Don Miguel Ruiz is a Mexican author of New Age spiritualist and neo-shamanistic texts. His teaching is significantly influenced by the work of Carlos Castaneda.
His most famous and influential work, The Four Agreements, was published in 1997 and has sold several million copies.
In this book he advocates personal freedom from agreements and beliefs that we have made with ourselves and others that are creating limitation and unhappiness in our lives. Ultimately, it is about finding one’s own integrity, self-love, and peace by way of absolving oneself from responsibility for the woes of others.
According to Ruiz
- Everything is made of light and the space in-between is not empty.
- Everything in existence is a manifestation of the one living being we call God. The human perception is merely light perceiving light.
- We never had the opportunity to choose what to believe or what not to believe and in addition we learn to judge.
- With the fear of being punished and that fear of not getting the reward, we start pretending to be what we are not, (see also Your Own Identity just to please others. Eventually we become someone we are not.
- 95% of the beliefs we have stored in our minds are nothing but lies and we suffer because we believe all these lies.
- All of humanity is searching for truth, justice, and beauty. We keep searching when everything is already in us.
- Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans.
The Four Agreements:
1. Be Impeccable with Your Word
- Through your word you express your creative power.
- A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself (compare with Laws of Destiny)
- When you are impeccable you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself. Moral/religious rules should be changed to common sense.
- Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of energy.
- Your opinion is nothing but your point of view. It is not necessarily true.
- How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself is directly proportional to the quality and integrity of your word. When you are impeccable with your word, you feel good, you feel happy and at peace.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
- Others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system, so nothing they think about you is really about you, but it is about them.
- When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do. Even if others lie to you, it is o.k. They are lying to you because they are afraid. They are afraid you will discover that they are not perfect.
- If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you.
- The whole world can gossip about you, and if you don’t take it personally you are immune.
- You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for yourself.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
- It is always better to ask questions than to make assumptions because assumptions set us up for suffering.
- We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.
- You overestimate or underestimate yourself because you haven’t taken the time to ask yourself questions and to answer them.
- Your love will not change anybody. If others change, it is because they want to change, not because you change them.
- Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them.
- Find your voice to ask for what you want. Everybody has the right to tell you no or yes, but you always have the right to ask.
- This is what I want – this is what you want. If we communicate in this way, our word becomes impeccable. All human problems would be resolved if we could just have good, clear communication.
4. Always Do Your Best
- If you try too hard to do more than your best, you will spend more energy than is needed and in the end your best will not be enough. When you overdo, you deplete your body and go against yourself!
- You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life. You are here to live, to be happy and to love.
- Doing your best, you are going to live your life intensely. You are going to be productive; you are going to be good to yourself, because you will be giving yourself to your family, to your community, to everything. Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you are expecting a reward. Rewards will come, but you are not attached to the reward (compare with the Bhagavad Gita).
- If we like what we do, if we always do our best, then we are really enjoying life.
- When you do your best you learn to accept yourself. But you have to be aware and learn from your mistakes.
- Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward. Taking action is being alive. It is taking the risk to go out and express your dream.
- If you search for personal freedom and self-love you will find it. It is not about day-dreaming or sitting for hours dreaming in meditation. You have to stand up and be a human.
- You don’t need to worship! You can, if you want to. Your own body is a manifestation of God, and if you honor your body, everything will change for you.
The Toltec Path
- Breaking old agreements: We are only free if we have the freedom to be who we really are.
- The freedom we are looking for is the freedom to be ourselves.
- The first step to personal freedom is awareness. Second is transformation. Third is intent.
- Toltec Point – Old Belief System is a parasite and the food for it is the negative emotion of fear.
- Use your own mind and body, live your own life instead of the life of the belief system.
- Control your emotions, forgive and think of death. Live how you would live the last day.