Miguel Ruiz begins The Four Agreements with a brief description of the Toltec people, an ancient society from southern Mexico, who studied the union of humans with divinity (or God). Ruiz names himself as a nagual, a master of the Toltec way of life, which centers around connecting with abundant happiness and universal love. Ruiz says that he will share “the powerful teachings of the Toltec” in this book.
First, Ruiz describes a parable—or ancient myth—about a student of medicine who went into a cave three thousand years ago and realized that all beings in the universe are a unity made of “pure light, pure love,” including the stars (which he calls tonal), people (which he calls nagual), and God, which is everything and everyone. He decides to call himself the “Smokey Mirror” to remember that everyone is a reflection of everyone else, but people can’t see this because of the “smoke” or the “dream”—the illusion that we are separate beings made of matter—between them.
Ruiz then tells the reader that everything they see and perceive is an illusion, or a dream. For Ruiz, dreaming is the same as perceiving reality, meaning that even when humans are awake, we are dreaming. The dream that most people experience is “the dream of the planet,” which is what children are taught about the world when they are very young (by their parents, teachers, caregivers, and authority figures in society). The dream of the planet includes beliefs about the world and about how to behave. Ruiz defines a belief as some claim about the world that a person has agreed to accept. When children are very young, they are “domesticated”—or socially conditioned—to believe what human society believes. Put another way, they are taught how to make their own internal dream—or worldview, including beliefs about how to act—match the “dream of the planet.” Children are indoctrinated into acting the way society wants by being punished for bad behavior and being rewarded for good behavior. Children learn to crave rewards and fear punishment, and act to please others instead of themselves. Eventually, children internalize the tendency to assess, punish, and reward behavior by developing two inner voices named the Judge (who constantly evaluates everything they think and do) and the Victim (who receives the Judge’s criticism). Because nobody can ever act perfectly—that is, do everything exactly the way society wants—the Judge is usually harsh and critical, and the Victim feels ashamed, inadequate, and rejected. The Judge is so harsh that most people are terrified of this voice, and they do everything they can to avoid the Judge’s criticism. Ruiz thinks that existing like this is tantamount to experiencing a “living hell.”
Ruiz argues that humans don’t need to experience life as a hellish nightmare, but we are blinded by the beliefs that we learned as children, which are “lies” that make us suffer because we reject ourselves and others for being inadequate according to society’s expectations. There is a way out of this cycle of judgement and self-rejection, and it centers on agreeing to adopt a different set of beliefs. If humans change our agreements, Ruiz argues, we can perceive the world in a way that replaces the “hell” with a new dream that is more like “heaven.”
The first agreement Ruiz wants people to accept is to “be impeccable with your word.” By this, Ruiz means that people should agree to withhold negative or judgmental comments about themselves and others and only express only positive ones that will not harm or dishonor themselves. The first agreement is important because it recognizes that people love themselves and will only utter words that honor that love. Practicing the first agreement also means that a person will not gossip about others, because judgmental comments about others invite criticism back, which is also harmful to the project of self-acceptance and self-love.
The second agreement is “don’t take anything personally.” When a person takes something personally, they are assuming that a comment is about them, when in actuality, all it reflects is somebody else’s perception, or “dream.” Taking things personally makes people feel offended and defensive. Instead, people should recognize that negative things other people say are not important, because they’re not true. It’s easy to see that a negative judgment from somebody else isn’t true when a person loves themselves. If they already love themselves, then no matter what anybody else says, they will remain at peace and simply ignore the false judgement.
The third agreement is “don’t make assumptions.” Humans are taught to fill in gaps in their knowledge with assumptions and we tend to believe our assumptions, which creates a lot of unnecessary suffering. For example, a person who sees somebody smile at them might assume the other person likes them. They might dream up a relationship in their head based on this assumption and be disappointed and hurt when it doesn’t transpire in real life. Or, to take another example, a person might assume that their partner knows what they desire (say, emotional support) and then become upset when their partner doesn’t provide it. Ruiz argues that it’s best to ask questions and communicate our needs and desires—without fear of judgement—instead of assuming.
The fourth agreement is “always do your best.” Ruiz cautions that it’s important to remember that a person’s best will change depending on their mood, how tired they are, and many other factors. “Doing your best” means taking action without overdoing it. It also means doing things that provide enjoyment from the mere act of doing them. When people do things for external rewards (like money), they try to cut corners—for instance, shirking work because they hate it. However, if a person does things because they enjoy the action itself—say, running or playing piano—it will be easy to do their best, because they enjoy it. When a person does their best, they silence their inner Judge: even if they fail, or do a bit worse than yesterday, they can always say, “I did my best.” If they fail to uphold one of the four agreements sometimes—which is inevitable—they can again say, “I did my best,” and then they can simply move on instead of berating themselves.
Ruiz argues that adopting the four agreements will create new habits that reorient people to act out of love instead of fear, which transforms their existence to one of happiness, self-acceptance, and profound love.
Ruiz moves on to discuss freedom. He thinks that most people aren’t free to be who they really are. Humans are “wild” when they are born: children do what they want and express themselves without fear. Children have fun, enjoy the world around them, and live in the moment without thinking about the future or the past. These are all “natural human tendencies.” Adults, however, are so afraid of the Judge and the Victim that they rarely do any of these things. In order to be free, adults need to “become wild” again, or reconnect with their inner child and live as children do: for themselves and for their own joy, without fear or judgment.
Ruiz argues that according to Toltec wisdom, there are three paths to achieving freedom—that is, to destroying the “parasite” that comprises the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system they uphold. The first path is named the “dream of the second attention,” in which a person faces each of their fears and dismantles them one by one, replacing their social conditioning with a “new dream” that replaces fear with love. The second path is known as the “discipline of the warrior,” in which a person learns to control their emotions, which makes it easier not to react with negative emotions when provoked. The second path begins with self-forgiveness. The third and final path is the “initiation of the dead.” The third path entails recognizing that life is fleeting and death could be around the corner. If that’s the case, why not live life to the fullest? Acute awareness of mortality can thus enable a person to enjoy being alive here and now.
Ruiz asks readers to forget everything they’ve ever learned and recognize they have the power to change their perception of reality. He believes that if they accept the four agreements, they’ll stop judging themselves and start accepting themselves, see love pour out of everything around them, and experience life as a state of bliss.
Ruiz ends The Four Agreements with two prayers. The first, named a “prayer for freedom,” aims to recognize the union between people and God. The second prayer, named a “prayer for love,” encourages people to embrace the fiery power of universal love.
