Intro:              00:00          Podcasting from the base of Lake Tahoe in the Eastern Sierras comes the medicine wheel. We are a group of progressive positions seeking solutions and enlightenment while surfing the seas of big data and summiting mountains of research. In an effort to make the practice of medicine more personal and medical knowledge more accessible and empower you, the listener to be as healthy as possible. Now The Medicine Wheel.

 

Dr. Devlin:         00:33          Hello everyone. Welcome to The Medicine Wheel. Today we're blessed and excited to have a wonderful guest. Miguel Ruiz jr. He's well known for writing several notable books including The Mastery of Self and The Five Attachments- Five Levels of Attachment. We're going to talk to him, along with Dr. Floyd, one of my partners here at The Medicine Wheel. And we'll get started actually by introducing Miguel Ruiz Jr, thank you so much.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    01:01          Hello doctor, thank you so much for having me on your program.

 

Dr. Devlin:         01:03          Absolutely. We had the opportunity to sit down and have breakfast a few weeks ago with some of our friends over at Grateful Gardens and had a chance to sit with your dad and yourself. And just the topics that we exchanged on were really enlightening and exciting. And I was familiar obviously with your dad's work and I've seen you talk in the past up in Nevada City, California, and was really moved by the wisdom you carried with you for being such a young man. So, and I want to talk a little bit about how you came to contain and carry this wisdom with youfrom your prior relationship with your grandmother and with your father.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    01:39          Well, it's, how else you can say, blessed to be born into a family that loved each other a lot and the, they just happen to practice in spirituality. Growing up, it was my grandmother who was the spiritual leader of the family. She was the spiritual figure, we grew up in a matriarchal family. She was the head and that, a lot of the family or the families from there it's the mother's reign, and that you know, but. My grandmother was a faith healer. She was a spiritual teachings. That's what she, how she applied her father's and her grandfather's teachings. My father growing up was a medical doctor, so a surgeon, a neurosurgeon. And I got to witness my father's transformation. I remember Dr. Miguel Ruiz, I remember his style, and all that kind of thing. And even though I was quite young when he had his epiphany, his moment of clarity, you know, when he had an accident. A little before my brother was born in 1978, I was, what, a two or three years old. But it took him some time to really apply it in his life, I remember that, you know, when I was a six, seven, eight year old, Dr. Miguel Ruiz demanded good grades. You know, he was definitely one of those people. Then as he really got into it, you know, I can, that I remember when he started really going to my grandmother's teachings or her sermons or her practice. I was about seven or eight years old. And the most shocking thing, that, a few, a year after that, he retired from medical school. Like, you know, he stopped, he retired from his practice. I remember going to his medical office, I remember going, visiting him at the hospital and that kind of thing. And then he just shifted, you know, he let go of it. He went to live with my grandmother again and he went full on apprentice. Around this time my parents were divorcing, you know, that's like, what can you expect, my mom sought out to have a second- a third child. And my dad goes "UhI'm gonna stop being a medical doctor", you know, since, you know, there's a natural consequence there. But then I witnessed my father do the work. And in 1986- 87, I was about 10 or 11 years old, he began to teach and he used to pay me to go to his classes. And then eventually he stopped because while I was there I was just, I was paying attention, but at the same time just goofing off a little bit. But I remember him trying to interest, get me hooked in the interest, you know? And at that point, every Sunday, every Thursday going to my grandma was to go to her sermon and listen to her speak in a little temple called Nova Viva in Barrio Logan in San Diego, California. Right now it's a cafe called Bonavita, a little coffee shop. We like going there because we get to see my, my grandma's creation, my grandfather's creation. And in the back is the house that I was well, after I was born, that was my very first home. So spirituality was already there through the voice of my grandmother and my father being a doctor, a man of science, you know, back in the day, you know, homeopathy wasn't really that popular. It was East and West, you can say, or whatever. My grandmother being the equivalent of homeopathic with faith healing and all the herbs and all the vitamins that she recommended a lot of that stuff. So I grew up with that duality. My father being a neurosurgeon, my uncle being a neurosurgeon, my uncle being an oncologist, my aunt being a psychiatrist, my aunt- my mom being a dentist. My aunt being a dentist. Medicine, it was just a family of healers. Both my grandmother being a spiritual healer and my parents being a physical healer medical medicine, science, healers. Then my father let go of it. Like I was saying before, my father felt like he was on a treadmill and he couldn't find the roots so he let go of it, cause he was getting into psychiatry at that point. He, part of his practice was family therapy. He got into that whole concept. So in- as he let go and you know, it took him a while to truly transition out of being a medical doctor. He still had patients and he wanted to see that through. So he didn't take on new patients. He slowly let go and closing his practice and, but little by little he began to teach and he got into it more and more and more and just started teaching all around, like. My grandmother was already famous, for myself, when people say I'm walking my father's footsteps, I'm saying, "No, that's not- my father and I, and my brother we're all walking in my grandmother's footsteps. It's her. She's the one who decided to share that tradition." So my father went through that transition and then eventually he came Don Miguel Ruiz. I say this because I remember the parenting styles of my father. Dr. Miguel Ruiz was straight to the point, get to the point, "I want those straight A's." Apprentice Miguel Ruiz was a little bit between that and more of a Laissez-faire type of thing. Don Miguel Ruiz was more of a, "let your consequences teach you." "Don't be afraid of your consequences, respect your consequences, because that's where you're