This book was not at all what I expected it to be. The title sounded a little fruity to me, but I'm not afraid to explore those rose scented waters if I feel there might be some knowledge to glean, so I gave it a shot. Right from the start I was intrigued. The author Don Miguel Ruiz turned out to be a master of Toltec philosophy, something I have adopted as the backbone to my own spiritual beliefs. He goes in immediately explaining how the Toltecs understood that this reality we live in is merely a dream, co-created by all humanity. We abide by the rules of the dream, but the rules are not set up with love and justice, so we often end up in cycles of self-abuse, virtually slaves of a system that we had very little part in creating.
With an extremely practical approach he sets about the guidelines for waking from this dream, a state he calls awareness. Once we have achieved awareness, and can "see" the dream for what it is, we can begin to take steps to change it. We can become warrior-hunters who hunt the patterns in our mind that limit us-- What the Toltecs call the parasite, or Steven Pressfield would call Resistance. But ultimately, the most powerful weapon of the warrior is love. Once we have mastered self love, we are in a position where we are no longer tied to the dream by needs or fears, and can begin to create whatever subjective quality we want from the dream, even if we cannot fully control the dream of the world at large.
The book is packed with incredible, mind-blowing analogies and very practical tips on how to find happiness in relationships, society, but most importantly, within ourselves.
