don Miguel Ruiz

hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Don Miguel Ruiz, a renowned spiritual teacher and internationally best selling author.

He has spent the last three decades guiding students to personal freedom through his profound insights regarding the nature of human reality. His forthcoming book is The Toll Tech Art of Life and Death, a story of self discovery. Before we get to the interview. A couple of quick announcements. The first is that we have now added women's cut T shirts to the T shirts that are on the website.

So if you would like a T shirt, go to one you feed dot net slash shop and these have a limited edition hand drawn version of the Wolf logo on them. They're incredibly comfortable and I love them. The other announcement is if you tried to contact us via the website and never heard back from us, I just realized a couple of weeks ago that a lot of that stuff was going into the spam folder and I

wasn't seeing it. So if you tried to reach out to this via the website contact form you never heard back, it's not because we're jerks, it's because we didn't know about it. So please reach out again. We always love to hear from you. Thanks. This episode is brought to you by Spirituality and Health magazine. For your free trial offer, go to Spirituality Health dot com slash one you feed

to get a free no obligation issue. If you love the magazine, then when you feed, listeners will receive a v I P offer of two years for just again that Spirituality Health dot com slash one you feed and that's all spelled out O N E y O U F E E D. Thanks, and here's the interview with Don Miguel Ruiz. Welcome to the show. Oh, if i'd be pleasure to be Well, it's a it's a pasure for me too. So we'll start the show like we always do with the first question, which is about the

parable that our show is based on. And in the parable, there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and he looks at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?

And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you you know what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Okay, first of all, I really like this parable. My son Jose he always shows that he's his teaching, and he chased sounds things. But it's effective to say that he has teaches and my life has been like that, like like everybody else. Also that that I played to every single human you know.

For centuries and millennium, we used to believe that there's could embody in us, that our mind had the battle between booth and that. Well, it's not exactly truth could embodish, just the result of the real conflict that exists in the human mind and the we gothic in the mind is between the truth and life. The truth is only one life are millions of life, and the truth exists long before the creation of humanity and will exist from after the extinction of humanity. The truth doesn't need to

be proved. In the other hand, the life exists only because we believe in those lives, and the life are not but the distortion of the truth, and that distortion can go very, very dis and create all those superstitions. Then the result of the living and also superstition, and also sifes that we are parts in different degrees, depends how how strong is the superstitions that we defend, and when we feed the bad wolf, they're really created more

superstition and dependent of superstitions. When we feed the good dog, they're really diving ourselves good the truth. Then I think that this parable is really a big help for every single human. So let's talk a little bit more about your new book. You've got a new book called The tol Tech Art of Life and Death, And um, why don't we start by going a little bit into kind of what you were just saying, which is, let's talk about what is that truth? What is the What is

the truth for us as humans? Well, the truth is the forced and most matter is that energy is pure energy. And as we say, uh, matter only can move if a forces movement matter. And if it is a movement, only can be stopped if a source of stops matter. Well that's fourth, the most matter is energy is life. Then we can see that all the universes, all the systems,

it's just a binary system, just like the computers. If the computers function only with zero and one and the combination of distal digits create all what we can see the computer, all the sounds that we can hear, etcetera, etcetera. What it's the same with the whole reality, with the whole system sepinary system is matter and the fourth and most matter, which is life. Then it's manifested everything that we perceive and what we don't perceive that exists, That

exists long before humans learned to speak. We don't need to believe in the truth is just exists. How can we apply that knowledge if we were too, if we were to see that and recognize, how does that help us day to day? What do we do with that that knowledge or that information. Okay, we perceive the truth all the time, but what we perceive is distorted in our minds with our beliefs, and then what we believe

is true is not exactly the truth. The truth is the forced Let's see that moves every cell of your body. Who have to deliver them and of physical body is You don't need to think or to live about that and for that tru to exist. In the other hand, the distortion of that truth, the reflection of the truth in the brain. We're going to create the mind that we'll try to explain everything that we persist. Then an

apple is not just an apple. We have to describe that apple, but using language, we will say the apple is a fruit, could be read be green, et cetera, biggest, small, We qualify it, and this is true for us, but it's just a description of that apple. That apple doesn't care if we call it apple or not. It just exists. But we learned that this is an apple, that we qualify it, we share with everybody. But if we got another another country to speak a different language, is no

longer an apple. They will have another name that millions of people will agree and then that apple in their own particular way. But there's hundreds of languages around the world. Then everything that we know is only true for us, but not for everybody. Then we in that way we can see that every single human, yes, its own truth, but it's not true. It's a distortion of that truth. That is the reason why we think that everybody is wrong,