gonna really learn." So he'll- he always found a way to push us, for life to give us experiences. And that's sometimes required failing. Sometimes it required heartbreak. But then he would ask me, "What did you learn? What did you learn?" And so it was always a constant of back and forth. So you can say that the four agreements is the transition, because when he first started teaching, he noticed that it was full of superstition. There was a lot of people who were really into Castaneda and they were coming in to him because they wanted to become a shaman. So he's like, at first he taught it, because that's how he learned it, but then he realized that people were corrupting that as well. They were corrupting the teachings, so he slowly let go of it because he wanted to get to the core of it. He wanted to get to the roots. So you can say the four agreements is the end result of that journey where it's not about becoming a shaman. It's not about becoming a doctor. It's not about becoming. It's about getting to that point where you know you have control of your beliefs, that are the ones that are causing your unhappiness in life, and not just your unhappiness, but your health and all that kind of thing. It's if you get to the point where you're the one. Don't take things personal, be impeccable with the word, don't make assumptions, these three are about communication with oneself and with other people. Of course, claiming those channels of communication and knowing that you are the root of that. Like for example, I'm not this body, the moment I let go of my last breath, or of my last heartbeat, I don't take this body with me. If you understand this concept, I'm also not my mind, I don't take my mind with me either. If you understand this concept, my love exists, just like every emotion because I'm here to give it life. To be impeccable with the word, is to know that you are the root. So be impeccable with yourself. Be impeccable with your intent. That gives power to the word. And all of a sudden you can say, that is exactly the root. It's common sense. And that's what makes a universal. My upbringing and how I got into it was watching this transition with my grandmother's faith and empower. You know, they did a lot of news articles and news shows, locally, about her healing and she was inducted in the San Diego Women's Hall of Fame, for all the work she did. She has- she had incredible amount of faith. And I say 'has' because I still feel her within me. To have that duality and then have my father in that transition. You know, healing was something in our family. And if you look at it, if you let go of your prejudice, "it HAS to be this way." "It HAS to be that way." Then all of a sudden you see that you have this great arsenal of both traditions that allows you to heal, the homeopathic as well as traditional medicine. They both are there to help, follow the ones that resonate with you and you will know which one will resonate with you by knowing who you are. So at the age of 14, my father had already gotten to that point and he- that's when I became an apprentice to the family. And my first role was to help my grandmother. So for 10 years I work exclusively with my grandmother and helping her translate because she spoke no English. She passed away as a U S citizen, but she spoke no English because by the time she became a us citizen, she was already in her eighties or so. It was, you know, that was, that was just the age. But my job was to translate for her and she taught me how to meditate in that way and I saw a lot of that, I learned a lot of that tradition. So at first I paid attention to it because I love them. I love my family, that's what I gave them, but at the same time I rebelled against it, just like my father did, just like my grandmother did, just like my great grandfather did, every generation rebels against it in their own unique way. I was like, "what does this have to do with me? It belongs in a museum. It belongs in the textbook." And then, when The Four Agreements came out in 1997, I was 21 years old, I began to read the book and around the third chapter I put the book down because it's my dad telling me what to do all over again. Because when you grew up in that family that's how it feels. Then the bubble burst. I graduated from college, a bad breakup, and all these kind of things came forth. And I picked up the book again when I was 27 years old and I saw it the way other people have seen it, as an instrument of healing and instrument that allows you to clean up your channels of communication. And put it into practice for the very first time in my life. Like it wasn't something in a museum, it was something that wasn't in the textbook. It's something that you apply in life and life in return will teach it to you. You can say that my dad and my grandmother were there to introduce me to life, which is my teacher. And to learn how to listen to it. Little by little you can say- my father had a massive heart attack and he needed help. And, you know, my family, we like to work, we enjoy doing what we love to do. So he would go out there and do a presentation, but with 15% heart capacity, he would get tired very quickly. So he will look at me or look at Jose and we would do at like a tag-team in a wrestling match. We just go in there and switch places. I would share what I knew. And little by little, by doing that, I got better and better and better. You know, of course I would look back and, see if my dad was ready to come back out, which sometimes he was. So we went over there, and little by little, that's when I began to put into practice. I was using it to heal myself. I was using it to learn from me. And little by little I began to teach it and then my real teachers come in, which is a different way of life, teaching me through my kids and my wife, you know, they're- my kids in particular. They are the perfect reflection. I get to see, you know, my roots through them. And in order to break the cycle, you have to first break the cycle within you. So that's how I got into it. You know, the history is there. You have to- I want to honor my history, but it's the moment where I decided to stop pretending to be something I wasn't and accept myself for who I was. And at the time- except that- "Hi, my name is Miguel Ruiz" and I did take things personal. I did make assumptions. Sometimes I wasn't impeccable with my words. Sometimes I didn't do my best and sometimes I wasn't skeptical, and to a certain grade- to this very day, that's still truth, but I was pretending- I'll stop pretending to be a man who didn't do those things and accepted who I was. And that's the beginning of the journey. So that, and like any person who has a moment of clarity, I chose to use my moment of clarity to heal me.

