Sometimes the most important spiritual lessons are the simplest: Tell the truth. Don't take anything personally. Don't assume things. Do your best. And this is the essence of the Four Agreements, created by Don Miguel Ruiz, healer, shaman and modern leader of the ancient Toltec tradition.

Born into a family of healers, Ruiz was raised in rural Mexico by his mother Sarita and his grandfather, a shaman. They guided Ruiz through the Toltec teachings, assuming he would carry on the tradition. Instead, he attended medical school and became a surgeon. But after a brush with death in a near-fatal car accident, Ruiz "woke up.” The event prompted his return to the ancient Toltec teachings, including a period of extensive study with his mother and an apprenticeship with a powerful shaman, and initiated a life-long devotion to passing on this ancient knowledge.

Ruiz began teaching in California in 1987, teaching healing practices with his mother to small groups of people. Over time, he began to lecture, passing on the lineage through teaching and story telling. In 1997, the best-selling The Four Agreements (Dimensions, 1997) was published, and Ruiz went on to write and co-author several more books, including The Mastery of Love (Amber-Allen Publishing, 1999) and The Voice of Knowledge (Amber-Allen Publishing, 2004). When a near-fatal heart attack in February, 2002 forced Ruiz to seriously curtail his public speaking and lecturing activities, his son, don Jose Luis, took over. Luis now travels the world lecturing and passing on the tradition. Here, Nexus publisher Ravi Dykema speaks to both father and son about truth, lies and common-sense spirituality.

RD: Don Miguel, you teach something called the Toltec tradition. Could you explain what that is?

DMR: The Toltec tradition is based on ancient teachings that I learned mainly from my mother and my grandfather; it was passed on to them by my great-grandfather, and many before him. According to what I've been told, the whole lineage started around 2500 years ago, long before the Aztecs, in an ancient city called Teotihuacan. The center of the Toltec tradition later became Tula.

The teachings were practiced by very few people. At that time, most of the culture was wrapped up in a lot of superstition; they believed a lot of lies. But the Toltecs believed that life is really a dream, and every human is living the story that he or she created. That story is according to one point of view, which may change and which may be open to interpretation. But our individual stories are so strong, everyone believes his or her story is the truth, the reality.

RD: It sounds like the Toltec tradition is similar to Eastern philosophies.

DMR: All the religions and cultures in the world come from the same place. The only thing that's different is the names and the details of the stories. But everything comes from what the Toltecs call the integrity of the human; it's an aspect we all have, simply by virtue of being human.

We say we know the truth, but when we speak about the truth, we distort it as soon as the words come out of our mouths; it's no longer the truth, but it's a point of view. Here's an analogy: Suppose Picasso painted a portrait of you. When you saw the portrait, you might say, "Who is this? This isn't me!" But it's the way Picasso saw you; he's the artist, and it's his interpretation. That vision of you was his truth.

It's the same way with all humans. Everybody sees the world in a different way, and we communicate that based on our interpretation. But everything comes from exactly the same place; it comes from human integrity. That's why if we take away the superstitions and philosophies of all the religions, we will find out that they're exactly the same. What has changed is only the name of the religion and the symbols they use.

RD: It sounds like you're alluding to the theology and philosophy underlying religions that I would call mysticism.

DMR: Well, what I call it is awareness. The word "Toltec" means "artist." When someone introduces himself or herself as a Toltec, it means, "I am an artist, and my life is a piece of art. It's not good or bad or right or wrong, it's just my personal creation." When you look at it from that point of view, everyone is a Toltec. But not everyone is aware that we're all living in a story that we've created. Awareness is one of the main masteries of the Toltecs. Once you're aware that your life is a story you've created, everything becomes much simpler.

Another mastery of the Toltecs is understanding that everything is in a state of transformation. Our bodies are constantly transforming, as we grow from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, and then into old age. But it's not only our physical bodies that are changing - it's also the outside world. Everything is shifting; everything is changing all the time. We put so much effort into trying to keep things from changing, and it's futile. Nothing we do can stop the transformation. What we can do is accept, and learn to adapt to every moment of transformation. A Toltec masters transformation not by trying to stop the change, but by changing as fast as life changes. It's not about trying to force change; it's about accepting everything as it is. That doesn't mean we throw up our hands and don't try to change what's not working; of course we try to make a difference in the world. But the way we do it is through changing our own creation. That's the third mastery of the Toltecs, the mastery of intent. Through intent, we create and express what we believe we are.

When we have these three masteries, the awareness, the transformation and intent, we can see that life becomes very simple. We hardly have any conflicts any longer. And we can see that in our creation, our life becomes a beautiful masterpiece.

RD: Let's talk a bit more about the tradition. What was it like in the early days of the Toltecs?

DMR: During the height of the Toltecs, about 2500 years ago, the tradition was based in a city called Teotihuacan. The word Teotihuacan means, "The place where humans awaken and become God." And this is the whole purpose of life. Teotihuacan was a big city - about 250,000 people, which was a little larger than Babylon or Cairo. The Toltecs weren't the rulers or the "government," but they did have a lot of influence and designed much of the society. And even though they weren't necessarily able to convince everyone of the truth about humans, they were trying. They built pyramids as part of their teachings. Teotihuacan was like a university where many people went to study, to try to become Toltecs.

RD: I read on your website that misuse of personal power by a few apprentices forced the Toltecs to conceal their teachings for hundreds of years.

DMR: Yes, that's true. There was invasion of what we could call barbarians, people from the North with different ideas and a lot of violence. They were called the Nahua. They tried to impose their way of thinking on the Toltecs, and they went for destruction. This happened several times, just like in Rome, until the whole city fell - all of Teotihuacan. It was a period of great chaos and darkness.

The wise people ran away from Teotihuacan and went to Tula. Tula started growing and became a powerful city. But some of the Toltecs began misusing their power; they went along with the conquests of the Nahua and began to use the Toltec knowledge and name in the wrong way. They called Tula the capitol of the Toltecs, for the purpose of creating an empire, and began making other cities pay tribute to Tula and the Toltecs. It was a period of a lot of war; the culture started deteriorating and superstition grew more. This period lasted for about 300 or 400 years.

RD: So would a warrior who used the power of the wisdom always be misusing it?

DMR: A true warrior doesn't have any interest in having control over other people. A true warrior only has interest in giving knowledge and in choosing, we could say, the "right" people as teachers. There was another time when the tradition had a renaissance, when the Toltec knowledge and art became powerful again, around the end of the Tula empire and the beginning of the Aztec empire. But by that time, superstition was fairly strong again; the world of the Aztecs became terrible, and included such practices as human sacrifices.

RD: How did the Toltec wisdom survive that period of darkness?

DMR: Well, that's the story of most traditions - there are ups and downs, there are times of greater and lesser power. In the case of the Toltecs, the tradition had its ups and downs as well, but generally had a lot of influence until the Conquistadors arrived, with all their beliefs about Christianity. Their superstitions weren't as bad as the Aztec practices and superstitions - at least not for the Spaniards - but they were terrible for the Indians. The Conquistadors treated the Indians like animals. They believed the Indians didn't have souls. They enslaved them, they murdered them, in the name of religion. In the name of Christ, they killed whoever didn't believe in Christ.

When this was happening, the masters of the Toltecs went into obscurity; they knew they couldn't show themselves when everything was so dark and violent. They started searching for apprentices and hiding from the rest of society. They tried to emerge from obscurity several times, but people's minds still weren't open enough; people were still clinging to superstition, and weren't ready for common sense.

And really, that's what my books teach - common sense. It's easy to apply, and when people read my books, they realize they've known all of the teachings all along, they just haven't put them into practice. Common sense is really just another way to say "awareness." You have to be aware of the truth. Of course, as soon as we speak about the truth, it is no longer true. We have to not just speak of the truth, but experience it firsthand. Once we have experienced it, we realize how difficult it is to explain, but we can also see how the truth frees us from lies. And that's common sense.

RD: Who else is teaching the Toltec tradition?

