Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Four Agreements, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Judgment and Fear
Beliefs, Agreements, and Transformative Happiness
Human Perception, Reality, and Universal Love
Childhood, Adulthood, and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Three thousand years ago, a student studying to be a medicine man sleeps in a cave and has an out of body experience in a dream, through which he realizes “I am made of light. I am made of stars.” The student realizes that everything is made of light, which is alive, and it is one being spread throughout the universe. He calls the stars “tonal” and the light between them—including himself—“nagual.” The student concludes that “Everything is God,” and that human perception is “light perceiving light.” The student decides that matter is like a mirror, a dream, or smoke that occludes humanity’s real nature, which is “pure love, pure light.”
Ruiz utilizes the myth of the medicine student to explain the picture of reality that Ruiz is going to defend: even though it looks like people are separate and made of matter, everything is actually made of light that shines universal love. The metaphor of a dream represents the world as humans perceive it, which for Ruiz is an illusion. The aim of his argument is to shake loose the illusion that the dream represents.
Themes
After the student’s realization, he recognizes himself in everything he sees, from other people to clouds. He perceives that life as we know it manifests as varied mixtures of the tonal (starlight) and the nagual (light between the stars). Suddenly, the student feels an overwhelming sensation of peace and wants to share his vision but he cannot not communicate it adequately. Nonetheless, others notice a change in the student’s demeanor: he radiates beauty and doesn’t judge anyone. Other people think the student might be an incarnation of God, and the student says that he is—but so is everybody else. The student can see himself in everyone else, but they can’t see themselves in him.
Another core claim that Ruiz makes about the nature of reality is that everything in the universe is one entity. Everything is connected, including God, meaning that everyone and everything is a manifestation of God. This belief stands in direct contrast to the common modern-day worldview in which people are different from, inferior to, or judged by a deity of some sort. Since everything in the universe is one being, the tonal (light in the stars) and nagual (light between the stars) are like two sides of the same coin.
Themes
The student concludes that everyone is dreaming and can’t see their true nature because of the fog or smoke between them, meaning the layer of interpretation that humans add to reality. So as not to forget his insights, the student decides to call himself the “Smokey Mirror.” This name represents the idea that mirrors are people who dream up interpretations of reality that occlude the true picture. Their interpretations are the dreams, or the smoke, that stop them from seeing themselves as the light that comprises everything.
Ruiz argues that since most people don’t grow up believing that everything (including God) is one being made of light, people have a flawed picture of reality that obscures this truth, replacing it with a picture of reality as something full of very different beings that are made of matter rather than light. Once again, the metaphor of a dream is used to represent this illusion.
Themes
