The Four Agreements - By Don Miguel Ruiz

Notes From The Book

Everything in existence is a manifestation of the one living being we call God. Everything is God. And he came to the conclusion that human perception is merely light perceiving light.

He could understand everyone very well, but no one could understand him.
They believed that he was an incarnation of God, and he smiled when he heard this and he said, “It is true. I am God. But you are also God. We are the same, you and I. We are images of light. We are God.” But still the people didn’t understand him.

When you were in school, you sat in a little chair and put your attention on what the teacher was teaching you.
When you went to church, you put your attention on what the priest or minister was telling you. It is the same dynamic with Mom and Dad, brothers and sisters: They were all trying to hook your attention.
We also learn to hook the attention of other humans, and we develop a need for attention which can become very competitive.
Children compete for the attention of their parents, their teachers, their friends. “Look at me! Look at what I’m doing! Hey, I’m here.” The need for attention becomes very strong and continues into adulthood.

It was not your choice to speak English. You didn’t choose your religion or your moral values— they were already there before you were born.
We never had the opportunity to choose what to believe or what not to believe.
We never chose even the smallest of these agreements. We didn’t even choose our own name.

How many times do we pay for one mistake? The answer is thousands of times. The human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for the same mistake.
The rest of the animals pay once for every mistake they make. But not us.
We have a powerful memory. We make a mistake, we judge ourselves, we find ourselves guilty, and we punish ourselves.

If someone abuses you a little more than you abuse yourself, you will probably walk away from that person. But if someone abuses you a little less than you abuse yourself, you will probably stay in the relationship and tolerate it endlessly.

A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself.

Be impeccable with your word. This is the first agreement that you should make if you want to be free, if you want to be happy, if you want to transcend the level of existence that is hell.
It is very powerful. Use the word in the correct way.
Use the word to share your love. Use white magic, beginning with yourself. Tell yourself how wonderful you are, how great you are.
Tell yourself how much you love yourself. Use the word to break all those teeny, tiny agreements that make you suffer.

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

Whatever people do, feel, think, or say, don’t take it personally. If they tell you how wonderful you are, they are not saying that because of you.
You know you are wonderful. It is not necessary to believe other people who tell you that you are wonderful. Don’t take anything personally.

Even the opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily true; therefore, you don’t need to take whatever you hear in your own mind personally.
The mind has the ability to talk to itself, but it also has the ability to hear information that is available from other realms.

If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you.
If that person doesn’t walk away, you will surely endure many years of suffering with him or her. Walking away may hurt for a while, but your heart will eventually heal.
Then you can choose what you really want. You will find that you don’t need to trust others as much as you need to trust yourself to make the right choices.

As you make a habit of not taking anything personally, you won’t need to place your trust in what others do or say. You will only need to trust yourself to make responsible choices.
You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you.
When you truly understand this, and refuse to take things personally, you can hardly be hurt by the careless comments or actions of others.

We make an assumption, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.

The way to keep yourself from making assumptions is to ask questions. Make sure the communication is clear. If you don’t understand, ask.

Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less.
But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good.

There was a man who wanted to transcend his suffering so he went to a Buddhist temple to find a Master to help him.
He went to the Master and asked, “Master, if I meditate four hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?”
The Master looked at him and said, “If you meditate four hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in ten years.”
Thinking he could do better, the man then said, “Oh, Master, what if I meditated eight hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?”
The Master looked at him and said, “If you meditate eight hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in twenty years.”
“But why will it take me longer if I meditate more?” the man asked.
The Master replied, “You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life. You are here to live, to be happy, and to love. If you can do your best in two hours of meditation, but you spend eight hours instead, you will only grow tired, miss the point, and you won’t enjoy your life.
Do your best, and perhaps you will learn that no matter how long you meditate, you can live, love, and be happy.”

Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are.

If you break an agreement, begin again tomorrow, and again the next day.
It will be difficult at first, but each day will become easier and easier, until someday you will discover that you are ruling your life with these Four Agreements. And, you will be surprised at the way your life has been transformed.

Every time we face one of the fears we are a little more free.

The way you see the world will depend upon the emotions you are feeling. When you are angry, everything around you is wrong, nothing is right.
You blame everything including the weather; whether it’s raining or the sun is shining, nothing pleases you.

How are we to become a warrior? There are certain characteristics of the warrior that are nearly the same around the world.
The warrior has awareness. That’s very important. We are aware that we are at war, and the war in our minds requires discipline.
Not the discipline of a soldier, but the discipline of a warrior.
Not the discipline from the outside to tell us what to do and what not to do, but the discipline to be ourselves, no matter what.