THE TOLTEC PATH TO FREEDOM: BREAKING OLD AGREEMENTS
EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT FREEDOM . ALL AROUND the world different
people, different races, different countries are fighting for freedom. But what is
freedom? In America we speak of living in a free country. But are we really
free? Are we free to be who we really are? The answer is no, we are not free.
True freedom has to do with the human spirit — it is the freedom to be who we
really are.
Who stops us from being free? We blame the government, we blame the
weather, we blame our parents, we blame religion, we blame God. Who really
stops us from being free? We stop ourselves. What does it really mean to be
free? Sometimes we get married and we say that we lose our freedom, then we
get divorced and we are still not free. What stops us? Why can’t we be
ourselves?
We have memories of long ago, when we used to be free and we loved being
free, but we have forgotten what freedom really means.
If we see a child who is two or three, perhaps four years old, we find a free
human. Why is this human free? Because this human does whatever he or she
wants to do. The human is completely wild. Just like a flower, a tree, or an
animal that has not been domesticated — wild! And if we observe humans who
are two years old, we find that most of the time these humans have a big smile
on their face and they’re having fun. They are exploring the world. They are not
afraid to play. They are afraid when they are hurt, when they are hungry, when
some of their needs are not met, but they don’t worry about the past, don’t care
about the future, and only live in the present moment.
Very young children are not afraid to express what they feel. They are so
loving that if they perceive love, they melt into love. They are not afraid to love
at all. That is the description of a normal human being. As children we are not
afraid of the future or ashamed of the past. Our normal human tendency is to
enjoy life, to play, to explore, to be happy, and to love.
But, what has happened with the adult human? Why are we so different? Why
are we not wild? From the point of view of the Victim we can say that
something sad happened to us, and from the point of view of the warrior we can
say that what happened to us is normal. What has happened is that we have the
Book of Law, the big Judge and the Victim who rule our lives. We are no
longer free because the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system don’t allow us
to be who we really are. Once our minds have been programmed with all that
garbage, we are no longer happy.
This chain of training from human to human, from generation to generation, is
perfectly normal in human society. You don’t need to blame your parents for
teaching you to be like them. What else could they teach you but what they
know? They did the best they could, and if they abused you, it was due to their
own domestication, their own fears, their own beliefs. They had no control
over the programming they received, so they couldn’t have behaved any
differently.
There is no need to blame your parents or anyone who abused you in your
life, including yourself. But it is time to stop the abuse. It is time to free
yourself of the tyranny of the Judge by changing the foundation of your own
agreements. It is time to be free from the role of the Victim.
The real you is still a little child who never grew up. Sometimes that little
child comes out when you are having fun or playing, when you feel happy, when
you are painting, or writing poetry, or playing the piano, or expressing yourself
in some way. These are the happiest moments of your life — when the real you
comes out, when you don’t care about the past and you don’t worry about the
future. You are childlike.
But there is something that changes all that: We call them responsibilities.
The Judge says, “Wait a second, you are responsible, you have things to do, you
have to work, you have to go to school, you have to earn a living.” All these
responsibilities come to mind. Our face changes and becomes serious again. If
you watch children when they are playing adults, you will see their little faces
change. “Let’s pretend I’m a lawyer,” and right away their faces change; the
adult face takes over. We go to court and that is the face we see — and that is
what we are. We are still children, but we have lost our freedom.
The freedom we are looking for is the freedom to be ourselves, to express
ourselves. But if we look at our lives we will see that most of the time we do
things just to please others, just to be accepted by others, rather than living our
lives to please ourselves. That is what has happened to our freedom. And we
see in our society and all the societies around the world, that for every thousand
people, nine hundred and ninety-nine are completely domesticated.
The worst part is that most of us are not even aware that we are not free.
There is something inside that whispers to us that we are not free, but we do not
understand what it is, and why we are not free.
The problem with most people is that they live their lives and never discover
that the Judge and the Victim rule their mind, and therefore they don’t have a
chance to be free. The first step toward personal freedom is awareness. We
need to be aware that we are not free in order to be free. We need to be aware
of what the problem is in order to solve the problem.
Awareness is always the first step because if you are not aware, there is
nothing you can change. If you are not aware that your mind is full of wounds
and emotional poison, you cannot begin to clean and heal the wounds and you
will continue to suffer.
There is no reason to suffer. With awareness you can rebel and say, “This is
enough!” You can look for a way to heal and transform your personal dream.
The dream of the planet is just a dream. It is not even real. If you go into the
dream and start challenging your beliefs, you will find that most of the beliefs
that guided you into the wounded mind are not even true. You will find that you
suffered all those years of drama for nothing. Why? Because the belief system
that was put inside your mind is based on lies.
That is why it is important for you to master your own dream; that is why the
Toltecs became dream masters. Your life is the manifestation of your dream; it
is an art. And you can change your life anytime if you aren’t enjoying the dream.
Dream masters create a masterpiece of life; they control the dream by making
choices. Everything has consequences and a dream master is aware of the
consequences.
To be Toltec is a way of life. It is a way of life where there are no leaders
and no followers, where you have your own truth and live your own truth. A
Toltec becomes wise, becomes wild, and becomes free again.
There are three masteries that lead people to become Toltecs. First is the
Mastery of Awareness. This is to be aware of who we really are, with all the
possibilities. The second is the Mastery of Transformation — how to change,
how to be free of domestication. The third is the Mastery of Intent. Intent from
the Toltec point of view is that part of life that makes transformation of energy
possible; it is the one living being that seamlessly encompasses all energy, or
what we call “God.” Intent is life itself; it is unconditional love. The Mastery
of Intent is therefore the Mastery of Love.
When we talk about the Toltec path to freedom, we find that they have an
entire map for breaking free of domestication. They compare the Judge, the
Victim, and the belief system to a parasite that invades the human mind. From
the Toltec point of view, all humans who are domesticated are sick. They are
sick because there is a parasite that controls the mind and controls the brain.
The food for the parasite is the negative emotions that come from fear.
If we look at the description of a parasite, we find that a parasite is a living
being who lives off of other living beings, sucking their energy without any
useful contribution in return, and hurting their host little by little. The Judge, the
Victim, and the belief system fit this description very well. Together they
comprise a living being made of psychic or emotional energy, and that energy is
alive. Of course it is not material energy, but neither are emotions material
energy. Our dreams are not material energy either, but we know they exist.
One function of the brain is to transform material energy into emotional
energy. Our brain is the factory of the emotions. And we have said that the main
function of the mind is to dream. The Toltecs believe that the parasite — the
Judge, the Victim, and the belief system — has control of your mind; it controls
your personal dream. The parasite dreams through your mind and lives its life
through your body. It survives on the emotions that come from fear, and thrives
on drama and suffering.
The freedom we seek is to use our own mind and body, to live our own life,
instead of the life of the belief system. When we discover that the mind is
controlled by the Judge and the Victim and the real “us” is in the corner, we
have just two choices. One choice is to keep living the way we are, to
surrender to the Judge and the Victim, to keep living in the dream of the planet.
The second choice is to do what we do as children when parents try to
domesticate us. We can rebel and say “No!” We can declare a war against the
parasite, a war against the Judge and the Victim, a war for our independence, a
war for the right to use our own mind and our own brain.
That is why in all the shamanic traditions in America, from Canada to
Argentina, people call themselves warriors, because they are in a war against
the parasite in the mind. That is the real meaning of a warrior. The warrior is
one who rebels against the invasion of the parasite. The warrior rebels and
declares a war. But to be a warrior doesn’t mean we always win the war; we
may win or we may lose, but we always do our best and at least we have a
chance.....