DMR: I have a lot of apprentices who have become masters, and they are teaching the Toltec knowledge; they are teaching artists to make a better art with their life. They have learned the concepts of the tradition from me, but they're teaching according to their point of view, not my point of view. And they can use any tool from anywhere. They can talk about Krishna, they can talk about Jesus or Moses or Allah. They can talk about freedom, about justice. It's all the same; they're all universal concepts. We can say the Toltec tradition is the story of a dream that came from Teotihuacan, from the Aztecs, but the truth is, the tradition comes from every part of the world. It comes from India, from Egypt, from Greece, from Japan, from all cultures. It comes from human integrity. It's an innate part of all of us; it's what we have when we are born.

RD: But aren't there differences between the Toltec teachings and those from the East?

DMR: I feel that the Dalai Lama's teachings are the same as the Toltecs; I hear Sai Baba speak, and the teachings are the same. It doesn't really matter who or where the teachings come from. All great masters are sharing their experience of the truth, using the language, the mythology, the symbols that they've learned. And you can see the authenticity in these kinds of people, the simplicity and beauty. When you watch the lives of the true masters, it's like seeing a child, playing all the time.

RD: Tell me about your own awakening. I assume that, at some point in your life, you realized for yourself some of these things you've been mentioning to us.

DMR: Definitely. My last book, The Book of Knowledge, is really about those kind of events in my life, and the people who introduced me to awareness. One of the most important events was when my grandfather explained to me that conflict in our lives is not between good and evil - that good and evil are just the result of the real conflict. The real conflict in the human mind is between the truth and lies. It took so long for me to really get that, but when I did, I understood exactly what he was trying to tell me.

In the 1970s, I had a car wreck and I saw my physical body asleep at the wheel; I saw my self as separate from my body. That was when I realized that I was not my body, and even if my body died, I would live. After the accident, I knew I couldn't really believe this until I repeated it again. Then it happened - I went out of my body again. I also went out of my own mind, and realized I was not my body or my mind. The obvious question, then, is, "What am I?" There is no answer with any language that we know. The only thing I can say is that I am what I am and that's all I am. Just like Popeye.

RD: Did the car accident lead you to remember the teachings of your grandfather and mother?

DMR: The car accident pushed me to return to the Toltec teachings, which I had given up for a long time. I had gone to medical school; I had become a doctor. But after that accident, I returned to the teachings, to find the answers. I realized I was the one who made up my story; I was the artist who was creating my life.

When I had my heart attack two years ago, and when my body was almost dead, I had a similar experience as I had with the car accident, but it was much stronger, and with a lot of awareness. I was aware of everything; it was completely obvious to me that I was neither my body nor my mind. My next book is about that experience. It's called The War of the Gods.

RD: So in seeking to answer this new question about who you were, you found that the teachings from your mother and grandfather were valuable.

DMR: Yes, they were very valuable.

RD: But hadn't you known that before?

DMR: Before, I knew the teachings were valuable, but they weren't the truth. They were the truth for my mother and my grandfather, but not for me. I had a different point of view; that's why every artist modifies a creation depending on his or her point of view. At a certain point, I realized that it's not that I was right and everyone else was wrong, it's just that everyone has their own interpretation of the truth. I finally understood their point of view, and that changed everything.

RD: So, after the accident, what changed?

DRM: Everything. I could no longer be a medical doctor - my heart wasn't in it. It felt more important for me to give other people the opportunity for awareness, for learning the truth, that I had received through the Toltec teachings. Maybe I could help people look at their own lives and find out that most of what they believe is lies. Once one has that awareness, a miracle can happen. And that miracle is to stop believing in the lies and focus on the experience of the truth.

RD: Can you give us an example of some of the lies that people believe?

DMR: One big lie is, "I am not good enough." Or, "I cannot sing - everybody would hate my voice." Or, "Nobody likes me; I'm stupid." When we believe those lies, they make our lives a nightmare; we're filled with insecurity, we don't trust ourselves, all because we believe those lies.

RD: It sounds like you're saying many of the thoughts that pass through our minds incidentally during the day are lies.

DMR: More than 95 percent. Which is a lot. But we have no awareness of those lies. Once we become aware of those thoughts and catch our own lies, we'll begin to stop believing them.

RD: And how does one do that?

