Overview: According to The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz, humans are naturally very sensitive creatures. We are born with the ability to feel and perceive with our emotional bodies. Our inherent state of being is one of exploration and joy, and one of love. However, over time, we are conditioned out of this natural state of freedom and joy as we learn the ways of the world and begin to accept the “Dream” of humanity.
This dream is wrought with self-rejection, fear, aggression, and judgments. These conditions create wounds in the emotional body and fill them with poison. Meanwhile, the big Judge inside our minds has learned to be critical, demeaning ourselves and others. The big Judge believes it needs to protect itself from the pain caused by others when they touch our emotional wounds. Thus, we become masters of defense, denial, judgment, and all the lies about ourselves and others that keep the narrative strung together.
The Mastery of Love explains how we begin to search for love to heal the pain of these emotional wounds. Usually though, we search externally and find ourselves in all sorts of toxic relationships. Our children, family members, partners... we expect love from them, but as soon as they touch our emotional wounds, like infected skin, we lash out. We become aggressive, defensive, and find any way to inject the pain we feel into those around us.
Thus, endless cycles of emotional poison are born.
However, once we learn that this is not our natural state, we can escape these harmful toxic cycles. Instead of reaching for a lover to feel loved, we learn to look within our own hearts. Instead of taking an insult personally, we can recognize the assault as someone else lacking love, and we can share our love with them instead. Entering into this realm, the Dream of Love, we begin to understand that although we have emotional poison, our own wounds to heal, we don’t need to dump our pain and toxicity onto others.
Learning to relax into vulnerability, we develop endless compassion for our own being and all others. The process of self-acceptance and forgiveness is a life-long journey, but one well worth exploring. Through it, we may learn to exist in harmony with the limitless love that fuels our minds, hearts, and universe.
Memorable Quotes:
“That image of perfection changes the way we dream. We learn to deny ourselves and reject ourselves. We are never good enough, or right enough, or clean enough, or healthy enough, according to all those beliefs we have.”
“If we have awareness, we have the opportunity to heal our emotional body, our emotional mind, and stop the suffering.”
“Life brings you exactly what you need. There is perfect justice in hell. There is nothing to blame. We can even say that our suffering is a gift. If you just open your eyes and see what is around you, it’s exactly what you need to clean your poison, to heal your wounds, to accept yourself, and to get out of hell.”
“But first you will need to take a step back. You have to accept yourself and love yourself just the way you are. Only by loving and accepting yourself the way you are can you truly be and express what you are. You are what you are, and that is all you are. You don’t need to pretend to be something else. When you pretend to be what you are not, you are always going to fail.”
“You find out that you are in every tree, you are in every animal, vegetable, and rock. You are that force that moves the wind and breathes through your body. The whole universe is a living being that is moved by that force, and that is what you are. You are Life.”
Strengths:
Simply written and deep diving
Approachable, comforting, yet challenging
An honest look at how we can learn to live in harmony with love
Further Discussion:
As with all Ruiz’s books, there is an underlying motif of spirituality innate with ‘Creation’. Some readers may not totally jive with these ideas.
The Bottom Line: We have the choice to rejoice in Heaven, or suffer in the depths of Hell. We live these choices every day. We either choose to move closer to love and joy, or we are unwilling and fail to see ourselves fully. The Dream of Love is the most beautiful of dreams. Through it, our life may become an ongoing romance, a masterpiece, a work of art. With it, we may rejoice in the abundant love we feel in ourselves and our wish to share it with all others. Which do you choose? Consider ordering The Mastery of Love today.