 

Dr. Devlin:         13:50          Wow. That's amazing. I'm curious as to where along in this journey that you develop the concept of attachments and these levels of attachment because, It's sort of like a removal from reality, or from what's truly real to this illusion.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    14:06          Sure. Well, it's a lesson that my grandmother used to teach me. The very- the question throughout my apprenticeship with her was, "Do you control knowledge, or does knowledge control you?" She said it that way. She would change it, of course, the most popular way she would change it is, "Are you drinking the bottle, or is the bottle drinking you?" You know, it's- she would find ways, you know, with food or with things. But she was always throwing it back to me, always answering that question. And when I was 14 or even in my teenage years, I had no idea what she meant. But little by little I began to understand it. She used to describe attachment as hell. You know, I've read Dante's Inferno, so I understood what she was trying to describe. You know, the more attached you are, the more in hell you are. So one day what clicked, was one day I went to a soccer game and San Diego, California, and my family grew up in Guadalajara, so there's a lot of Chivas fans. So I was in a section where there's a lot of Chivas fans, Chivas is the team from Guadalajara, red and white jerseys with blue trousers. And in that area, you know, everyone was having fun. And then the arch-nemesis, the enemy is the team called Club America from Mexico City, so it's a traditional Guadalajara versus Mexico city, kinda like Boston versus New York here in the States or Calgary and everyone else. And in Mexico It's, that's the main rivalry. So a fan of the Club America and his girlfriend were just, went to their seats and sat near us, and I was just, I watched them, I saw the Jersey, the- this Canary yellow Jersey that they have. And just out of nowhere, just because they saw the shirt, some of the people around me began to yell at the person, yell obscenities at the person, throw beer at them. And the guy was- all he did was sit down and he just wear the shirt. And to the point where someone just started sending- the guy, like got up and tried to defend himself, especially his girlfriend, cause he's there with his girl. And all of a sudden someone out of the blue just goes over there and just starts beating him up. And I'm going, "For what?" All he's wearing is a yellow Jersey. We don't know this guy. He didn't do nothing." And also my grandmother's, you know, the evil is when you lose sight of humanity. When you cant see the humanity of an individual, that's when all of a sudden you're in the deepest form of hell because knowledge has complete control of you. Knowledge will tell you who to love, who to hate, who to accept. And if they wear the same Jersey, for example, the Chivas jerseys, you have to behave a certain way. You have to- you represent us. And this is who you supposed to hate. And all this person did was show up. Nobody knew this person. They did nothing to you. All they did was sit down, bought their ticket to watch the game and thought that bringing his girl was a good thing to do. That's when I became aware of that, that's when that lesson really- of course, I read about civil rights, you know, being a UCSD students from Thurgood Marshall, I knew all about that. I grew up with that kind of thing. I knew about the story, but I hadn't seen it like that. And of course I grew up around gang territory, of course, blue and red, Crips and Bloods. And you know, the- that kind of thing. But watching it in sports, it's just a sport. It's just teams that sell jerseys. So that's when I had the 'aha' moment. And then the five levels of attachment, I wrote it using a sports analogy using soccer because that was my 'aha' moment. And the same time I used soccer analogy, one, because if I talk about politics or religion, I would have lost them at level two or level three when I'm describing that. So with sports I'm able to finish the journeys and I, at the same time, I challenged people who think they're- they consider themselves spiritual. So it has to be spiritual. And if I talk about sports, "Well, that has nothing to do with spirituality" you know, and all that kind of thing. I was challenging their attachments too. That's the nice thing about that. When there was that little way of challenging people that think that it has to be pigeonholed. If it's spiritual, you have to talk about that concept, but you can't talk about anything else if it's not, "if it's sports it's not spiritual," of course it is, It's human, humanity. So the levels of attachment, that's when everything clicked, you know, level five, fanaticism. Level four, internalization. Level three, identity or mask, the way we were talking before the interview. Level two, preference. And level one, the authentic self. And then of course there's a level zero, which, life and death, everything else is just a point of view.

