Sign in with Facebook
Jim Mitchell's Reviews > The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
by
by
Jim Mitchell's review
bookshelves: currently-reading
Jun 04, 2008
bookshelves: currently-reading
Reading for the 2nd time. Most recently started March 28, 2003.
This is a small book of 129 pages which I have read it many times. I suspect I will pick it up and read it again for as long as I can read. I don't have it on my bookshelf though, as I want to honor its special nature to me. In my nightstand by my bed is its home for now.
This is a book that challenges one to live up to four simple truths, and offers transformational results if one could live a life completely engaged in the four agreements. They are so concise that I can state them here. 1) Be impeccable with your word. 2) Don't take anything personally. 3) Don't make assumptions. 4) Always do your best. Simple huh? Track a day and see how many times you break an agreement (in your actions or your mind). To my constant amazement, I find myself stumbling over one or another of these agreements with some regularity. So it helps to remind myself with a yellow sticky note on my fridge, mental food for when I reach for the physical food.
I am not committed to these four agreements with a hope that I will attain some mystical state. I find the author's explanation of how our mind, our society, and importantly, our relationships work to be insightful, even though it is based on a paradigm that is completely outside my heritage of growing up in a small New England town. Understanding the Toltec dream metaphor is an essential part of realizing the deeper meaning driving our relationships within the world around us. Ruiz does a good job of helping these concepts become clearer. Especially relevant to me is the understanding of the role of judging and the resulting self-victimization that society attempts to impress on all of us.
Ruiz has helped me drop many of my limited belief structures and has opened up insights into living that are valuable to young and old souls alike. Lately, I have started to sense that some of his intricate explanations of how the dream takes control of our lives are based on a complex analysis that once reasoned through, only makes the simplicity of the four agreements more relevant to me in my daily life.
It is 2024, twenty-one years after I wrote this first review. There are only four agreements, but they are a challenge to keep, and I certainly feel my life has improved by striving to keep them actively guiding my life. It is a good read.
This is a book that challenges one to live up to four simple truths, and offers transformational results if one could live a life completely engaged in the four agreements. They are so concise that I can state them here. 1) Be impeccable with your word. 2) Don't take anything personally. 3) Don't make assumptions. 4) Always do your best. Simple huh? Track a day and see how many times you break an agreement (in your actions or your mind). To my constant amazement, I find myself stumbling over one or another of these agreements with some regularity. So it helps to remind myself with a yellow sticky note on my fridge, mental food for when I reach for the physical food.
I am not committed to these four agreements with a hope that I will attain some mystical state. I find the author's explanation of how our mind, our society, and importantly, our relationships work to be insightful, even though it is based on a paradigm that is completely outside my heritage of growing up in a small New England town. Understanding the Toltec dream metaphor is an essential part of realizing the deeper meaning driving our relationships within the world around us. Ruiz does a good job of helping these concepts become clearer. Especially relevant to me is the understanding of the role of judging and the resulting self-victimization that society attempts to impress on all of us.
Ruiz has helped me drop many of my limited belief structures and has opened up insights into living that are valuable to young and old souls alike. Lately, I have started to sense that some of his intricate explanations of how the dream takes control of our lives are based on a complex analysis that once reasoned through, only makes the simplicity of the four agreements more relevant to me in my daily life.
It is 2024, twenty-one years after I wrote this first review. There are only four agreements, but they are a challenge to keep, and I certainly feel my life has improved by striving to keep them actively guiding my life. It is a good read.
2016 likes · Like
�
flag
Sign into ŷ to see if any of your friends have read
The Four Agreements.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
Finished Reading
March 28, 2003
–
Started Reading
June 4, 2008
– