The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz was first published in 1997. Born into a family of healers and shamans, Ruiz dedicated his life to creating a philosophy that blends ancient Toltec wisdom with modern sensibilities. After its publication, The Four Agreements stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 10 years and ranked as the 36th best seller of the decade. Many celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Tom Brady, have quoted and recommended the book.

A self-help and personal growth book, The Four Agreements is the first of six Toltec Wisdom Books by Ruiz, which explore the teachings of the Toltec culture (an ancient civilization centered in Mexico). The book focuses on understanding self-limiting agreements learned through domestication, the necessity of choice in making and breaking agreements, and living in a state of unconditional love in which one looks forward to the new dream of heaven on earth.

This guide refers to the Amber Allen 1997 print edition.

Note: The term “black magic” is not intended to convey racial connotations. Ruiz uses the term in the usual sense: to describe the use of magic for harmful purposes.

Summary

Ruiz begins the book by introducing the dream of the planet, the collective dream of all of humanity. This includes family, school systems, religion, and culture. Children learn the dream of the planet from their parents, teachers, and religious leaders through a process Ruiz calls the domestication of humans. In Chapter 1, he notes that everyone makes agreements about what to believe, how to feel, and how to behave. However, these self-limiting agreements cause people to continue living in hell, or the dream of the planet. To escape it and form a new dream, Ruiz outlines four new agreements people can make to rapidly change their lives and lead them to personal freedom.

These four agreements are the subjects of Chapters 2-5:

1. Be Impeccable with Your Word (Chapter 2): Ruiz examines the power of the word, how it’s misunderstood, and how most people use it to spread emotional poison. Being impeccable with one’s word means taking responsibility for one’s actions but not judging or blaming oneself. This agreement can clear the emotional poison from one’s life by building immunity to the negative words of others, leading to peace and joy.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally (Chapter 3): The dream of the planet teaches humans to take things personally, and Ruiz considers personal importance the ultimate form of selfishness. In taking others’ words personally, one forms an agreement with those words, and they influence one’s beliefs and actions. One shouldn’t even take the voices in one’s head personally. Listening to all these conflicting thoughts leads to confusion and chaos. By letting go of the need to be right, one can embrace happiness and freedom.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions (Chapter 4): Assumptions are dangerous because an individual believes that they’re true—and thinks and acts accordingly. Relationships based on assumptions are more likely to end and cause drama and suffering. Communicating clearly and asking questions is the key to avoiding assumptions and living more happily.
4. Always Do Your Best (Chapter 5): Doing one’s best helps make the first three agreements habits. One’s “best” changes depending on the situation, but no one needs to feel guilty about this. Doing one’s best builds immunity to guilt and judgment. Ruiz adds that one should not act for rewards but because they want to. Rewards will follow naturally.

In Chapter 6, Ruiz discusses how to break old agreements. In the Toltec path to wisdom, one must choose to be a warrior and fight the dream of the planet to live freely. To do this, one can follow one of three paths:

• The Art of Transformation: The Dream of Second Attention
• The Discipline of the Warrior: Controlling Your Behavior
• The Initiation of the Dead: Embracing the Angel of Death

Each of these paths leads to breaking the self-limiting agreements one learns through human domestication and to embracing the New Dream of Heaven on Earth.

Chapter 7 is dedicated to the New Dream. Ruiz notes that the New Dream goes by many names. For example, Buddhists call it Nirvana; Jesus called it Heaven. Either way, all people are searching for the same thing: a happy and fulfilling life. Ruiz describes the fullness of life that one can experience by dedicating one’s energy to the four agreements. In closing, Ruiz includes a prayer of freedom and a prayer of love to guide a meditation focusing on the new dream and the experience of unconditional love it offers.