 

Dr. Devlin:         19:08          So, I liked how you went through those. The authentic self is, I think, something we always strive to find. And I think, at least for those of us who feel enlightened to some degree. At the end of the day though, a lot of people have internalized and identified with things that are outside of themselves. And that, when we talked about the mask wearing, it has led to some real crippling issues in our society, which has led to self-destruction, you know, drug abuse, and in some cases annihilation of self through suicide. Can you talk a little bit about where we are in a state, culturally, and in our society and what do you think we can do to sort of elevate ourselves to find that authentic self?

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    19:50          Well, first get rid of the idea that we have to elevate ourselves.

 

Dr. Devlin:         19:52          Okay.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    19:52          Because, already with that expression, we're creating an attachment. An attachment is investing of yourself emotionally to something that's not a part of you. You attach yourself with that energy of investment, which is emotions, psychology, psychological, love even, is the way we corrupt it. The word authentic self, I use that just because it happens to be in the conversations, but in reality we could use anything, life, soul, intent, It's that being of us, there's a part of us that we don't need to describe. Before the interview we were talking about mask. Mask is an identity. So level three identity. I put on a mask, which is called identity, which is something beautiful. It's the thing that allows us to find lighthearted people like, light kind people, we like the same things. So it's an ice breaker, it's an instrument that allows us to find camaraderie, to build a community, and it's beautiful. It's the way we can honor our ancestors, It's the way we can honor our preferences. But it's a slippery slope because as soon as we have a mask, we're so used to domestication or conditioning or conditional love that we'll corrupt it. "I Love you IF you live up to my expectation", domestication is a system of reward and punishment by which we model the behavior of an individual. If you live up to the expectation, we get the reward. And if we don't live up to the expectation, we get the punishment. And since we are emotional beings that experienced the full spectrum of our emotions, that reward feels like love, which, because it feels like acceptance, and the punishment feels like rejection and the lack there of of love as the way we've learned conditional love. I love myself IF I live up to it. So if I were to accept myself conditionally like that, then I have to live up to it. For example, if I want- when I'm- before I used to write a book, people used to ask mein interviews, which one of the four agreements was the easiest, the harder one for you to practice. And I used to say, "taking things personal or being impeccable with the word, it's always between the two." And then it dawned on me, the real- the reason why it's being difficult is because I was pretending to be something I wasn't. I was pretending to be a man who was impeccable with his word and who didn't take things personal, but I was using it. The telltale signs that we're using the four agreements as an instrument of domestication is judging myself for taking things personally, judging myself for making assumption, judging myself for not living up to that image or that standard is the way I turn the four agreements into the four conditions of my personal freedom. It's the way we grew up, not just Don Miguel Ruiz and the four agreements and turn them into the four conditions is the way we corrupt Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Jesus, Buddha, Siddhartha, Mohammad, psychology, psychiatry, Alcoholics Anonymous, humanity has created all these beautiful things that allows us to embrace unconditional love and that conditional love, but we're so attached to it that we will corrupt all of it, including higher self or authentic self. We'll grab those words and we tried to live up to, it's the way we corrupt spirituality. "I Practice yoga" "Well, I practice Hatha" "Well, I practice Kundalini and mine is better than yours" and that kind of thing, is the moment that we use this instrument of transformation to create hierarchy, and that's the point where it comes in. So at that point we begin to corrupt it. That's the internalization. I internalize this mask and it begins to impact me. And as I go to level five, it begins to control me. It's completely subjugated. I can't do if I can't live up to that image, who to accept who to love, "I want to date someone who's enlightened." "What does that mean?" And here we are, domesticating one another. "Oh, You should have practiced this." Imagine my wife, "Honey, you're Mrs. Don Miguel Ruiz Jr, here's The Four Agreements. Read it!" "Honey, you're taking things personally, you didn't read the book. Oh honey, I only, I only hang out with people who are impeccable with their own word." And that moment, I'm judging her. Whenever I judged someone, I'm punishing them for agreements they never made. But I'm forcing them to make the agreement through the judgment. And that's where the downward spiral is, from identity. But identity is something beautiful. So define ourselves, that we were, at the beginning of your question about finding that authentic self, is knowing first becoming aware that my need is to corrupt because I only know how to learn something through reward and punishment. I love myself IF I am able to do this. I love myself IF I practice the four agreements, or not knowing, not realizing that I'm practicing the four conditions, I still call it the four agreements, but I don't realize that I've corrupted it. And that's the same with all the beautiful traditions out there. To do the work requires a moment of clarity, becoming aware that we're using our word to go against us. So to be impeccable with the word is to know that I can use the word to liberate myself, to heal myself, which is the using the word impeccably, or I can use my word to domestic myself, love myself conditionally and subjugate my will. To say, "I'm horrible because I didn't practice that agreement. I'm horrible." Why? "Why Should I call myself Don Miguel Ruiz Jr if I didn't, if I did this and that, and then at that point, love becomes conditional. And that's the way we corrupt spirituality. We corrupt all the safe work. I remember once watching a debate between two people who, one, through alcoholics anonymous 12 step, and the other one, something else. And they were debating until the point that they were saw attached to being right. Because if you're right, you're worthy of love. And if you're wrong you're going to get punished. And there's this one person in tears holding onto everything and the other person is seeing blood because they're about to win the argument. They're going for it. And not realizing that the price, the consequence is this person's sobriety, all of a sudden we've corrupted it. And not that realizing that by any means necessary, meaning we use whatever helps us. So we do the work. We apply the four agreements, which is an instrument of transformation, but same time we applied Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson Carlos Costaneda we can apply Jesus, Buddha,Siddhartha, Mohammad, psychology, grandfather's teachings, grandmother's teachings, our family's teachings. The lessons, you know, theres- I just saw a documentary where RZA from the Wu Tang clan was quoting his mother who says, "A wise person- no wait sorry- A very smart person learns from their mistake, a very wise person learns from someone else's mistake." It's letting life teach you. So as we do the work, we begin to heal those wounds, that conditional love left in our heart, both by ourselves and everyone else that we can say that in society, the biggest, the majority of the people out there is level three and level four, which is internalization. But just using our identities to domesticate ourselves and people who are not so domesticated that they have their identity level five is a minority, but they're very loud. Fanaticism is very, very loud. And the other two are what we call spirituality or enlightenment, whatever that means. But here's the thing, in finding that authentic self: you begin to question, what are you not? You find yourself by realizing what you're not, and what you're not is your beliefs. Your beliefs are your creation. My beliefs exist because I'm here to create them, just like, my love exists because I'm here to create it, without me my love will not exist, which means I can share my love either conditionally or unconditionally. It's still my love. I just, one is filled with fear and the other one is not. So as I began to heal and I become aware, yeah, I do the work to let go of my conditioning, I let go of the need to corrupt the four agreements and apply it. To apply all these beautiful teachings from around the world. Then you start getting to the point where you realize that this mask that we put on it's not us. My identity is not me. If I take off the mask, I find myself, you see an identity, just like any word is an empty symbol whose definition is subject to agreement, which means identities change. Kind of like I was talking before, like the phrase, I live in a red state. If you lived in 1950s in here in the States, that means that you live in a communist, socialist state and fighting words, depending who you say that to. And fast forward to 2019 I live in a red state, the phrase just the same, it means that you live in a state that votes conservative Republican and fighting words, depending who you say that to as well. The phrase remained the same, but society in a community changed so much that the meaning change. That's true with words, there are words here in America that are in English of course, but that same English in the United Kingdom, that same word means something offensive. You know, if you'd watch Austin Powers, you'll find a lot of words that are in the United Kingdom. It's just obscene. But here it means nothing. You know, if it goes over our head, like you know, certain words-

