An inspired review of
“The Four Agreements”
by Don Miguel Ruiz
The Golden Road to Unlimited Joy
Review by: James L. Kawski
There have been some profound tomes I have enjoyed throughout my life. If I were to pick a comedic work, it might be “Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole*. If I were to pick a novel that transported me to another time and place, it might be “Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck. If I were to pick a book that impacted me, perhaps more than any other, it would be “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz.
Humans are incredibly complex. If you have a grasp on your own reality, then you are likely impacted by varying amounts and at varying times by the Four Horsemen of Fear; Anger, Jealousy, Envy, and Hate. The Good Lord knows that I, your humble author, have had plenty of experience in the company of these riders. It’s almost as if the negativity that is brought on by them is somehow satisfying. Eckhart Tolle speaks of this in his most disarming of “Tolle-Type” ways in this short video.
bit.ly/Tolle_Toltec
Here he discusses how the agreements made with all the different egos that occupy our minds are addicted to negative self-talk. There is an absolute perverse, comforting, satisfaction that comes with overt displays of anger and hate. The “Pain-body” that is our emotional pain feeds on negative thoughts and grows more significant with time. How then do we break free from this cycle and make our way to the path of everlasting JOY?
Don Miguel Ruiz recounts the learnings and teachings of the Toltec culture (see link below). The Toltec spoke of the concept of Mitote (MIH-TOE’- TEY), which is the dream of 1000 voices. Hindu teachings refer to this as MOH MAAYA or the grand illusion.
bit.ly/Toltec_Wiki
Over our lives, we make dozens of malicious agreements with ourselves. One of the 1000 voices talks with another and says, “you are not worthy.” Just like Wayne and Garth.
bit.ly/Old_School_SNL
When the Four Horsemen appear, they leave self-doubt, guilt, remorse in their wake. Humans punish themselves regularly for not living up to their own high expectations.
To live a life of unbridled JOY, we must break the cycle of fear created by the false agreements shouted to us by our Mitote that makes up our EGO. The Four Agreements is the most straightforward path to find that JOY that I have seen.
In the next four weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, I will be reviewing each of the Four Agreements. I hope you are inspired to pick up this incredible little book and give yourself the gift of JOYOUS POTENTIAL.
*John Kennedy Toole’s story is one of the most fascinating of any author I’m familiar with. Having written only two books he took his own life, despondent that Confederacy of Dunces was rejected time and time again. He allowed the Mitote to rule his life. His work was posthumously published and won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Be Impeccable with Your Word - The First Agreement
“The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz is the most profoundly practical book I have found to guide one to a high-value, high-joy, high-performance life. To practice its tenets is to move toward spiritual enlightenment. Pretty darn impressive, right? For me, it is a way to identify agreements I’ve made to myself that are black magic, bad juju, anxiety triggering activities. In fact, whenever I feel out of alignment, I look for the agreement I’ve violated and viola’ I’m back on The Golden Road to Unlimited Joy, or at least I’ve got the proper guidance from my internal compass.
Today we will look at The First Agreement; Be IMPECCABLE with your word. It’s not what you think.
When I first read this agreement, I thought it meant to be true to your word, or, always say what you’ll do, and then do what you say. What this agreement really means is to understand the power of your word, both to yourself and to others. Understand its power, and wield it responsibly.
Your word is the source of all of your creative power. Other creatures certainly can communicate rudimentarily. It is only humans who can express ideas. It is this ability to invoke language to describe that manifests everything in our lives. It’s simple to understand that everything that is created or destroyed emanates from our word.
The human mind is fertile ground where seeds are continually planted and germinate. Each word we speak to ourselves or to others are seeds that can grow into towering redwoods, or choking weeds.
Words cast spells on others with our opinions. We can create a self-fulfilling prophecy in others with the wrong words, or we can allow the spells that others cast on us to thrive with their maleficent utterances. Gossip is the fountainhead of evil in our lives. We plant seeds of discontent between others when we speak of others behind their backs.
People who love us cast the most impactful spells on us with their words. When our loved ones are not careful, they can do the most significant harm with the black magic of an impulsive, misplaced opinion.
Likewise, be careful with your internal self-talk. We create dark clouds around us by rehashing the past, fretting about the future, or being too critical of our present. Controlling our internal dialog is a practice. First, you must understand its power to motivate your self to engage in the practice of positivity.
The final three agreements all rest on the foundation of the first. Conscious, mindful, responsible use of your word to cast only sun spells on others and yourself is the first agreement to make to help us undo all of the malicious contracts we have made to ourselves throughout our lives. We funny, silly humans, The power we all have with our words is beyond comprehension. Everything good in our world and everything wrong is promulgated with our words. Mind what you say!