that only we are right. Right. I've heard you talk about the fact that we are all artists and our work of art is the story about our lives that we tell ourselves. Yes, so that's what the tone needs in these artists because it can be trustated in any language around the world. But we talked about the wisdom. We're talking about the wisdom of the artists, and yes, every single human is an artist, and the greatest creation

that we have is the story of our lives. And this folk is really based in the story of my life. It's it's a story that happens when I hear a massive heart attack in two thousand and two and I was I was not nine ways in coma. Then I have this wonderful dream during the time that I was a back coma and the story is is about the recollection of my life. You know, everybody says that when we're dying, uh or life goals in front of us

very very fast. Well, that really happened to me. I had the heart attack and that I was dying, and uh it is a mayor heart attack. I was kind of in between life and very very close to to to be dead. But what is important is that in this wonderful story, I see my my whole mind, just like any nation who is who have treated main powers. One power is the one who creates the rules like a congress m HM, who create all the rules and

create a constitution. Then there's the other part who have the authority authority to impose that law, like the police or the army. And the other one is the viduo, the one that receives the fate of the laws and the authority that it posted laws on us. And this is uh the main character of the story, which we could be a victim of the story that he creates or then becomes the president, the one who rules the nation.

Then in this book, what we see is this main character of the story, with the help of my mother, is remembered. The most particular memories could change the life of Mittel and by it was an encounteract with the truth, and in the consecrated truth, many of the life just disappeared to state because the life only exists because we do live in those lives. If we don't no longer to live in those lives, then all those lives just

goes away. And what this remain is the truth, even if we don't know exactly what the truth is, but we see it. We see it, we see the magicestation, and we understand it. And when we're trying to expand it, it's really no longer the truth, but it is getting

closer and closer to that truth. Then in this dream we can say that Salita my mother's faith, then my knowledge that we keep a mental acknowledge, and that man is La la It is the retention of Lada, the retention and my knowledge, and to receive the knowledge, the knowledge give tasted the truth again and again and again, it just get dissipated more and more and more. I think what we can see in that story is that every single human needs being possessed, not that the devil

or a demon, but it is possessed by knowledge. The knowledge is really that dog who we feed with all those lives, and we're afraid of that knowledge. And now back to the interview without Miguel Ruiz. So for the artist of our own stories, what are ways that we can learn to work with those stories with that knowledge in a more productive way, or in a in a way that feeds the good wolfs so to speak? Are

there some ways to think about the world? Are some things that we can do that that help separate the truth from the lies. One of the things that I say most of my lectures that I speak directly to the public. I have for help, and I ast him please help me to change the world. Of course, I'm not looking to change the world of humanity, but the world that they create their own story, and in this case,

I write a little story of my own life. That they can compare with theirs, but they can see how I change my world, so they can also change their own world. Then that story is a power with seven billion stories. When you read this book, if you shift the name and you put your own name, you can

see how do you create your own reality? You will see all the laws that you create against yourself, and you can see that becomes a big adventure for the ticket to start facing all those lives, to start shifting those life with the weapon of the truth. Where we use is the fifth agreement, the one that my sons has hasself wrote, be skeptical, but learned to listen. Very skeptical. We don't believe ourselves, we don't believe anybody else. Then we can hear what people say. We don't believe, but

we live. See what they say, and what word for us we keep it is that will help us to change our own story. And specifically, we need to listen to ourselves, what we say, the lives that we tell to ourselves. If we don't believe our own lives, the truth will break those lives, and and every stead we become more and more free, and we're really changing our own world. Then when they see the parallel in this book with their own stories, we can see that they

can change our own world. Is something that I talk to everybody all the time is if I can do it, you can do it. And if you can do it, everybody can do it. And so really what we're talking about here is that looking at the stories that we tell ourselves, we completely mentally construct a world based on

all our memories or experiences, all of those things. And you're saying by learning the question those things being, being a little bit skeptical of them and looking at them from different perspectives, we can set ourselves free from some of those those lies. We are helping ourselves to see the whole creation in a completely different way. But we have to start always with ourselves. We cannot give what we don't have. Seriously have to respect ourselves if we

want to give love, seriously want to love ourselves. That seems to be a theme in the new book and a lot of a lot of your work, which is really that one of the things that we do is we punish ourselves very much for not being who we think we should be. Yes, and we can see the core of the whole problem. We can see that all This conflict exists because we learn to love the same

