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Chapter 6 begins by discussing what freedom truly means. According to Ruiz, real freedom is the ability to be our ourselves. However, we stop ourselves from being ourselves because of our domestication via the Book of Law, the Judge, and the Victim. This is par for the course for human beings, and Ruiz argues that we cannot blame others for following these beliefs and rules because that is what we are all raised to do. We are only free to be ourselves as children, but as we become adults and take on responsibilities to please others and gain their acceptance, we lose our freedom, often without noticing. The awareness of this loss of freedom is the first step needed to change our lives. Once we are aware, we can walk the path toward freedom and the three Toltec masteries—awareness, transformation, and intent—that allow us to control the dream around us. In this way, we can become “warriors” fighting to free our minds from a many-headed parasite, made up of the Book of Law, the Judge, and the Victim.

There are three ways to fight the parasite: attack head by head, stop feeding the parasite, and a solution Ruiz calls “the initiation of the dead.” The first method, attacking head by head, involves focusing on what Ruiz calls the second attention. The first attention is how your attention was first used during the process of domestication. The second attention, therefore, is using your attention to focus on your own beliefs and the agreements you hold yourself to. By doing this, you can become aware of which beliefs need to be changed, thus undergoing transformation. When you break an agreement with yourself that causes you to suffer, you must replace it with a new agreement, such as one of the Four Agreements, and bit-by-bit you will reclaim your personal power and be able to break larger and more powerful agreements, which require the same amount of power to break them as the power to make them.

The second method of fighting the parasite is to stop feeding it. This centers on not allowing emotions fueled by fear to deplete our energy. Ruiz uses a metaphor of an emotional body, infected with emotional poisons and wounds, to describe how we keep distance between ourselves for fear of being hurt and spreading poison in the world when we are hurt. The way to heal these wounds, he states, is to practice forgiveness and self-acceptance so we do not drain our energy through suffering over the wrongs that others have done to us or that we have done to ourselves. Once we reach self-acceptance, we can discard the system of denial we use to cover our emotional wounds, because we no longer have wounds to cover, and have full control over our emotions. Ruiz emphasizes that to control your emotions does not mean to repress them entirely, but to refrain from expressing them until the right moment.

The third method of fighting the parasite, the initiation of the dead, focuses on living life both in the present and to the fullest by accepting the reality that we will die one day, and that we do not know when or how. By acknowledging that each day could be our last, we can live our lives in the way we want, with no regrets, instead of trying to live for others. In this way, the parasite and the old dream is what dies in the initiation of the dead, not you. Then you will resurrect with the freedom of a child and the wisdom of an adult.

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