Never Take Anything PERSONALLY - The Second Agreement
I have something to tell you that might offend you. In fact, you might take it personally. The truth is that taking things personally or having a high degree of Personal Importance is the maximum expression of selfishness. Hey, wait a minute! I think I just offended myself.
We are born as wild animals. We are then domesticated in a particular fashion. Depending on our specific process of domestication, we will acquire a sense of Self Importance that will either serve us or diminish us.
As we grow, the seed of Self Importance might grow and fester, or we might nip it in the bud. If we don't recognize the maleficent nature of taking things personally, we will devolve and allow the agreement that "everything is about me" to become ensconced. We will encounter frequent interactions with a kind of hell. We will let others control our perceptions of ourselves. Our internal voices will continuously remind us that "it's all about me."
When you take things personally, you find yourself in hell. You feel a constant need to defend yourself. You make mountains out of molehills. You become trapped by your own selfishness. You let the poison of other people's opinions pollute your perspectives.
The thousands of voices in our heads, or the Mitote, as the Toltec describe it, can inform us of malignant perspectives of ourselves that we take personally. We fret that "if only I had gotten up earlier, I'm such a loser," or "why can't I stay focused and be more disciplined? I'm not worthy of my position," or, 'I've failed at my diet again, why do I even bother?" When we allow these voices to affect our present, we are taking personally the false indictments we generate. We are addicted to suffering. We love to be the victim. We make ourselves the victim because then we are no longer responsible. We allow negative self talk to affect us. This becomes a perverse kind of self-inflicted selfishness.
When we practice the second agreement, we create freedom and peace of mind. It is liberating. We can exist in the middle of hell and be immune to its heat. Never take anything personally. Put it on your refrigerator. Make it your morning affirmation. Get it tattooed on your forehead. Whatever you need to do, but never forget it.
Don’t Make Assumptions - The Third Agreement
4) __________________
3) DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
2) Never take anything personally
1) Be impeccable with your word
These are the Four Agreements. Well, not quite. You will get the fourth one next week. I intend to illustrate a progression of sorts. Today we introduce one that seems incredibly obvious, but in my opinion, it is the most difficult of the four. Additionally, like a bad seed, violation of this agreement will corrupt the first two. Here is what I mean.
In the course of human interactions, we are often presented with a set of facts that we interpret from our unique perspective. No one else has been presented with this particular set of circumstances, and no one else shares our precise understanding of what they mean to us. Often we will make assumptions about these facts and our interpretation of them. We make assumptions about others. We allow these assumptions to create an internal or external gossip that further informs our assumptive delusion. This is a violation of the FIRST AGREEMENT. Our thoughts with the help of our ego present us as the victim. Now we are taking this whole conflagration personally. A violation of the SECOND AGREEMENT. Taking this one step further, we elevate our internal and external gossip and violate the FIRST AGREEMENT by deciding on vengeance, or spite, or violence. OK, OK, that’s a bit of a dramatic spiral that doesn’t usually go that far. However, the same path that leads to something like real road rage is the same path that leads to ignoring a loved one.
How do we prevent the spiral from occurring? In one word, COURAGE. We have to have the courage to ask questions. But, we have made an agreement that it’s not OK to ask questions. We have agreed that our loved ones will know what we want or how we feel. We have agreed that to ask questions is to appear uninformed and to look foolish. How foolish is that? When you unpack it, look at it, hold it in your mental hand and see it from the perspective of a detached observer, you know that you must have the COURAGE to ask the questions that need to be asked. Damn the torpedos, dammit. Just freaking do it. Ask questions. Get clear. Don’t make assumptions. If you don’t, it might only lead to the end of life as we know it, or maybe just an intentional cut off in traffic. Regardless, work this one. Make this agreement a habit and your life will be transformed.
Always do your BEST - The Fourth Agreement
This one seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? I mean, "Always do your best" has been told to us from time immemorial, or for me since Father Dowdell would take me aside, my lungs filled with pain, defeated that I couldn't keep up in cross country, and he would say "my friend, my friend, as long as you are doing your best that's all that matters. From my vantage point, you are doing your best. What others do, this doesn't matter." That sage wisdom has stuck with me since, but doing your best, every time is damn hard. Let's change our perspective a bit to see if we can't "up our game" just a little bit every day.
