For generation after generation, Toltec shamans have passed down their wisdom through teaching stories. The purpose of these stories is to implant a seed of knowledge in the mind of the listener, where it can ultimately sprout and blossom into a new and better way of life. In The Wisdom of the Shamans: What the Ancient Masters Can Teach Us About Love and Life , Toltec shaman and master storyteller don Jose Ruiz shares some of the most popular stories from his family's oral tradition and offers corresponding lessons that illustrate the larger ideas within each story. Ruiz begins by explaining that contrary to the stereotypical image of "witch doctor," the ancient shamans were men and women who fulfilled several roles within their communities: philosopher, spiritual guide, medical doctor, psychologist, and friend. According to Ruiz, their teachings are not primitive or reserved for a chosen few initiates but are instead a powerful series of lessons on love and life that are available to us all. To that aim, he has included exercises, meditations, and shamanic rituals to help you experience the personal transformation these stories offer. The shamans taught that the truth you seek is inside of you. Let these stories, lessons, and tools be your guide to finding the innate wisdom that lives within. don Jose Ruiz was born in Mexico City and raised in Tijuana, Mexico. When he was 21, he came to live in the United States with his father, don Miguel Ruiz. He lectures and gives workshops around the world and dedicates his life to sharing the ancient Toltec wisdom by translating it into practical, everyday life concepts that promote transformation through truth, love, and common sense. He is the coauthor, with his father, of The Fifth Agreement . Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction The wisdom you seek is inside you. Take a moment and feel the truth of those words.   One of the most important aspects of shamanism is that within every one of us is the light, the divinity, or as my ancestors would say, the nagual . Each one of us has our own truth inside ourselves. The quest of the shaman is to find, live, and express it.   Unlike some other traditions, shamanism is not based on hierarchy and deference to past teachers or following a sacred text with blind belief, but on uncovering the truths within your- self and bringing them out into the world to become a messenger of truth, a messenger of love.   The path of the shaman is largely an individual journey. Rituals, books, tools, and even other shamans only serve as guides to help you find the wisdom that comes from deep inside of you. No two shamanic journeys are alike, as we each ultimately make our own unique path, create our own art, and express ourselves in our own beautiful way. That’s why I often say that you are both the student and the teacher on the shamanic journey, and life is expressing itself through you.   In my own tradition, that of the Toltec people of south central Mexico, we say that we are all artists. In fact, the word Toltec means “artist.” This is not confined to the traditional understanding of the word as painters, sculptors, etc., or just to members of my ancestral tribe; this designation extends to every human being on this beautiful planet. The simple truth is that every person is an artist, and the art that we create is the story of our life.   If the Toltec tradition is the way of the artist, then we can say that the shamanic path is really an invitation to you, the artist, to create your own masterpiece, to use everything in your life as a brush to paint your own picture of personal freedom.   We also say in the Toltec tradition that every- one is dreaming all the time. This is because you can only ever see life through your own filters— the filter of “Jose” in my case. Therefore, life as you perceive it is a reflection of your perceptions and beliefs. It is not real, but rather a dream. To some this may sound negative, but in fact it is positive because if your life is a dream, and you become aware of the fact that you are the dreamer, then you can consciously create the dream you want to see and live the life you want to live.   There are actually two dreams that make up what we call life. First, you have the personal dream , which is your own perspective. It is how you see the world around you and how you make sense of it in your mind through the stories you tell yourself about what you perceive. Things such as “My name is Jose,” “My parents are Miguel and Maria,” “I was born in 1978,” “I live in this place, that is my car, my house, my spouse, etc.”—this is your own personal dream.   There is also the Dream of the Planet or the collective dream we are all having. The Dream of the Planet is the sum total of all our personal dreams, and together they make up the world in which we live. Together we have created the oceans, the mountains, the flowers, the wars, the techno