DMR: Awareness. It's simply by being aware of what we're thinking. Here's an example: People believe what they read in the newspaper, never stopping to think that those are just stories from other people with their own points of view. But we believe those stories are true, and then we base their lives and all our decisions on those stories. I give my apprentices two rules. Rule number one is, “Don't believe anybody.” Rule number two is, “Don't believe yourself, but learn to listen.” Listen to what the voice in your head is telling you. Don't believe it or act on it, but listen to it. Once you listen, make choices. Don't believe what everybody else is telling you, but listen, because between all those lies, nuggets of truth can spill out and can give you awareness. Once we learn to listen and be responsible for every decision we make, life becomes very simple.

RD: Life looks complicated to me. How does it become simple?

DMR: It's very simple. It's just about accepting life. For example, say you crashed your car. What's complicated about that? You just crashed your car. An accident can happen to anybody; why complicate your life by thinking, "I shouldn't have gone out. I should have stayed home, and none of this would have happened." It doesn't matter. It's done, and you didn't die. It's about accepting life, instead of resisting it. We're always asking, "Why did this happen? Why me?" Or we're thinking, "My boss is mad at me. My wife doesn't love me." We create so many dramas from nothing, from assumptions and from taking things personally. Life itself is very simple. We just make it complicated by the way we speak to ourselves. We create all our drama, all our confusion. You're responsible for your life, and if you treat yourself with love and respect, your life will be so easy. If you treat yourself with disrespect, if you believe all those lies you tell yourself, your life becomes very complicated. Life is simply as easy or as difficult as you create it.

RD: Do you teach practices, like meditation, to help in reinforcing these ideas?

DMR: I used to teach a lot of practices until I found out it wasn't really helping - it was just a way to hide from the truth. I decided just to go directly for the truth. I have nothing against any practice. I used to have a lot of those kinds of practices when I was a shaman. But I found it very futile, and I don't do it anymore. Just as I renounced being a doctor, I renounced being a shaman, and decided instead just to keep focusing on the truth and help others to be better artists in the way they live their lives.

RD: When you have an apprentice, do you give him or her a program of some kind that is designed to produce changes or new awareness in him or her?

DMR: I listen to the apprentice, and the apprentice tells me what he or she needs to learn. Then that's where I focus my attention. It's just reflecting the apprentice so that the apprentice can see themselves the way they really are.

RD: So for an apprentice, part of the catalyst for change is the contact with you. What about for someone who's reading your book?

DMR: This is teaching also. When someone reads The Four Agreements, they'll see how simple these concepts are, but at the same time how difficult it is to apply them to life. They'll also find right away that once they start applying these teaching, their lives begin to change. When they're ready, they'll read the book again, and they'll already be a different person reading the book, so they'll interpret it in a slightly different way. The book will guide them to the next step, and then the next step. Some people will read the book 10 times or more, and every time it's guiding them to the self, to the real them.

RD: What are the four agreements?

DMR: Number one is, "Be impeccable with your word," which is the main one. You are your word. You are your creation, you are your intent. The word is like a sword of two edges. With one edge, you can destroy everything. With the other, you can build anything. When you are impeccable with your word, you use it to work for creation, and you can create a most wonderful life. When you're not impeccable with your word, you're destroying your life and creating your own misery.

RD: What does it mean to be "impeccable?"

DMR: The world comes from "pecatus," which means "sin." "Sin" means everything that you do or believe that goes against yourself. So impeccable means exactly the opposite - without sin, which means that you don't use anything against yourself. You don't use words for self-destruction or for self-rejection. You use words to create the most beautiful story about yourself. And this is why it's the most important of the four agreements.

RD: What's number two?

DMR: It's, "Don't take anything personally." You live in your own story, and everybody around you is living their own story. They see you according to their point of view. By realizing this, and not taking anything personally, you have immunity in your relationships with everybody around you. Another of the four agreements is, "Don't make assumptions." This is about your own mind. We make so many assumptions about life, about other people or events, and we suffer for things that never happen. The fourth one is, "Always do your best." No more and no less. Perhaps it's difficult to be impeccable with the word. Perhaps it's difficult not to take things personally. Perhaps it's difficult not to make assumptions. But you can always do your best.

RD: And for someone to do their best, would this mean making a greater effort than usual?

DMR: No, just the opposite. It means being completely effortless, accepting that you naturally do your best all the time. But it doesn't mean being lazy - that's just an excuse, a justification for inaction.