Don Miguel Ruiz has actually written several books. The first one interested me so much that I read his next one, I don't want to diminish Mr. Ruiz's book sales in any way, so once again, I am sharing a condensed version, choosing enough information to hopefully cause you to buy your own copy, but not so much that I give away the full concept because it is a good one and very much worth the price and your time. I can't improve on Don Miguel Ruiz's words so let me share from this book:
The Four Agreements Companion Book
Using The Four Agreements To Master The Dream Of Your Life
by Don Miguel Ruiz
Humans accumulate a lot of knowledge, and 95 percent of that knowledge is not true. Instead of using knowledge as a tool for communication, we become puppets of knowledge. We give life to the knowledge, and that knowledge begins to create a lot of drama and suffering because it isn't based on truth.
As children, we never chose what to believe or not to believe. We didn't choose our religion or moral values, or any concept at all. But we agreed with these beliefs, and once we agreed, it was stored in our memory.
Knowledge itself isn't good or bad or right or wrong; knowledge is just a program. It is nothing but concepts. But the parasite that goes with knowledge is evil - it is alive.
We eat knowledge, ingest the parasite, and get sick from what we eat. This is what happened to all of us. When we understand that evil is nothing but a disease of the human mind, we understand why human societies are the way that they are, why there is all the injustice, violence and war. We have ingested parasites in the form of beliefs, in the form of concepts, in the form of distorted images. All of the personal drama that we experience - all the emotions that burn us up, that lead us into self-destruction, into addictions, into lies, into dogmas and fanaticism - are the result of our beliefs, the result of a program.
The whole dream of the planet is not real; it is not true. When you awake from that dream and are aware of what is going on in people's minds, you see the Parasites everywhere in everyone. You see all the emotional poison coming out through those parasites.
By being aware, you see that wherever you go, people react the same way that you react; they have the same fears, the same jealousy, the same anger, the same sorrows. You can see yourself in each one of them, and they mirror your projections, but we don't have to judge it as good or bad or right or wrong; it is just the way it is.
Well, each of us has our own book of knowledge, our own "book of law", and we use that book to judge ourselves, to find ourselves guilty, and to punish ourselves.
The belief that you are not good enough is one of the little parasites in your mind. It is evil because it is destroying you. It causes suffering because it limits your life, it limits your creativity and your happiness. The belief that nobody likes you, the belief that you are always right - these beliefs are not true, and they lead you into self-destruction. By always being right, for example, you have to make someone else wrong. By making someone else wrong, you create an enemy and then you are hurting yourself because sooner or later that enemy will go against you. All these concepts are alive and they work together, butthey need your mind, they need your dream, they need your emotions to be alive. They only live because you believe them.
(Think about the things you believe) ... ask you heart, not the parasite, whether each statement is true or false. Here's a hint to let you know when you are telling yourself a lie. Any belief that generates fear or feelings of unworthiness is false; it's a lie. The parasite thrives on the emotions that come from fear, suffering, and drama. Our authentic self would never abuse us; it comes from love.
THE POWER OF THE WORD
Through the word, you express your creative power. It is through the word that you manifest everything. Regardless of what language you speak, it is through the word that you express your will, your intent, your love, and your faith.
Let's consider what it means to have faith. Whoever masters faith, masters the dream. Why? Because faith is the impeccability of the word. To have faith is to believe 100 percent without a doubt. Faith is how the word is manifested; it is how we guide our intent. The great leaders of humanity have a lot of personal power because they have great faith. But their faith comes from the heart, not the head. Their faith comes from love instead of fear, and from wisdom instead of knowledge.
Humans are powerful creators. We are born with all the faith of the universe, and everything we create is based on faith. That faith is really our personal power, but what has happened with our faith? Your faith is so strong that when you believe "I am never going to be this," thy will be done, you are never going to be that. if you believe "I cannot do it", thy will be done, you cannot do it. Whatever you believe, you put your faith in that belief, and your faith will make it true.
If you have a strong desire to change your book of law, it is goingto happen, but you cannot expect the change to come without crisis. You are breaking your beliefs, your awareness is expanding, and you are learning to dream in your own way. As you break all those old beliefs that tell you what isn't possible, incredible things start happening to you because you don't limit yourself anymore.
YOU DON'T TAKE ON OTHER'S ADDICTIONS, AND YOU DON'T JOIN IN THEIR GOSSIPING. YOU NO LONGER CARE SO MUCH ABOUT THEIR DRAMA, ABOUT THEIR ANGER, THEIR JEALOUSY, BECAUSE YOU KNOW THEY ARE DREAMING. AND YOU KNOW THEY DON'T MEAN IT WHEN THEY TELL YOU SOMETHING UNKIND.
You love and respect yourself so much that you don't allow other people to disrespect you. You don't judge other people, but you don't accept their poison because accepting their poison is going against yourself.
WHEN WE BELIEVE WE ARE RIGHT ABOUT SOMETHING, WE ASSUME WE ARE RIGHT ABOUT IT TO THE POINT THAT WE WILL DESTROY RELATIONSHIPS IN ORDER TO DEFEND OUR POSITION. LET GO OF YOUR NEED TO DEFEND YOUR OPINIONS AND ALWAYS BE RIGHT.
Your opinion is nothing but your point of view. It is not necessarily true. Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself. Use the word to share your love. When you are impeccable with your word, you feel good; you feel happy and at peace.