 

Dr. Devlin:         29:32          Like 'shagging'.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    29:33          'Shagging' And 'Fanny pack', you know, if you can Google that, you'll find out. But here's the thing, words are empty symbols whose definition is subject to agreement. We never know when we're offending someone because we only know how to use that word, and it may mean something different to them. And my father always says, "I'm responsible for what I say. Am not responsible for what you hear?" And the reason why that is is because you grew up in a totally different environment where words mean something different, as different from California and Utah, as different from the United States to Australia and United Kingdom. We all may speak English, but our vernacular sometimes changes definitions. If you understand this concept, an identity is also such a thing, it's a beautiful thing. It allows us to honor our ancestors. Like I was saying before, our preferences in life. But if we tried to look for ourselves in that identity we are going to spend the rest of our life spinning around going around in a circle like a dog chasing his tail or a hamster in a hamster wheel. It keeps changing moving and we will never find it, because as soon as we feel comfortable with the definition from that identity, that word will change, that meaning will change. We see that continuously in society, right now, we have a huge disagreement with one another with what things we should be saying, and we're trying to create something universal, but as long as we are individuals, 7.5 billion human beings living life at this very moment, our definition of what a woman and a man will continuously change because it's going to be different for all of us. So in order to find that authentic self, which is just us a word, all you have to do is to experience you, experience being alive. What you like, what you don't like, what do you enjoy, what you don't enjoy? My wife, my daughter and my mom, the three women in my life see me different and identify only through their point of view, hen I've already limited myself because every relationship will bring out different elements of me. I am the constant in every relationship. I'm a shape shifter because everyone who knows me sees a different side of me, but at the same time I'm the constant because it's always me. Who am I? What am I? The answer is I don't know, but I know who I am because I'm experiencing life at this very moment. This is me. I am not this body because I've witnessed enough people pass away to know that I am not, I don't take this body with me. I am not this mind because I also want to take that with me. I am life and who I am, what I am. I am all. That's the way- as the phrase goes, I am.

