Taming the Liar with Two Rules

BEFORE WE LEARN to speak, our true nature is to love and be happy, to explore and enjoy life. Our actions are guided by instinct and emotions; we listen to the silent “voice of our integrity.” Once we learn a language, the people around us hook our attention and program us with knowledge, but that knowledge is contaminated with lies.

When we are born, a whole society of storytellers is already here. The storytellers who are here before us, teach us how to be human. First they tell us what we are — a boy or a girl — then they tell us who we are, and who we should or shouldn’t be. They give us a name, and tell us the role we will play in their story. They prepare us to live in the human jungle, to compete with others, to fight against our own kind. They fill us with knowledge, and this is how we learn to create our own story.

Well, what I discovered is that the story has a voice. You can call it “thinking” if you want. I call it “the voice of knowledge” because it’s telling you everything you know. It’s always there. It never stops. It’s not even real, but you hear it. You can say, “Well, it’s me. I’m the one who is talking.” But if you are the voice that is talking, then who is listening?

The voice of knowledge can also be called the liar who lives in your head. The voice of the liar speaks in your language, but the integrity of your spirit, the truth, has no language. You just know truth; you feel it. The voice of your integrity tries to come out, but the voice of the liar is stronger and louder and it hooks your attention almost all of the time.

You hear the voice — and not just one voice, but an entire mitote, which is like a thousand voices talking all at once. And what are these voices telling you? “Look at you. Who do you think you are? You will never make it. You aren’t smart enough. Why should I try? Nobody understands me. What is he doing? What is she doing? I wonder if those people are talking about me. Look at all the injustice in the world. How can I be happy when millions of people are dying of starvation?”

The voice of knowledge is always trying to make sense out of everything. For many people it’s even worse because the voice is not just talking nonsense; the voice is judging and criticizing. It’s constantly gossiping in your head about you and the people around you. That voice is usually lying because it’s the voice of what you have learned, and you have learned so many lies — mainly about yourself. The voice of knowledge can come from your own head, or it can come from people around you, but your emotional reaction to that voice is telling you, “I’m being abused.”

Every time you judge yourself, find yourself guilty, and punish yourself, it’s because the voice in your head is telling you lies. Every time you have a conflict with your parents, your children, or your beloved, it’s because you believe in these lies, and they believe in them, too. But it’s not just that. When you believe in lies, you cannot see the truth, so you make thousands of assumptions and take them as truth.

One of the biggest assumptions is that the lies you believe are the truth! For example, you believe that you know what you are. When you get jealous you say, “Oh, that’s the way I am.” When you get angry you say, “Oh, that’s the way I am.” But is this true? I’m not sure about that. I used to make the assumption that I was the one who said all of those things that I didn’t want to say. It was a big surprise when I discovered that it was not me; it was the way I learned to be. And I practiced and practiced until I mastered that performance.

Two thousand years ago one of the greatest masters said, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Free from what? From the tyrant who lives in your head and talks to you all the time! The voice hooks your attention and makes you do so many things that go against yourself. How many times has the voice made you say yes when you really wanted to say no? Or the opposite — the voice made you say no when you really wanted to say yes? How many times have you missed opportunities to do what you really want to do in your life because of fear that came from the voice in your head? How many times have you gotten angry or lost control and hurt the people you love just because you believed that voice?

I compare the voice of knowledge to a wild horse that is taking you wherever it wants to go. You cannot stop the horse, but at least you can try to tame the horse. Once you learn to tame the horse, then thinking becomes a tool that takes you where you want to go. Long ago I stopped listening to the voice of knowledge. I remember that I used to go outside and tell myself, “Oh, look at the beautiful clouds” — as if I didn’t know they are beautiful! Why tell myself what I already know? It’s just a habit. I no longer make up stories for myself. I no longer have that voice in my head, and I can assure you that it’s wonderful.

The value of cultivating a silent mind has been known for thousands of years. In India, people use meditation and the chanting of mantras to stop the internal dialogue. You don’t need internal dialogue; you can know without thinking. To have peace in your head is incredible. Imagine being in an environment where there is a constant bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz. The moment comes when you don’t even notice the noise. You know something is bothering you, but you no longer notice what it is. The moment the noise stops, you notice the silence and feel the relief, “Ahhh . . .” When the voice in your head finally stops talking, you experience inner peace.

How do you stop the voice from talking to you? The solution for taming the liar is to stop believing what it tells you. What happens when someone tells you a lie, and you know it’s a lie? It doesn’t affect you because you don’t believe the lie. If you don’t believe it, the lie cannot survive the test of your skepticism, and boom! The lie disappears. Simple. But in that simplicity there is also a big challenge. Why? Because believing your own lies makes you feel safe, and believing the lies of other people is very tempting.

