Do you control knowledge, or does knowledge control you?

[tuku747]

https://www.unity.org/article/listening-don-miguel-ruiz-junior

"Toltec means artist. So I am an artist, and the canvas for my work of art is my life. The instruments I’m going to use to create that work of art are my body, my mind, my intent, and my will. I can create the most perfect nightmare or the most harmonious dream—and to be honest, it usually fluctuates between the two. I am the artist of my life because only I get to perceive life from my own unique point of view. This is the same for all of us."

"An attachment is a healthy thing in the sense that we engage this moment in life. But when the time comes to let go and we can’t, that’s when an attachment becomes unhealthy. We’re holding on to what we used to know because it’s familiar. At that moment a belief exists. Neil deGrasse Tyson describes the truth as something that exists whether we believe in it or not, meaning it exists with or without us. It doesn’t need us for it to exist. In contrast, a belief exists only for as long as you say yes to it. So it needs humanity—it’s a subtle but important difference.

When we attach ourselves to a belief that no longer reflects the truth, it’s now a distortion. It’s harmful because it gives us information that’s no longer relevant to our lives. But we hold on to it because we don’t know who we are without it."

“We’re holding on to what we used to know because it’s familiar.”

"So our work is to look at our beliefs and be willing to ask ourselves, 'Where did I learn this from? Who taught me that? Who domesticated me with that belief?' And then to realize that belief has power only because we keep saying yes to it! The moment we let go of that belief, we’re free of it.

In that moment comes forgiveness. Someone once told me that forgiveness is the moment you no longer wish the past was any different. My brother teaches a story about a scorpion that stings itself over and over again with its own tail, administering its own poison to itself. The goal is to no longer take that poison, to no longer afflict ourselves with our own intent."

"Both in nature and in life, everything’s perfect because it exists at this very moment. But at the same time, everything is always changing and evolving, and that is also perfection. For example, we create beliefs about what beauty is. More than a hundred years ago, it was beautiful to be full-figured. Skinny people were considered ugly. A hundred years later, that’s reversed. The definition of beauty is going to change again and again. What makes it perfect is that it’s continuously flowing and changing.

"What matters most is becoming aware that the reflection we see of ourselves in the mirror and the judgments we feel about it are set by agreement. If we become aware of that, then we can forgive ourselves for ever saying yes to those beliefs in the first place. Then we can be at peace with ourselves and see ourselves as we are at this very moment—as existing at point A of any direction we want to take from here."

"The final level of the five levels of attachment in my book is fanaticism."

What unifies all five levels of attachment is my grandmother’s question: Do you control knowledge, or does knowledge control you? At level one, the authentic self, I am aware that I am alive, regardless of what I know or don’t know. At level two, preference, I’m aware that I use knowledge to navigate choice. At level three, identity, I put on a mask, with which I get to know myself through the experience of what I know as opposed to the experience of just being alive.

At level four, internalization, I begin to use that identity to domesticate myself. Now I have to live up to expectations I have about that image, and I inevitably end up judging myself. Knowledge gives me the rules by which I will live my life.

At level five, fanaticism, knowledge has complete and total control of who I am. Now, my belief system controls my will as opposed to me saying yes to what I want to say yes to and no to things I want to say no to. I’m completely subjugated to my conditioning, and I no longer see myself as a human being, let alone as my authentic self. I now see myself (and everyone else) as the personification of an idea—as a symbol. My knowledge and my beliefs are filters that distort my perception. They blind me and don’t allow me to see beyond the tip of my own nose.

So simply put, conditional love only sees what it wants to see. Unconditional love is the willingness to see life without the filter. The more attached we are, the more our knowledge becomes a filter that distorts our perception. Don Quixote de la Mancha sees giants because if he sees windmills, then he believes he’s not worthy of the name Don Quixote. And when he is forced to see they’re windmills, then he concocts a story that his archnemesis, the magician, turned these giants into windmills just to make him look bad. It’s what we know now as fake news or false or distorted information.

We live in a time when fanaticism is making a lot of noise, but in my view, most people still live at level three and level four, identity and internalization."

"Use the fifth agreement: Be skeptical but learn to listen, giving scrutiny to what you believe. Stop and ask yourself, Is it true? If it survives your scrutiny, you’ll say yes to it. Otherwise, you’ll say no to it. The scrutiny gives you a moment of clarity where you have a choice to continue that cycle or to let it go.

Yet in our domestication, in our conditioning, we are told that we are traitors if we ever question certain beliefs. That’s how domestication protects itself. The function of ego is to keep the illusion alive at all costs. The ability to question gives us the opportunity to see the truth, and once we question it we’ll go from fanaticism to internalization, from level five back to level four.

To go to level three, that’s where the four agreements really come in because these agreements—be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best—are instruments that allow us to clean the channels of communication within ourselves and with other people.

When we’re able to clean those channels, we’re able to listen, and at that moment we’re able to tell the difference between a belief and the truth because we’re willing to see it for the very first time. Little by little, we heal those wounds that conditional love left in our hearts and minds. But for that to happen, that first step of giving scrutiny, being skeptical, is crucial. Skepticism is the instrument that allows us that moment of clarity."

 

Edited July 9, 2023 by tuku747