 

Dr. Devlin:         32:23          Yeah, "I am." You have brought up so many points to reference, one thing.

 

Dr. Floyd:          32:29          I know.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    32:29          I just bombarded you.

 

Dr. Floyd:          32:31          I have hundreds of thoughts, questions I want to ask him.

 

Dr. Devlin:         32:33          One thing is, is the concept that- in today's world of physics and quantum knowledge, there's the thought that this is a grand hologram. And in hearing what you had to share was that in general we are living a illusion or within an illusion or a dream as the Toltecs refer to, and that it's our personal one that really no one else can experience and this is soul into us. And that experience itself is that authentic beingness.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    33:04          Yeah, it's the way I learned how to let go of my jealousy, for example. You know, I only will know what it feels like to feel love from my body. I only know what it feels like to kiss from my body. I only know what it feels like to be in love, make love, engage love, from my own body. I am- I alone know. I don't- I have to use my imagination to imagine that experience through my wife's point of view. And I have to imagine that experience through my mom's or my daughter's, or my friends, even like you could be the most prolific writer, in a sense that you have the great detail to describe emotions. You can say that William Shakespeare was revolutionary in the sense that he was able to finally put emotions in words that he had, that the common person can hear. You know, that's the reason why we laugh. That's why the comedy, we laugh because we see ourselves in that, that line, you know, Shakespeare was phenomenal for that Cervantes as well. Both of them were phenomenal. Gabrielle Garcia Marquez. But you can be that kind of author, but you still need to use your imagination to experience, to, to imagine what it feels like to be someone else. You have to, you have yourself as a point of reference. You use our own, which means when you, when you're jealous, you're comparing yourself to someone and you're losing that comparison. "Who Will love me if I don't live up to that image?" Domestication all over again, but who I am, what I am, it's, it's unique. Now in regards to the the, the hologram. The way my father's Christ did, the way he taught it to me, he says, there's a mirror behind your eyes, Miguel. It's called the brain, or it's called a mind, whichever way you want to use it. What I'm seeing right now, for example, in my body right now, I'm experiencing life through my senses, through my nervous system. It allows me to feel my clothes. It allows me to feel the warmth of the seat in the back of my back. It allows me to hear the resonance and that a little bit of echo in my voice in this room right now with my senses, I can feel this room. I can hear this room. If I reached out and shake your hand. I get to experience you. My physical body allowed me to touch you, but even before that I could hear your voice. So my hearing, heard you. But right now I'm seeing you. I'm seeing your eyes. I'm seeing your eyebrows. I'm seeing your skin. I'm seeing your hair. What I'm actually seeing is light coming from these two light fixtures and the window bouncing off your skin, bouncing off your hair, bouncing off your eyes and going straight into my retina. I'm perceiving light right now and it's taking the color of the filters that in my, in my eyes, in my mind, in the way the colors bounce off your skin and whatever it, the frequency that is, we use physics, right? That's right now, what I'm perceiving there is a mirror that perceives it. It's going to flip it and then flip it again into my mind. That's why we call it a dream and that's the tradition. To us and the total tradition to dream simply means to perceive and to project. Like I was saying, right now I'm perceiving you and at the same time I'm feeling my diaphragm with air. Slowly letting it out and using what my and my therapist taught me, try to make this part here reverberate because now instead of doing here, I'm here. That'll help me with my voice. I am, but I'm still projecting. Now, here's the thing, I'm also projecting, even if I want to say something and if I start thinking I'm also projecting. Perception and projection, that's the dream. What makes it a hologram or an illusion is that I am interpretating everything I see based on what I know, I am processing it inside that mirror right now you can say, what's not a hologram. That. Right here. And if I were to look into your eyes and not think, just simply perceive, I'm seeing life. But if I begin to narrate this hand-shake and teaching this what I'm perceiving, I'm describing you. That's the illusion. The truth. And the illusion is what does that mean? What's my interpretation? That's the illusion. That's a hologram. 7.5 billion human beings will leave the animals and the plants out of this because they know what they're doing, it's us humans who have created this complex thing called the dream of us, according to the tradition using Toltec tradition, is called The Dream of Us. It's the main function of my mind is to dream the main function of your mind is to dream. When we come together, we create the dream of us. That's a metaphysics, you can call it or spirituality, whatever. If you want to use social studies, we create community, we create society, we create relationships, but they're all interpretation. Silence is perceiving, noise is projecting and what I mean by that is I'm not referring to the noise of a car or a or a bird. I'm talking about the noise I create describing both those things. You see if I'm sitting in the middle of Manhattan and I just started focusing on my breath and just simply go in there, it could be the most silent place in the world in the middle of Manhattan in rush hour. But if I'm full of thoughts and my, if my mind is going, go, go, go, go, go. I could be up here in the Sierras in the quietness, that lets me see Lake Tahoe and all that and be full of noise because that voice inside of me just going, going, going, going, going. It's my projecting. I'm projecting. In that silence, we can see life as is. You just step out of the way and we see the beauty that is life, but we begin to narrate. We begin to describe it, we begin to quantify, qualify it. Then the filters come in that distorts, puts it in a prism. And there's the hologram.