DREAMING
Once we understand that we are dreaming, knowledge doesn't control our faith anymore. Instead, the opposite happens; our faith controls our knowledge; our faith controls our agreements and beliefs. We accept that it's our responsibility to change the dream if we don't like it, and we surrender to being responsible. Then we realize that the point of view other people use to see the world has nothing to do with us. We don't take anything personally because we know others are dreaming, and it is only their point of view. We know they are never going to believe what we say anyway unless they change the way they dream.
We don't expect that people will understand us. They are ruling their lives by their personal book of law, and they are still comparing notes with everybody else. We will understand them because we used to be the same way, but they will not understand us.
At this point, we no longer make assumptions. We know it is a fact that others are dreaming, and in their minds whatever they say right now can change the next day or the next instant. How can we make assumptions when we know that everything is changing? We love them the way they are and respect all the changes in them, or we walk away. We are no longer attached to the outcome, because we have our faith.
At this point, our whole life becomes magic.
Miracles happen,
and they happen all the time.
There is only one thing we can use to guide our actions, reactions, and our interactions with all those dreamers who don't have awareness, and that is our integrity. Our integrity is who we really are, the totality of our own self. You need to trust yourself. You will know that you have recovered your integrity when you feel good, when you feel happy. Every time you don't feel good, it is the result of a self-judgment, and that judgment is using the book of law to find you guilty. Now you are ashamed of yourself, and that's why you don't feel good.
The fourth agreement, ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST, is the engine that moves us forward. It is the action. Perhaps you cannot control what is going to happen around you, but you can certainly control your own reaction. Your reaction is the clue to having a wonderful life. Why? Because what makes you happy or unhappy is not what is happening around you, but how you choose to react to it. If you can learn to change your own reactions, then you can change your habits and routines, change the program, and change your life.
Let's look at an emotional routine like getting angry. ANGER IS FEAR WITH A MASK, and at a certain point in your interaction with someone, you were afraid and got angry. Your anger pushed the other person away, he left you alone, and you found that getting angry worked. The same situation happened again and again, and anger became a routine. It became an agreement with yourself that you need anger to be safe. Later you discover that anger pushes people away even when you don't want it to, and you are alone. People don't like you because of your anger, but by then you forget why you were angry in the first place. You don't know why anger has become a normal reaction for you or why every time you are afraid you get angry. The routine has been repeated thousands of times and it becomes a normal reaction for you; you are conditioned to behave that way. That is the challenge: to be aware, to change the routine, to change the action. Again, the first step is always to be aware and to practice awareness until you master awareness. Without awareness, there is no way for you to change your choices or change your actions.
The repeated action of using the Four Agreements will break many of the agreements that make life so difficult and unpleasant. It takes a lot of time and courage because it's easier just to take things personally, make assumptions, and react the way you react all the time. But that leads you to emotional pain, and your reaction is to send the poison back to other people and increase the drama. WHEN YOU STOP THE DRAMA AT THE VERY BEGINNING, YOU SOLVE THE PROBLEM RIGHT AWAY, AND THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO DO AFTER THAT.
The parasite wants us to carry the past with us, and that makes it so heavy to be alive. When we try to live in the past, how can we enjoy the present?
Everything that exists is in an eternal transformation. Everything in nature, all of creation, is changing. Creation is happening in the moment. It has no beginning, it has no end; it is ongoing. Energy is always transforming because it is alive. Life is what is happening; death is what is not happening. A moment after something happens, it is already dead. Whatever happened to us as a child, in school, with friends, in love relationships - whatever was true thirty years ago - is no longer true ... it is true that the memory happened, but it is also true that it is not happening anymore.
It is gone. It isn't real. It's over.
For everything that's taken away, Life gives us something new. If we become so attached to what's being taken away, we cannot receive the gifts of life ...
Detachment doesn't mean that we stop loving someone or something; it only means we accept that there is nothing we can do to stop the transformation of life. Detachment is so powerful because when we learn to detach, we respect the forces of nature, which means we also respect the changes in our own life. As soon as you detach from fear, you detach from the problem, you detach from the outcome, and you are free. You are floating effortlessly in the stream of life. When you have no fear, you have no resistance. And when you have no resistance, the solution to your problem is there in the light, and it comes to you. The solution to every problem of humanity is in the light.
You are alive, you are free,
and you are powerful.
You are not a victim of your beliefs,
your desires, your society,
or your circumstances.
The Four Agreements Are:
1. BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD.
All the magic you possess is based on your word. Depending upon how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you more than you know.
2. DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY.
All people live in their own dream, in their own mind. Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you.
3. DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS.
We have the tendency to make assumptions about everything. The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth. We make an assumption, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.
4. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST.
In your everyday moods your best can change from one moment to another, from one hour to the next, from one day to another. Your best will also change over time. As you build the habit of the four new agreements, your best will become better than it used to be.
The Four Agreements are not meant to be a religion, but an enhancement of our faith and beliefs ... a tool to be used to bring out the best in each of us, to uncover our authentic self, to live our best life ...
I read the book ... to improve me ... to inspire me ... but I also learned to listen to other people differently. It's much easier to really hear what people are saying when I don't take anything they say personally. They are showing me their view of the world. I don't assume I know what they are thinking or where their conversation is going. I just listen to their view of the world. If I am asked to comment, I am much more careful about the way I answer because I do believe that words have the power to bless and heal as well as curse and destroy. Sometimes, I amtired. Sometimes, I am not feeling well. I am not always my very best, but I can always try to do the best with what I have at the moment.
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