reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
"He looked at his hands, he felt his body, and he heard his own voice say, 'I am made of light; I am made of stars.'"
"He saw himself in everything — in every human, in every animal, in every tree, in the water, in the rain, in the clouds, in the earth."
"The outside dream uses Mom and Dad, the schools, and religion to teach us how to dream."
"We soon develop a need to hook other people's attention in order to get the reward."
"We can now domesticate ourselves according to the same belief system we were given, and using the same system of punishment and reward."
"True justice is paying only once for each mistake. True injustice is paying more than once for each mistake."
"That is why humans resist life. To be alive is the biggest fear humans have."
"We are not good enough for ourselves because we don't fit with our own image of perfection. We cannot forgive ourselves for not being what we wish to be, or rather what we believe we should be."
"Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe they should be. They become very self-abusive, and they use other people to abuse themselves as well."
"But the most important agreements are the ones you made with yourself... . In these agreements you say, 'This is what I am. This is what I believe. I can do certain things, and some things I cannot do. This is reality, that is fantasy; this is possible, that is impossible.'"
The Four Agreements: Be Impeccable With Your Word, Don't Take Anything Personally, Don't Make Assumptions, Always Do Your Best.
"Because we are afraid to ask for clarification, we make assumptions, and believe we are right about the assumptions; then we defend our assumptions and try to make someone else wrong."
"Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If we try to change them, this means we don't really like them."
"Also, find your voice to ask for what you want. Everybody has the right to tell you no or yes, but you always have the right to ask. Likewise, everybody has the right to ask you, and you have the right to say yes or no."
"Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life."
"Who really stops us from being free? We stop ourselves."
"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."
"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."
Three Masteries: Mastery of Awareness, Mastery of Transformation, Mastery of Intent (Mastery of Love).
"The parasite can be compared to a monster with a thousand heads. Every head of the parasite is one of the fears that we have. If we want to be free, we have to destroy the parasite. One solution is to attack the parasite head by head, which means we face each of our fears, one by one. This is a slow process, but it works."
"You will know you have forgiven someone when you see them and you no longer have an emotional reaction. You will hear the name of the person and you will have no emotional reaction. When someone can touch what used to be a wound and it no longer hurts you, then you know you have truly forgiven."
"Imagine living without the fear of loving and not being loved. You are no longer afraid to be rejected, and you don't have the need to be accepted."
"I turned my head to the sky, to the sun, to the stars, and put a little piece of my love in every star, in the moon, in the sun, and they loved me back. And I became one with the moon and the sun and the stars, and my love kept growing and growing."