cover image MASTERY OF AWARENESS: Living the Agreements

MASTERY OF AWARENESS: Living the Agreements

Dona Bernadette Vigil, Bernadette Vigil, Doqa Bernadette Vigil, with Arlene Broska, foreword by Don Miguel Ruiz. . Bear & Company, $14 (176pp) ISBN 978-1-879181-61-8

A protégé of shaman and bestselling author Don Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements), Virgil describes the process by which she found total contentment and inner peace, and became a full-fledged "nagual, a teacher of no limitations." With its own unique language for familiar tenets, her crash course in mastery of awareness comes from the teachings of the Toltecs, an ancient Mexican people who believe that most of us are living in "the Dream of the Planet," meaning "the structures by which we live our lives, set our goals and strive to obtain certain things in life, such as good jobs, families, nice homes, education, status, and so on." True inner happiness or reality, they maintain, exists in a more spiritual realm. Vigil provides a theoretical foundation and a complete set of easy-to-follow exercises for becoming a "spiritual warrior." "Stalking," or detaching from and releasing the "Parasite" within, offers repeated chances to "clean" our old "agreements," or self-defeating beliefs, and to embrace Vigil's 11 new agreements or spiritual guidelines (including awareness, discipline and trust). While Vigil's approach is sincere, readers could use a greater number of more practical examples to better understand the process. In particular, her exposition of the "final battle" with the Parasite, after which "the part of you that is pure angel manifests," is too detached from most readers' experience to be clearly understood. 21 b&w illus. (May)

Forecast:Aimed at a New Age readership, this little book features a foreword by Ruiz testifying to Vigil's gifts, which will help attract readers, though Vigil won't approach her mentor's level of sales without a major media break akin to the one Ruiz received from Oprah.