way that everybody else loves. We learned how to love the way that our parents love us, the way our brothers love us when we go to schools, the way or or friends love us. The way they love us is with conditions. Is conditional love that we can say that the Laverty nine point that of humans, they love with contitions, which means I love you if you let me control you, if you do whatever I want you to do, then I love you. And that's how we love everybody. But everybody also love us the same way

they love us. East. We do what they want us to do, and that's the reason why we want to please everybody. And the worst part is that we learned to love ourselves exactly the same way I love myself, East, I can be the way I should be according to everybody else's opinion and according my own opinion. Where we

understand this point, we also will understand them. Every single content that exists in this of my mind, every injustice, every violence, starvation, including war, is because everybody tried to control everything, the outcome of everything, and this is because we all love with conditions. Then that conditional love is just the reflection of the will love, the unconditional love,

the love that we have when we was born. Then when we understand all of this, we also can understand the is why we believe what we believe, why we creddle those superstitions, and why we are so phanatic to thinking or believe to try to impose our opinion to everybody, including to ourselves. We've learned to love in a way that we've been taught over our lifetime, to love conditionally, and because that's the way we were loved and the

way we were taught. How do you start to love unconditionally when really the only kind of way you've known the love is conditionally. That's a it's one thing to see it and hear it, you say it. How how do I make that part of my life? Well, this is not as easy as it looks like. It's easy to understand the reason why. But we are practicing this conditional loss to all of our life. It becomes a habit.

We love that way. To change it is more difficult, not even because ourselves that because everybody else love the same way. Then we can see that these egos all around they try to impost to us, and of course we need to defend, to put our own limits to avoid of kind of interactions. And we do that because we are learning to love ourselves just the way we are, because we need to understand that we are perfect the way we are. Even with that conditional love, everything needs

really perfection. Then we need to accept ourselves just the way we are, and then we can love ourselves just the way we are and does start changing everything we're they're doing once again is changing our world, and the way to do it is to love ourselves unconditionally. We get to respect and we gain the inner peace. Then we can give what we have. We can give the log, we can give their respect, We can give peace just by existing. We don't need to go and preach all

of that. We just need to be ourselves and to apply what we don't in any generation of life. We don't need to be teachers. Now we can work in whatever get to it and apply that in that direction. We can apply that with our fability, with our children, with our friends, but of course mainly with ourselves. We create a wonderful empowerment where we can live. And we have to understand that we are not responsible for other people's mind for all the people's actions, but just need

to take action when they crossed the lives. That's why we have laws and we have police. That is that's way that I can describe loves it works longer true. Right by talking about it, you lose the essence of it to some degree. But we have to do the best we can. That brings up a question that you know, I bring up on the show a lot, and and it's one that I wrestle with, which is, you're very successful man. You know written, you know best sellers, so

you clearly have some degree of ambition or striving. You know, you do things, you create things, you put things out there. And it seems like I wrestle with the balance between being ambitious or wanting things to be different, want in life to be a little bit better myself better, to make something that's important. And then the opposite of that is kind of exactly what you just said, which is to accept ourselves exactly the way we are. How do

you balance those two drives within yourself? Try I'm just that way. You know, I live in a physical body. We've been crippled since I have the heart attack. When I wake up from the heart attack. My heart was working only with the six percent of his capacity. The doctor feld me that I may live one more year if I'm lucky, and they recommend me to stay at home, not to walk the mass that I can, I have the same life that I had before. And of course, as soon as I feel better, I started doing exactly

the opposite. I started keep teaching again, taking people to different places, and all that is what I called my will, the will to enjoy my life and just my body. It wasn't physical pay for eight and a half years, because I didn't die in one years, as the doctor says, until I have a heart trans planet to doesn't intent. But it's all about the will, the will to enjoy life. Then the physical pain is not a reason to suffer,

because the suffering is really in the mind. Yes, we have paid whatever that we get used to, that we can we can enjoy life. Anyway, when you talk about suffering, you're really talking about all the things that we add on top of the physical pain. So you have physical pain, but the suffering is all the stories we tell ourselves

about it. What it means is that kind of what your mean by the suffering In that case, well, you're feeling myself pity, yeah, and feeling my my able pretended that everybody have to do something for me, and it's not true. Whatever help is because they want to, not because they have to. When you're creeple to feel that everybody have to help you, that they have the responsibility

of you, and it's not true. When you have set yourself after where you are, you don't need really too much help, and you give also so much that they really love to be around you. You don't need even to ask, but you have to ask when you need that. We have to be reasonable because we need to respect other people's points of you. Then it's very very important for people who have to have cancer, to have an accident and that parapleged, etcetera, etcetera. You know, we feel