 

Dr. Devlin:         39:51          Why do we do that? Is it, is this duality that some where we're the observer and then we're the actor within the story to some degree, why do we fill that space?

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    40:03          Oh, it's just the mind. For example, I like, I liked, to make an assumption, to describe, don't make assumptions because to me that's what you're describing. You know, mind you, I just did what I just described. I, I interpreted your question right? I just did it. Alright. I'm pointing it out, pointing it out is always important, right? But going on with that narrative: My favorite way to describe what an assumption is, is using the gestalt principle of closure. Gestalt principles is something that is in psychology they use. But I've worked in the film industry, and I also did graphic design. So I used art quite a bit. Gestalt principle of course or something we use quite a bit in graphic design and it goes like this. If you draw a circle and you don't close it, the mind has the capacity to project that missing piece. If you draw two sides of a triangle and you don't draw that third line, the mind has the capacity to project that missing line. The mind requires closure. It needs to know what its' perceiving. In order for us to make a choice, we need to know the wholeness that allows us to survive, to a certain point. The thing is that we believe that projection and I love the story I used the one and I believe it's in the five levels of attachment and I repeated again, we repeat it again in the Seven Secrets of Happy, Healthy Relationships but in a different way goes like this. Now this story is a fictional story based on truth. I changed things too but it's combination of opinion, relationships all into one story. Imagine me at the age of 23 and my ex girlfriend left me for another guy and I have that wound. I have that, that scar, whatever that trigger. But I'm young, I mean sometimes get into relationships a little quicker than you know. And this next relationship went deeper than my ex-girlfriend. We actually decided to move in together and that's when you move in. Certain habits start happening and you get into the habitual concepts of things. And yeah, so one for example, one day we, when she gets off work, she gives me a call at seven o'clock and that's a little habit. You know, little things that couples do. One evening, I don't get that phone call. Seven o'clock comes in seven 15 and no phone call. One side of the triangle is I know my, my, my girlfriend and the habit, which is seven o'clock make the phone call. That's one truth I have. The other truth is she hasn't called, the missing piece. The missing line is why hasn't she called? And my mind begins to answer it. It begins to create, and project stories. "She's Still out working. She can't call me." "She is driving and she'll also want to use her phone." "She's at the gym," "she's with the girlfriends," "she's with another guy." "Oh she with another guy! I knew it! I knew it!" All of a sudden there's an emotional reaction, a reaction of like, "Oh, that explains this, that explains that!" All sudden it starts this chain reaction of thoughts. The emotional, because as a story triggered a wound that's there, that hasn't been healed. You've covered it up with a new relationship. Sometimes that we, that's what we do, but when the wound gets triggered, a reaction happens. The door opens up, and like a Mexican soap opera, "You!" and in that reaction, I don't even see what she has in her hands. But a fight happens. An argument happens. There's a break up, someone moves out and years later you're talking to a therapist and you say, "Every woman I ever been relationship with leaves me for another man." And you tell the story and then the therapist stops you, says, "Wait, what did she have in her hand?" "Oh, she had Thai food..." There was a sixth story. That sixth story was that she wanted to surprise me with my favorite meal, Thai food. If my mind, if my heart was healthier, I could've continued telling more stories and could have told 10, 10 potential stories that allows me to close that missing line. And then she walked in, and I told those 10 stories, and she walks out, walks into the room where that food, all the rest of the stories dissipate as this potential story turns into the truth. I imagine if I tell 10 stories and none of them was, she wanted to surprise me with my meat, my favorite meal, then the truth came out and all for all 10 of these dissipate. An assumption is a projection that we put onto the world that makes us think that we know the whole. The danger or the problem is that we believe those assumptions. So let me change this one a little bit. Let me change. Don't make assumptions into, don't believe your assumptions, because it requires discipline to use an assumption as an instrument. And the discipline simply is, you know, you're the one who projected that story. You know, it's a story you're projecting on to the world and it may or may not be truth, but you got to give life the opportunity to show you the truth. Why do we do it? The mind requires closure. It wants to know. So a lot of the things we know about the world is our own projected onto it. We make it fit our image of what it should be, based on our domestication, conditioning, belief system, wounds and et cetera, and beyond that. It's that thing that makes us take things personal. We don't give life the opportunity to share with us the truth because we want to see things we want the way we want to see it like Don Quixote, he wants to see the windmills because if he sees windmills, sorry, if he sees giant sorry, correcting myself here, if Don Quixote sees giants, he's worthy of the name Don Quixote La Mancha, but if he accepts that they're windmills in that moment of clarity after the windmill throws him and Rocinante to the ground, he accepts the truth, which means his name is Alonzo Quijano, or Quixano depending on which edition you read. The truth. Why do we project on to that? Why do we prefer the illusion over the truth? Because it's what we know, how else will we learn how to love ourselves? That's why a lot of the times we prefer the illusion over the truth, but the best way to let go of the illusion, the best way to let go of the hologram is to accept the truth when it's presented before us. And how do we know the truth? The truth exists, whether you believe it or not. That's Neil deGrasse Tyson.

