Toltec Healing & Self-Awareness: Breakingthe Parasite of Suffering

In this Shamanism Summit talk, don Jose Ruiz—a Toltec master and modern shaman trained in his family's lineage—describes how the path of traditional healing requires first descending into the "underworld" of one's own suffering, addiction, and darkness. He introduces the metaphor of the "parasite": an internalized voice of judgment and self-sabotage that keeps us trapped in pain. Healing, in Ruiz's teaching, is not about escaping reality but about developing awareness of how we wound ourselves, then consciously choosing to feed love and intention instead of fear and suppression. He emphasizes that authentic spiritual teaching must be alive and adaptive, honoring elders while refusing to live in the past, and that the real tool for transformation is the body—where we store trauma, suppression, and the power to reclaim our natural state of love.

What Is the Toltec "Underworld" and Why Must Shamans Enter It?

Don Jose Ruiz speaks of shamanic training as a descent, not an ascent. Early in the conversation (0:48–3:23), he describes how, as a child, he witnessed his grandmother and father teaching in the temple tradition. Yet as he grew older, he was drawn to the suffering of his peers—their addictions, their escapes from reality. Rather than resisting this pull, he found himself descending into it. "That's where we all shamans and tradition leaders start the process training in the underworld in the darkness in their own world in the dream of suffering," Ruiz explains. This underworld is not punishment; it is the necessary terrain of healing work.

He speaks from direct experience: "I found myself in the world of suffering inside of it like I was unhappy depressed you know suicide thoughts." This was not failure but initiation. In the Toltec tradition, the healer must know suffering from the inside, not merely as theory but as lived experience. Only by descending into one's own darkness—one's own addictions, self-hatred, and paralysis—does a healer gain the clarity to guide others out. This mirrors shamanic traditions worldwide, where the wounded healer archetype is central: the shaman's own illness or crisis becomes the source of their power.

Ruiz's phrase "the underworld in the darkness" also speaks to the unconscious mind, the dream state where we operate without awareness. Many of us live in this dream of suffering without realizing it. The shamanic path, by contrast, is the process of waking up within that dream.

What Does Ruiz Mean by the "Parasite"?

One of the central metaphors Ruiz introduces is the parasite—not a literal organism, but an internalized voice of judgment, shame, and self-sabotage. Around 19:54, he describes the parasite as an entity that has "got smarter" over time, adapting to modern conditions. It feeds on our suppression, our shame, our self-judgment, and our willingness to judge others.

The parasite is what tells you that you are not good enough, that you should hide, that you should perform a false self to avoid rejection. It is the internalized authority that makes you ashamed of your own body, your own desires, your own truth. Ruiz notes that when we feed this parasite—by believing its lies, by suppressing our emotions, by judging ourselves and others—it grows stronger. But when we become aware of it, when we can observe its voice without believing it, we starve it.

In Ruiz's words: "How can we let this parasite consume us? ...I see a junkie who's 12 years sober, that irritates us." The parasite is the voice that tells us to judge the recovering addict, to judge anyone who is different, to keep ourselves small. It is also the voice that told Ruiz himself to use substances, to escape, to suppress his pain rather than feel it. Breaking free from the parasite requires becoming aware of it first—noticing when we are judging, when we are ashamed, when we are hiding.

How Does Awareness Function as a Healing Tool in Toltec Practice?

Ruiz returns repeatedly to awareness as the primary instrument of transformation. He does not offer a formula or set of rules to follow; instead, he points to the power of seeing clearly what is happening within you. Around 27:15–30:21, when asked about healing ceremony, he describes the process: "I began moving I begin moving and as I begin putting attention to your body and then I look at myself I look at what around and really put attention who is the one [that] started this training."

The practice is simple: place your attention on your body, on the sensations, on what arises. As you do this, you begin to see the patterns—where you hold tension, where you suppress, where the parasite's voice is active. "I can see my suffering mind a parasite," Ruiz says. This seeing is not an intellectual exercise but a somatic, embodied awareness.

Once you become aware of the parasite's voice—how it judges, how it tells you that you are unworthy—you have a choice. You can continue to feed it, or you can withdraw your belief and energy from it. Ruiz emphasizes that awareness itself is the transformation: "With awareness we can begin healing and we can begin navigating the parasite with love." This is crucial—not suppressing or fighting the parasite, but navigating it with love, with conscious choice.

The body is the key instrument because the body is where we have suppressed emotion, stored trauma, and internalized shame. When we bring awareness to the body, we begin to release these blockages. This is why Ruiz speaks of the body as the "real tool" for healing, not the mind alone.

Why Must Healers Heal Themselves First, and Why Does This Never Stop?

Around 6:48–7:36, Ruiz makes a sharp statement: "To be a healer you have to heal yourself and this is where where I come from all the healers the first training is to heal themselves constantly because he doesn't stop." This is not a training phase with an endpoint; it is an ongoing practice. The healer's work is not to become perfect but to remain in constant awareness of their own wounding, their own patterns, their own edges.

This is a direct challenge to the guru model, where a teacher is presented as enlightened and beyond struggle. Ruiz's lineage, by contrast, assumes that healing is a lifelong commitment. When you stop doing the inner work, the parasite begins to feed again. You become complacent, you begin to wear a mask, you repeat teachings without living them. Ruiz speaks from this directly: "I noticed when I started hiding behind the teachings when I got comfortable in the teachings and didn't know one apply it in my life I could wear a mask you know repeat the teachings but no I wasn't really applying them."

