I’d seen this book on a couple ‘top X must-read books’ or ‘top X books that changed my life,’ but so was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, which I didn’t particularly enjoy. I got the impression that these two books may be somewhat similar, so I wasn’t planning on reading it, but I saw it on my dad’s bookshelf and it was pretty short, so I thought, why not.
The author don Miguel Ruiz is a nagual (shaman) and The Four Agreements are based on ancient Toltec wisdom. These Four Agreements purportedly “will help us to break those agreements that come from fear and deplete our energy” and “will create enough personal power for you to change the entire system of your old agreements” (23).
Domestication and the Dream of the Planet
The first part of the book talks about the ‘domestication’ of humans and how we are socialized to accept and adopt certain beliefs without much choice.
“Your whole mind is a fog which the Toltecs called a mitote. Your mind is a dream where a thousand people talk at the same time, and nobody understands each other. […] In India they call the mitote maya, which means illusion. It is the personality’s notion of “I am.” Everything you believe about yourself and the world, all the concepts and programming you have in your mind, are all the mitote. We cannot see who we truly are; we cannot see that we are not free.” (16)
The First Agreement: Be Impeccable with Your Word
- the most important and the most difficult to honor among The Four Agreements
- “The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you.” (26)
- “Impeccability means “without sin.” […] A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself. […] You go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything. […] When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.” (31)
- “You can measure the impeccability of your word by your level of self-love. How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word. When you are impeccable with your word, you feel good; you feel happy and at peace.” (44)
The Second Agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally
- “Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about “me.” […] Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.” (48)
Some examples didn’t quite resonate with me and I found some declarations to be a little bit extreme (e.g. “Nothing other people do is because of you” and
“You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you.”). With some declarations, I partially agreed with them but also partially disagreed — for example, the author says that if we refuse to take things personally, “you can hardly be hurt by the careless comments or actions of others” and he speaks very highly of this ‘immunity.’ While I see the benefit of not taking things personally, I also think that this kind of mentality and emphasis on becoming ‘immune’ could possibly invalidate one’s emotions, which I see as an inevitable and integral part of the human experience. If I am hurt by something or somebody, not only is it natural to feel hurt, but maybe feeling hurt isn’t a ‘bad thing’ that we need to become ‘immune’ to. Of course, it would be unhealthy and self-destructive to wallow in self-pity or sadness, but it could be equally unhealthy to disallow oneself to acknowledge and accept that certain things can be hurtful/personal.
The Third Agreement: Don’t Make Assumptions
- “It is always better to ask questions than to make an assumption, because assumptions set us up for suffering […] We only see what we want to see, and hear what we want to hear. We don’t perceive things the way they are.” (65)
- “We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge… This is the biggest assumption that humans make.” (69)
^These past few months especially, I’ve often found myself thinking that other people should think the way I think (and consequently, that they should also feel and act as I do). Thinking this way and forcing my own standards onto other people is not wise — life/humans simply don’t work that way — and hurts not only myself but also other people, as well as my relationship with other people. Sometimes, I even caught myself saying “if I were them, I’d do X” and realize that that’s not true — I wouldn’t do X if I were in their position, and what I’d do depends not only on the situation and position but also on my mood/energy levels etc. More importantly, even if I were to do X in their position, I’m not them! And they’re not me!
- “We don’t need to justify love; it is there or not there. Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If we try to change them, this means we don’t really like them.” (70)
The Fourth Agreement: Always Do Your Best
- This is the Agreement that “allows the other three to become deeply ingrained habits.”
- “But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and sometimes it will not be as good.” (75–76)
- “If you take action because you have to, then there is no way you are going to do your best. Then it is better not to do it. No, you do your best because doing your best all the time makes you so happy.” (81)
…but don Miguel Ruiz, there are somethings that we just have to do that aren’t enjoyable! Are there not? With those exceptions aside, I do think that it’s beneficial to reframe certain things from “I have to do this” to “I get to do this” or “I want to do this.” But I think it’s okay/only natural if I don’t apply this to absolutely everything that I do.
The Toltec Path to Freedom: Breaking Old Agreements
- “As children we are not afraid of the future or ashamed of the past. Our normal human tendency is to enjoy life, to play, to explore, to be happy, and to love.” (95)
- The reason we are not free is because “the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system don’t allow us to be who we really are. Once our minds have been programmed with all that garbage, we are no longer happy.” (96)
- “The real you is still a little child who never grew up.” (97)
- The three masteries that lead people to become Toltecs: the Mastery of Awareness, Transformation, and Intent. “Intent from the Toltec point of view is that part of life that makes transformation of energy possible; it is the one living being that seamlessly encompasses all energy, or what we call “God.” Intent is life itself; it is unconditional love. The Mastery of intent is therefore the Mastery of Love.” (100)
- “First we need the truth to open the emotional wounds, take the poison out, and heal the wounds completely. How do we do this? We must forgive those we feel have wronged us, not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because we love ourselves so much we don’t want to keep paying for the injustice. … Forgiveness is the only way to heal. […] You will know you have forgiven someone when you see them and you no longer have an emotional reaction.” (114–115)
- “The big difference between a warrior and a victim is that the victim represses, and the warrior refrains. Victims repress because they are afraid to show the emotions, afraid to say what they want to say. To refrain is to hold the emotions and to express them in the right moment, not before, not later. That is why warriors are impeccable. They have complete control over their own emotions and therefore over their own behavior.” (117)
The New Dream: Heaven on Earth
- “Close your eyes ow, and then open them and look outside. … What you will see is love coming out of the trees, love coming out of the sky, love coming out of the light. You will perceive love from everything around you. This is the state of bliss. You perceive love directly from everything, including yourself and other humans. Even when humans are sad or angry, behind these feelings you can see that they are also sending love.” (124)
- “Only love has the ability to put you in that state of bliss. Being in bliss is like being in love. Being in love is like being in bliss. You are floating in the clouds. You are perceiving love wherever you go. It is entirely possible to live this way all the time.” (125–127)
- “The only reason you suffer is because you choose to suffer. If you look at your life you will find many excuses to suffer, but a good reason to suffer you will not find. The same is true for happiness. The only reason you are happy is because you choose to be happy. Happiness is a choice, and so is suffering.” (129)
I’m writing these things down not because I agree with everything, but because I think they are interesting perspectives and there are things to learn from certain parts of what I’ve quoted/copied.
Overall, the style and language weren’t my favorite, but I’m still glad I read this book since it definitely had some insightful and important lessons/messages!
A good book to end 2021 and start 2022 on.
