Don Miguel Ruiz reveals in The Mastery of Love the presumptions and fear-based ideas that undercut love and cause drama and suffering in our relationships. Ruiz illustrates his point with enlightening tales that help us heal our emotional scars, regain the joy and freedom that are rightfully ours, and rekindle the light-hearted spirit that is essential to a healthy partnership.
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About the Author
The Four Agreements (which has been a New York Times bestseller for more than ten years), The Four Agreements Companion Book, The Mastery of Love, The Voice of Knowledge, The Circle of Fire, and The Fifth Agreement are all best-selling works by Don Miguel Ruiz.
Ruiz’s teachings are most famous for their ability to simplify complicated human problems into straightforward common sense, a skill that has won him millions of admirers and recognition throughout the globe.
In addition to co-authoring six volumes in the Toltec Wisdom Series with Don Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills is the founder and president of Amber-Allen Publishing. In addition, Mills is the publisher of Jane Roberts’s acclaimed “Seth Books,” editor of Deepak Chopra’s best-selling book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, and founder of the online course “The Four Agreements for a Better Life.
Review
This book has a lot of useful information, and although I believe we all know it in our hearts, there are times when you need someone to remind you of it in a straightforward manner. That’s how it was for me, anyhow.
It was excellent when I first read it, and even though I didn’t agree with all it said, a lot of what it taught me influenced some of my ideas on love. I didn’t have a lot of relationship experience at the time; in fact, I believe it was very recent, having ended my first relationship.
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However, I made the time to rush to the shop and pick up two copies of this book shortly before Yule this year since a lot of what was in it truly resonated with me. I’ll read one again for myself and give the other to my partner as a present. I’m so happy I did.
I felt like I understood more of what he said and agreed with a lot more of it after reading it again. Since my feelings about love and relationships were already very similar, it didn’t really alter them. However, it did confirm them for me and articulate many of my feelings.
So much so that once I finished reading it, I felt compelled to share it with a friend of mine in the hopes that it would strengthen his convictions. The most crucial topics, in particular, are self-love, self-destruction, the “Parasite” that exists inside each of us, and how our behaviour shouldn’t influence that of others and vice versa.
It truly opened my eyes, and I feel compelled to share what I’ve learned. In a few months, I’ll most likely buy it once again.
This book focuses on how society may instill bad beliefs in us and how we can be brought up to believe them. All of us are born with love and innocence, but somewhere down the line we learn how to be mistrustful, how to be wounded, and how to hurt others.
As we grow up, our parents (along with the rest of society) teach us what they learned as children, and the cycle keeps on. For my part, I would want to have the fortitude to break that pattern and leave my kids with a lot of love and respect.
“The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Love” is another tale it tells us, and it’s now one of my favorite tales. It depicts the story of a man who traveled about lecturing people about how love doesn’t exist since so many people use it to control one another.
He claims that “love is like a drug” since every relationship has a “dealer” of the “drug” and an addict who continues returning for more. The weaker partner absorbs as much of the love as they can from the stronger partner, and they also tolerate abuse from the dealer because they believe they are in dire need of it and cannot get it elsewhere.
Because of his numerous experiences with this feeling, he swears that he does not believe in love and will not allow anybody to use it to control him. One day, while strolling through the park, this man notices a woman sitting in the grass and sobbing. When he pauses to comfort her, she responds, “I am crying because love does not exist.”
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The man is shocked since he has at last discovered a woman who shares his sentiments. He strikes up a conversation with her, and they quickly become friends and spend all of their time together. They have the ideal relationship and never argue or demand anything from one another.
The man is thinking about his connection with the woman one day while he is abroad. He acknowledges that he was mistaken all along and that what he feels for her must be love. There is love, and it is much more exquisite and pure than anything he had ever encountered.
The man is ecstatic and goes straight home to express his feelings for her. She responds that she has been experiencing this for a while but has been reluctant to share it with him due to his lack of believe in the feeling.
According to the mythology, the guy is so joyful that he sends his joy out into the cosmos. He is so ecstatic that a star falls into his hands, and he quickly hands it to the woman. For an instant, the woman hesitates because the happiness is so overwhelming, and then she drops it and it breaks.
Now, a man is lost and lonely as he wanders the universe, believing once more that love doesn’t exist. Another is a woman who regrets the one moment of uncertainty that ended their relationship and sits at home waiting for the man who once loved her.
Therefore, when you consider who was at fault, was it the lady who briefly had doubts? No, it was the man who made the decision to entrust his whole happiness to another person.
How can we ever hope to be happy if we entrust our whole happiness on other people? Being happy is totally up to us, and we’re better off if we decide to be happy with someone else. We can’t count on them to provide us joy.
The book goes into a great deal of detail on being a full person and embracing yourself. It also supports my earlier view that if you want to be happy with anyone else, you must first be happy alone.
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To truly love someone else, you must first love yourself. You must also be an equal partner in a relationship and not depend on them. The same goes for family members, friends, and everybody else you meet.
In any event, even if you only read this book to refresh your memory, I strongly suggest it to everyone. Along with that, he wrote at least three additional works, which I intend to read.
Summary
Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills’ The Mastery of Love is a manual for developing self-love and fostering wholesome relationships via discovering the truth about love and ourselves. It provides useful advice to promote self-discovery and result in enduring satisfaction.