sorry for ourselves. We create a big from in our life because we demand hardly anybody wants to be around us. If we change our attitude, everything will change. People will help us with without any hesitation. They will love to go around us. Like you said, that's that's one of those things it's easier to say than do in a lot of cases. Yes, of course, if it's if you can understand, but to take the action is different. And

that's the reason why I asked. Everybody tell me to change the world, but want that you create, You don't. You don't need to be the victim. You can, you can, You can help control of your own life, because it is true. Everybody can change the way that is their life. Everybody can create their own particular heaven. Instead of living with all those dramas that we create, we need to the repossibility of ourselves, of every action, of every opinion, and enjoy it, because yes, we can enjoy our life.

We do the best if we really want to, because that is so wonderful, It's so beautiful. What lesson has taken you the longest to learn personally in your life. When I was wealth and your soul, one of my older brothers died and that changed my life completely because I see all the people around pretending to be what they are not, and that really was a little shock for me to see that everybody is puthentic, they're not authentic.

Another time is when I have a dealop with my grandfather and he let me know that I am not what I believe by a yes the name of a make character. Yes you have really magain, which is my creation and a critical rief try to give an equilib to the opinion of everybody around me and my own opinion about myself. The magel Risk is just an image and is not real, but the whole story is about megal Risks. It is the one who make all those

decisions for good or her bath. It is using everything that knows it found authority in order to take those decisions. Then knowing that I am not what I believe I am. When someone asks you, well, what are you, I don't have to justify my existence that say, hey, I'm a medical author uh and an author and destroying everything that I like it and what I don't like because the owners truth is that I don't know what I am, but I am and here I am alive, and that's

that it's important. They don't talk him. Not that it's a dog the cat said, not that it's a cat. We call them dogs, we call their carts, but they don't care. They just exist the same with us. We just exist. If we're going to science, I will say, well, I am matter and life movement matter, which is very close to the truth, but it is still a promo actuality worse, it's not fruit any longer. When I say I am now it is even closer because I am

whatever I am. That's why I like pop by the failure. Yeah, what I am, that's all what I am. You're talking about letting go of the construction of what we think we are and all the all the things that we tie to that, and and really learning two more. It sounds like move out of that intellectual thinking mind, that's the hyper stimulated thinking mind that's always trying to figure everything out, and just trying to be present in the

moment that we're in. You know, this is the beauty of this book because in that way we're facing all our beliefs, all our superstitious in our own fanaticism, we can see all the structure falling apart, and by the end, in the retention that knowledge that hardly had any life anymore, we can see how it gets so close to the truth. And this is what I call the retention of orders, the retention of la la, and to see that everything of human can do the same thing with their own creation.

But they have to really go to that Podice say, to face every single superstition as a big monster. The community with the action of the fanaticism and every thing that we face one of those three lives. When we win, we see how they dissipated. There was not even real because the reality is vituals, not even truth. Everything that I believe is not true, everything that your build is not true. That it is only true for the main character. You know in the moment that you're dying, you can

see how irrelevant was everything that you did. It like all the reasons why you get upset with other people that you love, all the judgments that you have a battle, everybody, everything, it's completely irrelevant because you live to your physical body, and the whole story goes not you, because you're immortal, because your life your body. Yes, we will go because this matter that you who give them the life to your body, you cannot die and then you cannot be destroyed,

probably transformed. And this is the beauty that really doesn't exist, exists only into human mind, but as life. You just see how your manifest yourself in all the different specious to see you see the generation both replace all the generations in generations. It is completely normal. There is not

really dead. That is only in the human mind. That when we can see when we die, nothing really happened, but it's an impact in the story that we create and in the story of the people who live around us, because they have awareness that someone live the physical body, and the body is death. Very similar to the Buddhist idea that the self that we think exists is entirely self constructed. It's not what we think it is. That's exactly true. Thank you so much for taking the time

to come on the show. It's a it's a real pleasure to have you on. Your new book will be out very soon, and hopefully listeners will get a chance to check that out. If I hope that everybody we love this book, well, I hope you have as much success with it as you did with the Four Agreements, which was obviously very successful and and has helped a lot of people. So thanks so much for your time. Okay, all by love to all of you and to everybody who is listening to us. Okay, thank you, take care,

You're very welcome. By all right bye. You can learn more about this podcast and Don Miguel Ruiz at one new feed dot net slash Don