Don Miguel Ruiz: The Toltec Art of Life and Death
When I no longer felt bound to the past, life became increasingly effortless.
OMTimes: Your book is about meeting life and death. Can you describe the reality of death for me?
Don Miguel Ruiz: I love this question because we are always searching for the truth since the very beginning of humanity. This is also how we have created religions for example. We are searching for the truth.
We all will die, sooner or later. Life is a fact and death are a fact. Death is nothing but matter. We can only move, if a force moves the matter. Matter reflects a force that is limited. Life is energy, and energy cannot be destroyed. It can only be transformed, and life is giving shape to matter.
Since the moment of conception, our body is dead. The matter is reflecting the force of life — we see a copy of life which is the main character. Miguel is just a reflection of life. The reflection is not real; it’s an image. For all of my life, I used to believe that Miguel was real. But Miguel is just my own creation that I created with the help of everyone that I know. Because everybody has an opinion of Miguel. By trying to please everybody and trying to please myself, is how I create my own identity: Don Miguel Ruiz. I didn’t even chose my own name. My parents chose my name and all of my life I must practice being Miguel Ruiz. I did it so well, that for a long time I really believed that I am Don Miguel Ruiz.
OMTimes: I really get what you are saying, and Barbara you can maybe elaborate on that — We obviously live in a world where most of us don’t think this way. What is your personal experience of dealing with life and the interaction with other people who are not thinking and feeling that way?
Barbara Emrys: [chuckles now] The most important lesson I think I learned from Don Miguel Ruiz l, is to respect all realities. However, they are shaped, whatever beliefs make them possible. We build our reality according to our beliefs and you can see how believing in yourself as Barbara or Dirk, or Miguel gets you into a very small space of perception. You believe your memories. You believe the way people identify with you. You believe all the little facts and data about your life. You believe your own emotional state of being right now, instead of seeing yourself as the force that made that state of being. So, it doesn’t really matter how people shape their realities.
