. For an ancient society they were amazingly advanced. They had incredible knowledge of science and spirit which led them to create a system of teaching that required enormous discipline and will, but was extremely effective. Combining their knowledge of the mind with a spiritual philosophy that incorporated the beauty of all the esoteric teachings, the Toltecs formed a perfect model for transcendence. Focusing on the mind, Toltec wisdom teaches that humans are dreaming all the time and that the way we dream is what creates the limitations in our lives.

http://www.sherirosenthal.com/toltec.html

See also...  The Complete Idiot's Guide to Toltec Wisdom [Paperback] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1592573924/sherirosentto-20

Quotedon Miguel Ruiz, a Nagual from the Eagle Knight lineage, has been guided to share with us the powerful teachings of the Toltec.

http://www.sonic.net/~donallan/toltecs/index.html


I don't know if it's "authentic Toltec" or not, I just know how powerful it is.

QuoteSometimes people tell stories that are designed to teach a truth.

Wow, Noey, you never cease to amaze me, Joan Didion said almost the exact same thing and it was, if I recall, the thesis of her essay!

EDIT: I found it from her essay "The White Album"

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live.  The princess is caged in the
consulate. The man with the candy; will lead the children into the sea.
The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth
floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it
would be 'interesting' to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes
some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal
sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the
Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman
in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling
at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the
social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see,
select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially
if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate
images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting
phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."
                   
                                                                                             White Album

A book of her essays is available at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Ourselves-Stories-Order-Live/dp/0307264874

O_O ...  I suppose I am pretty amazing.


                       ~_^

Once again... even the Toltec or whoever else, would have known the difference between saying and writing things... and DOING them – actually practicing, not simply intellectualizing.

All this reading and 'learning' in the realm of the emotional and the pre-conditioned (our FEARS) has little value, if it is not actually practiced.
It becomes some sort of self-congratulatory mind-->-bleeped-<-, worth little more than made for some "deep conversations" after Tequila shooters or just a Cappuccino.

EST, (SA versions I AM, and Joy Spring) and their follow-up LGAT groups addressed just that.

Insights are fine and good - they only get you that far though.

It is something that forever comes back to me when the subjects gets into those areas.
Intellect is not a replacement for Empathy / Emotions.

Try love someone intellectually and then have some intellectual sex to boot - you might just get what I'm saying...

Food for thought?
Axélle

Quote from: Axélle on August 28, 2012, 02:55:05 AM

EST, (SA versions I AM, and Joy Spring) and their follow-up LGAT groups addressed just that.

Insights are fine and good - they only get you that far though

I like these insights better than EST because they don't cost anything and you are allowed to go and pee when you feel like it.

Quote from: Kadri on August 28, 2012, 05:47:42 AM
I like these insights better than EST because they don't cost anything and you are allowed to go and pee when you feel like it.

Well, no pain - no gain, hum 

Not sure where you heard about: not allowed to go and pee...

I never had any problem with this personally and neither had I seen others as there are always most regular breaks FOR EVERYONE.

Note: It is a favoured dodge to vanish into the toilet when the going gets tough, and tough it sure gets.

Easy peasy reading all about it in an arm chair.
Then going and intellectualizing about it all... as I said.

Axélle