This article was published in the magazine #36 September-October 2021
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A spiritual leader followed by millions of people, Don Miguel Ruiz is the author of Four Toltec Accords, the famous best-seller published in France in 1999 and translated into 46 languages. After an extraordinary life journey dedicated to sharing the wisdom transmitted by his line of healers and shamans, he is now publishing a new series of books, the first of which is entitled “Actor of your life”. It was on this occasion that we had the immense honor of meeting him.
FeminineBio: What do you call “The School of Mysteries”, the title of your new series of books?
Don Miguel Ruiz: The mystery school is actually the Earth as a whole. Imagine the planet as a giant campus, where all languages are spoken. All cultures, all traditions are represented there. In this school, we encounter all the mysteries of existence, and we have a single teacher who teaches us everything: Life. If we have this powerful curiosity that pushes us to decipher Life, then the mysteries are revealed as we go along, and become our “knowledge”.
What is the first mystery we have to uncover?
The first mystery we encounter is the language we speak. As soon as we learn its codes and symbols, we use this language to create our reality. We create a story, a real masterpiece in which we are the main character. It is a story about us, in our name and in our image, with which we will identify.
What is the main message of the book Actor of your life ?
This book explains that we are all actors. You are the actress of your life, but you don’t know it. You don’t need to be professional, you play constantly and perfectly embody the main character of this story. You do it so well that no one else can be you. You can be imitated, but no one can really play your character. Finally, you’ve been playing your character so well for so many years that you’ve come to believe he really is who you are.
How is our role constructed?
When your mother was pregnant, she prepared everything for your arrival. All the scenarios were waiting for you. In the beginning, you naturally had everyone’s attention without having to do anything more than play your role as a newborn. As you learn to speak, you create your own story, that’s when everyone tells you what they believe about you and you subconsciously move in that direction.
To read The voice of knowledge: extract from the book by Don Miguel Ruiz
By trying to accommodate everyone’s views, you create an image of yourself based on the opinions of others. You adapt and you say to yourself: this is who I am. This is how the identity of your main character is defined.
How is this new understanding an asset for our evolution?
When you are aware that you are playing, you have a considerable advantage that allows you to adapt to any scenario. Most of the time, the script changes little by little and it’s quite simple. But sometimes it varies quickly and profoundly. This is what happened in 2020: our way of life was changed suddenly, for everyone.
Armed with this new awareness, we no longer resist like the rest of the world. We can even take advantage of the situation and feel better than before. This crisis revealed so much that we could not see! Our ability to share from a distance, our aptitude for solitude, etc. These rapid changes reveal to us more and more mysteries about Life.
Why is it so important to realize that we are actors?
One of the biggest fears we have is the fear of criticism. We are terrified of being judged, of being told we are wrong, of rumors tainting our performance. We victimize and sacrifice ourselves to please. We accept outside control. However, the greatest judge is in our head. We treat each other badly and discriminate.
By understanding that we are actors, everything changes. We see that the greatest story of our life is our creation, and we can change it! We can change the script and the way we play it. We thus become more and more who we are, more and more authentic, less and less affected by criticism.
Then you learn to respect yourself. To respect your own creation. To respect your beautiful body in which your life unfolds. When you look in the mirror, you no longer criticize yourself, you see yourself as beautiful as you really are. A newborn is beautiful, a child is beautiful, a very old human is beautiful. And you are beautiful, just the way you are.
The problem is that you don’t believe it. You don’t believe you are so gorgeous. You are as magnificent as anything in existence. You are unique. There is and never will be anyone like you. You are the one who gave life to your physical body, but you live forever. You lived long before the creation of this body, which follows a cycle of birth, life and death. Your life is eternal.
Where is the reality then?
Nothing is real. Everything that exists is in our mind, which is only a reflection of what exists outside. It’s very easy to prove. Look around you, see everything that makes up the landscape. Now close your eyes: everything disappears. Open your eyes again: everything instantly reappears in your mind. It’s not real. We perceive a reflection from outside, and this reflection is our mind.
It’s like when you look in a mirror and see objects. If you reach out your hand, you will only touch the surface of the mirror. You see a virtual image of what surrounds you. Your mind is as virtual as what you see in the mirror.
The difference is that your reasoning, your memory, your knowledge, make you interpret what you perceive. Which means everything is distorted by the human brain believing that what it sees is real. It’s not real, but it’s based on reality. When you realize that everything is a creation of your mind, everything changes.
You now know that you are an actress in a virtual reality. Nothing is the same for you. You doubt everything you have learned before. Now, if you write your life story and you don’t like it, you have to realize that you can change it. This is the most incredible part: you can change your point of view, change your beliefs, and the result is that your life becomes very simple and authentic.
You talk about “love mythologies” in your book. What do our relationships reveal about ourselves?
We create all of our dramas by learning to love the same way as those around us. We all like “under conditions”. “I love you if you let me control you, if you behave and dress the way I want you to”, etc.
The worst part is that we learn to love each other in exactly the same way. “I love myself if I can be what everyone wants me to be, if I become what I want to become”, etc. I adapt as long as I don’t like myself. I look at myself in the mirror, and I find myself too fat, too thin, too white, too black, too this, too that. And everyone around seems to confirm it to me. You are who you think you are.
If I don’t know how to love myself, how can I claim to love someone else? We find a partner with whom we love each other “so”, and we accept the unacceptable: abuse, mistreatment, injuries, etc.
We will leave the relationship only when something happens that we can no longer accept. The level of acceptance within a relationship reflects the level of our love for ourselves. The more we love each other, the less we can accept the conditions set by others. This is why it is so important to learn to love ourselves unconditionally, exactly as we are. To finally look at ourselves in the mirror and exclaim: “Oh, how beautiful I am, how beautiful I am!”
The miracle of this interview came about thanks to Charlène Guinoiseau, editorial director of Éditions Jouvence, and Sophie Gauthier, the publishing house’s press relations manager for France. A big thank you to these two exceptional women !
The book
Actor of your lifeis the first work of the new collection “The School of Mysteries” by Don Miguel Ruiz, consisting of 10 titles. A new book will appear every six months.
Don Miguel Ruiz: exceptional interview for the release of his book “Actor of your life”