 

Dr. Devlin:         47:12          That's right, yeah.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    47:12          Neil deGrasse Tyson. The truth exists whether you believe in it or not, meaning it doesn't need you for it to exist. But let me add something to this. I believe it only exists for as long as you believe it. As soon as you cease to believe it, it ceases to exist. And that's the difference between the truth and the illusion, also known as a belief. A believe, it needs you. The truth doesn't need you.

 

Dr. Devlin:         47:45          It stands on its own.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    47:46          Mhm, So, for us and where it matters most is with ourselves. If we let go of all of our beliefs about ourselves at the end, it's going to be nothing but the truth that remains, which is us.

 

Dr. Floyd:          47:59          That's pretty heavy actually. Yeah.

 

Dr. Devlin:         48:01          Again, this is a wrap for the medicine wheel. Again, we just went through part one with Miguel Ruiz jr and we'll be back with part two. Take care for now.

 

Outro:              48:14          The medicine wheel encourages all of our listeners to subscribe to our newsletter and podcast as we continue to explore the world of medicine, bringing you up to date, health and science information. The medicine wheel invites our listeners to email us any news where these stories are topics they wish to explore further and discuss on the podcast. For more information about the medicine wheel, please visit us at our website www.themedicinewheel.com and on Facebook and finally on Twitter and Instagram at the Med Wheel. In an effort to support access to integrative medicine and functional medicine options for those in need, And education for those who need information, please consider donating to project OM Care. 501C3.Org please go to our website, www.the medicinewheel.com to learn more. Thank you again to all our local sponsors, Grateful Gardens, Lighthouse Coffee and Dorinda's chocolates which represent some of the best organic and advertising options in the Reno Tahoe area. Lighthouse coffee shop is a proud sponsor of the Medicine Wheel. We are a family owned and operated local coffee shop. Our goal as a business and a family is to cultivate community wherever we are. All of our coffee is ethically sourced, organic and farm fresh. It's roasted in house daily, guaranteeing you access to the freshest cup of coffee on the planet. We cared deeply for our community and everyone in it. We strive to provide you with the best ingredients and most comfortable environment. Come and enjoy coffee with us. We are family and we would love for you to be part of it. Gerber Medical Clinic is proud to support the medicine wheel and medical education to improve health quality, nurturing the lifestyles of our listening community enhancing wellness for all. Thanks again to Wyred Insights and their talented team for making our podcasting dream possible. In closing, we would like to remind all of our listeners if you have a medical concern or diagnosis, you need to see your personal doctor without delay and if needed, obtain a referral to a specialist. If ever you feel the health issue you have is urgent or an emergency, please call 911 and go to your nearest emergency room. Please do not take any of our positions, commentary or our guests' opinion as medical advice and always seek out medical care from fully licensed and appropriately trained medical professionals in your area. The information shared in this podcast is for general information only and should not be construed as medical advice and understand that no doctor patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and educational materials link to this podcast and website are employed at the user's own risk. The content of this podcast is not meant to be used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This is the medicine wheel. Signing off for this week with reminder to live love, listen and learn.