The healer who heals themselves constantly is humble, because they are always discovering new layers of their own conditioning. They do not claim to have final answers. Instead, they offer a living example of the work—showing others that transformation is possible, not because you reach a destination, but because you commit to the journey.

How Do Modern Toltec Teachings Honor the Lineage While Remaining Alive and Relevant?

A major theme in Ruiz's talk is the distinction between honoring the teaching and being trapped by it. Around 17:24–19:54, he articulates this tension directly. When asked about the secrets of the Toltecs from hundreds of years ago, he responds: "I said I do not know because I was born in 1978." This is not dismissal but humility. He respects his elders and the tradition, but he refuses to pretend that 15th-century Toltec solutions are sufficient for 21st-century problems.

Ruiz observes: "The parasite got smarter because the old way didn't work because the parasite got smaller because someone who live that way corrupted it." In other words, the tradition itself was distorted by those who inherited it without truly understanding or living it. This is why blind repetition of ancient teachings is actually a betrayal of the elders—it freezes the teaching in amber instead of allowing it to grow.

His metaphor is the relay race: "I've never seen somebody you know the Asian transition the runners you know they never run backwards they only get the message and go forward." The elders pass the flame forward; the younger generation's job is to carry it forward, not to recreate the past. This means adapting, questioning, experimenting, and sometimes discovering that what worked for a previous generation needs to be transformed for the present.

At the same time, Ruiz is clear that respect for the elders is not about obedience but about recognizing that they "titled themselves"—they lived the teaching, not merely recited it. The respect is earned through their lived practice, not their authority. And the younger generation shows respect by doing the same: living the teaching, adapting it, and passing it on alive rather than dead.

What Is the Connection Between Judgment, Shame, and the Suppression of Our Natural State?

Ruiz returns several times to the role of judgment in maintaining suffering. Around 21:04–22:75, he notes: "The first thing that I begin seeing is how the people judge and how people are ashamed of what they're being judged with." Judgment is the parasite's primary weapon. When we judge others, we are reinforcing the internalized judge within ourselves. When we fear being judged, we suppress our true self.

He speaks of his natural state—which is love—being covered over by layers of adaptation, shame, and self-protection. "When we get into this life we have any attempt to sure love but we don't even know it be but that's our natural being." Our natural state is love, but we have been taught to suppress it, to hide it, to fear it. The family, the culture, the religion—all of these institutions, while often well-intentioned, teach us to suppress our authentic nature in order to fit in, to be accepted, to survive.

The healing work is not about acquiring something new but about removing the layers of suppression that cover our natural state. In Ruiz's language: "It's time to unlearn what takes my inspiration away so I can put my intention what brings me inspiration." We must unlearn the judgments, the shame, the self-hatred that the parasite has taught us.

How Does Walking Your Own Path Lead to Freedom?

Around 8:06–8:50, Ruiz emphasizes that healing is not one-size-fits-all: "We all have our individual ways of doing things of healing ourselves yes we may get inspired by other people and seeing other people's paths when we walk our own path is when we find the freedom." This is a crucial point. You can study many teachers, learn many techniques, absorb many traditions. But at a certain point, you must take what resonates and walk your own path. No two nervous systems are the same, no two trauma histories are identical, and no external teacher knows exactly what will unlock your healing.

Ruiz states: "We can only go all the way for personal freedom in our own way because no one knows what's stopping us how we're paralyzing ourselves but we do know what can overcome all these negativity and ease our love." This is the invitation to radical responsibility—not to blame your parents, your culture, or your circumstances for your suffering, but to own the fact that you, and only you, know what will free you. This is not about blame but about agency. The moment you recognize that you have the capacity to choose, to experiment, to adjust, you are no longer a victim of your conditioning.

What Role Does the Body Play in Shamanic Healing?

In the section around 27:15–31:15, when Ruiz discusses healing work and ceremony, he repeatedly comes back to the body as the primary site of transformation. He describes placing his hands on clients, moving his own body, paying attention to what arises. The body is not secondary to the mind or spirit; it is the instrument through which healing occurs.

This reflects the understanding that trauma, suppression, and conditioning are not merely mental but are stored in the nervous system, in the muscles, in the tissues. The parasite's voice is not just an idea but a felt experience—tension in the chest, constriction in the throat, numbness in the belly. To access and release these patterns, you must work with the body, not just the mind.

Ruiz notes: "Nature in life I begin putting my hands and I'm putting it out because I feel." The practice is intuitive, responsive, embodied. It is not a protocol applied from the outside but a listening to what the body is expressing and responding with presence and touch.

Where to Go From Here

Don Jose Ruiz's teaching offers several entry points for your own practice:

• Observe the parasite's voice. Begin to notice when you are judging yourself or others, when you are ashamed, when you are hiding. What does that voice say? What does it tell you that you are not, should not be, or should not do? Simply seeing this voice is the first step to freeing yourself from it.
• Bring awareness to your body. Spend time each day feeling your body, noticing where you hold tension, where you suppress emotion. As you place attention here without trying to change anything, you may feel sensations shifting, releasing. The body is your primary teacher.
• Walk your own path. Do not blindly adopt someone else's healing method. Experiment, notice what resonates, adjust as needed. Your freedom comes through discovering what works for your unique nervous system and history.
• Commit to constant healing work. This is not a destination but a practice. If you aspire to be a healer or guide for others, know that your own healing is the foundation. If you are healing for yourself, know that the work is never finished—and that is the point. The commitment itself is the transformation.
• Honor the tradition while letting it evolve. If you work with a lineage or teaching, respect those who came before you by not freezing the teaching in the past but by living it, questioning it, and allowing it to grow through your own authentic engagement.