Here are the Four Agreements again:
- Always be IMPECCABLE with your WORD
- Don't take anything PERSONALLY
- Don't make ASSUMPTIONS
- Always do your BEST
The Fourth Agreement is about taking action. Each action we consider we have a decision to make. When we wash the dishes, how well will we wash them? When we brush our teeth, how well will we brush them? When we drive our car, how well will we drive our car? Each and every action we take can be our best.
Our best isn't always the same. Some mornings we wake up because of that damn lemon square we had the night before. Our fitful sugar slanted sleep puts us in a fog that prevents us from delivering at the same level right out of the gate. Yet, there is "a best" we can bring, even in that scenario.
My practice is to execute every action with INTENTION. If I did this every time, I would do my best every time. AS time goes on, I do this more and more. Therefore I am doing my best, more and more. I simply do a short 1-2 minute silent meditation to release TENSION, then I reflect on the activity I am about to embark on and decide how I will present myself, and I set INTENTION. I don't think I've ever practiced this before I wash dishes, but I do practice it at least 50% of the time before I get behind the wheel. And I do it nearly 100% of the time before I write this BLOG.
Taking actions and expecting a reward is not an enlightened path, nor does it promote full engagement and joy. For example, working for the weekend is not in alignment with Always doing your BEST. Working just for a paycheck and getting through runs out of gas and places you in a comfort zone that you might not ever escape from. Regardless of your work, you can make every action one of excellence. The reward is simply the satisfaction of doing your best.
Doing your best means accepting yourself when you fall short. If we never reflect, evaluate, re-imagine, and improve, we are dead. Or, as my colleague and mentor Charly Caldwell say: "Check up, Set up, Level up."
Making every aspect of our lives into a ritual is the target for achieving full life engagement and joy. To ritualize everything from the mundane to challenging, we are manifesting the present. We align ourselves to the NOW. Buy not engaging in the present, and the now the path leads to self-pity, anxiety, suffering. Doing your best every time and living in the present with full engagement is achievable. Through this practice, we make adherence to the first three agreements possible.
The Toltec Path to Freedom
As you know by now, the book The Four Agreements is a personal favorite of mine. Written by Don Miguel Ruiz, it translates the Wisdom of the ancient Toltec (pre-Aztec) Mesoamerican culture into four simple truths, or agreements, that when appropriately applied, provide total freedom. Freedom from pain, freedom from self-judgment. Freedom from the shackles our domestication imposes upon us.
Our domestication, you say? Yes, our domestication. When we are children, we are wild and totally free. As time goes on, we run afoul of the rules of the world, and we gain responsibility. This domestication forces choices upon us guided by our human imperfections. We make agreements that sap our freedom.
We allow ourselves to be abused by the world around us, by our loved ones, and most profoundly by ourselves. We become The Victim. We are obliged to The Judge. Finally, we develop a Belief System. This troika, The Victim, The Judge, and the Belief System combine to keep us in line. They prevent us from being truly present and mindful.
But aren’t we, as Dr. Jordan Peterson, author of The Twelve Rules for Life,” might say, defined by the burdens we choose to carry? Aren’t we made whole by overcoming obstacles by overcoming challenges and building responsibility? Yes, of course, but most people are consumed by responsibilities. Our domestication has made us slaves to The Victim, The Judge, and The Belief System.
There are three Toltec Masteries that enable the application of The Four Agreements into our lives. The first is the Mastery of Awareness. We fail to know or even to understand our dependence on pain. Fear born of hate, anger, envy, and sadness becomes normal. These are the shackles of our freedom. Being aware means you understand yourself through careful introspection, you can follow the darkness you bring into the world. You can say the words, “I am not free, and I am bound by agreements I’ve made with myself that must be broken.” Once aware, we must change.
The Mastery of Transformation is at the heart of my practice with myself and with my clients. High-performance is about consistently exceeding your standard norms over the long term. This is all about change. Mastering Transformation is a lifelong pursuit. As said by M. Scott Peck said to love is to manifest spirituality. To love oneself is to grow. To grow is to feed your spirit.
Without intention and necessity, we cannot succeed. The Mastery of Intention is the foundation for the successful integration of the Four Agreements into your life. External modes of Necessity are Duty and Deadlines. Internal methods of Necessity are Identity and Obsession (the good kind!). Achieving a balance between these four is one way to amplify your intention.
Thank You
I appreciate your attention. I hope you were able to get even a silver of personal insight from this review. I’ve found profound amounts of change from The Four Agreements. Read it! Let it’s understanding of humankind be the impetus for change, for you
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PHOTOCREDITS: JKawski
1) Appleton Farms Grass Rides, Hamilton, MA
2)-6) La Sagrada Familia, Barcelon, Spain