In our development, as we grow throughout our lives, the

Listen closely, O children of wisdom, for the words of Don Miguel Ruiz carry with them a profound truth about the nature of beliefs, their formation, and the complexities they bring to our lives. He said, "In our development, as we grow throughout our lives, the structure of our beliefs becomes very complicated, and we make it even more complicated because we make the assumption that what we believe is the absolute truth." These words speak to the foundation of our existence — to the very beliefs we hold dear, to the lenses through which we view the world. Ruiz reveals to us that as we grow, the beliefs we inherit, the ones we adopt, and the ones we create for ourselves, gradually form a complicated structure that governs our thoughts, our actions, and our understanding of reality.

What is belief, O seekers? Belief is the framework through which we interpret the world. It is not a simple truth, but a lens that colors everything we see. As we develop, from the early days of childhood to the later years of life, the beliefs we hold become more intricate, more entangled, and often, more difficult to discern. We learn from our families, our cultures, and our experiences, building a tapestry of thoughts and assumptions about what is true and what is not. But herein lies the danger: we often mistake our beliefs for the ultimate truth, thinking that what we believe is the absolute reality. The more complex our beliefs become, the more likely we are to cling to them as unchallengeable facts, never questioning their origins or their validity.

Consider, O children, the ancient philosophers who, in their quest for truth, recognized the importance of examining one's beliefs. Socrates famously declared that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” He understood that to truly understand life, we must first examine the beliefs we hold, for beliefs are the filters through which we make sense of our world. Socrates did not merely accept his own beliefs as truth; he constantly questioned, challenged, and sought deeper understanding. In this, he teaches us that to believe something without scrutiny is to live a life of illusion, trapped in the web of our own complexities.

In more recent history, Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who saw through the complexities of his time, recognizing that many of the beliefs upheld by society were built on falsehoods, injustice, and prejudice. His belief in equality, deeply rooted in his faith and moral understanding, led him to challenge the beliefs of his society, which saw some men as less than others. King's work was not just about altering laws, but about breaking down the complex structures of belief that kept people divided and trapped in their own assumptions. He called on humanity to examine their beliefs and to question whether they were truly rooted in justice and equality, or if they were merely perpetuating systems of inequality and oppression. His work was a call to examine the foundation of our beliefs, to strip away the complexities and confront the truth of who we are as a people.

In our own lives, O children, the lesson is just as clear: we must acknowledge the complexity of our beliefs, but we must also recognize their limitations. The structure of beliefs we create may serve us at certain points in our lives