That voice has been in control of your head for so many years, and, no, it will not give up just because you want it to leave you alone. But at least you can challenge that voice by not believing what it’s telling you. When you are ready for the challenge, there are two rules that will accelerate the process of cleaning up the lies in your story. If you follow these rules, there is a chance that you will tame the voice or even win the challenge against the liar.

Rule number one: Don’t believe yourself. Keep your mind open and listen to your story, but don’t believe it because now you know that knowledge is usually lying to you. The story it is telling you is fiction. When you hear the voice in your head, don’t take it personally. Listen, and ask if it’s speaking the truth or not. If you don’t believe your own lies, your lies will not survive, and you can make better choices based on truth.

Rule number two: Don’t believe anybody else. You know that if you lie to yourself, surely other people lie to themselves. And if they lie to themselves, they will lie to you also. When people talk, you have no idea if what they are saying is coming from their heart or from the liar who lives in their head. Don’t believe anybody, but listen to other people tell their story. You know that it’s just a story that is only true for them. If other people tell you, “Look at the way you are dressed!” that remark doesn’t ruin your day. You listen to their story, but you don’t believe it. You can decide if it’s true or not according to your story, but you don’t have an emotional reaction anymore. If you decide that it’s true, you can change what you are wearing, and there’s no more problem. People constantly express their point of view, and we may even ask for their point of view, but don’t believe them! That is the key.

When people talk about you, they are talking about a secondary character in their story who represents you. They are talking about an image they create for you that has nothing to do with you. But if you agree, if you believe what they say, then their story becomes a part of your story. If you take it personally, it modifies your story. If you don’t take it personally, the opinions of others do not affect you the way they used to. You have more patience with people, and this helps you to avoid a great deal of conflict.

If you follow these two rules — don’t believe yourself, and don’t believe anybody else — all of the lies that come from the voice of knowledge won’t survive your skepticism. What is true will become obvious, and this is very interesting because the truth is still the truth whether or not you believe it. That is the beauty of the truth. Can we say the same about lies? No, lies only exist because we believe them. If we don’t believe in lies, they simply disappear.

Of course, the lies you believe about yourself can be difficult to see because you are so used to them that they seem normal. For example, if you believe the common lie “I’m not worth it,” that lie lives in your mind because you believe it. You don’t believe people who tell you how great you are because you already believe the opposite. By not feeling worthy, how do you express yourself with other people? You are shy. What you believe about yourself is what you project to other people, and that is what others then believe about you. That is how they treat you, which only reinforces the belief that you aren’t worth it. And what is the truth? The truth is that you are worth it; everybody is worth it.

Can you see the power of what I’m sharing with you? You can change your life by refusing to believe your own lies. Start with the main lies that limit the expression of your happiness and your love. By cleaning up the lies you believe about yourself, the lies you believe about everybody else will change. When you stop believing in lies, they lose their power over you and everything in your life changes, just like magic.

Many lies enslave us, but only one thing can free us, and it’s the truth. Only the truth can set us free from the fear, drama, and conflict in our lives. This is the absolute truth, and I cannot put it more simply than that.

© don Miguel Ruiz, 2005

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

don Miguel Ruiz was born into a family of healers and raised in rural Mexico by a curandera (healer) mother and nagual (shaman) grandfather. The family anticipated don Miguel would embrace their centuries old legacy of healing and teaching and as a nagual, carry forward the esoteric Toltec knowledge. Instead, distracted by modern life, don Miguel chose to attend medical school and later teach and practice as a surgeon. A near death experience in a car accident one night in the late 1970’s brought his wake-up call. “I saw that I existed separate from my body. So I asked myself, if I am not this body, what am I?” Don Miguel's survival allowed him the opportunity to begin an intensive practice of self-inquiry. He devoted himself to the mastery of the ancestral wisdom by studying intensely with his mother and completing an apprenticeship with a powerful shaman in the Mexican desert. His grandfather, who had since passed on, continued to teach him in his dreams. The tools shared by don Miguel are based on common sense and shared with such simplicity, that the universal message underlying his teaching, is recognized by many. Don Miguel’s message is simple, practical and when implemented, even incrementally, changes lives. He is the author of The Four Agreements (1997), a New York Times best seller, The Mastery of Love (1999), The Four Agreements Companion Book (2000), Prayers (2001), and, The Voice of Knowledge (2004) all published by Amber-Allen Publishing in San Rafael, CA.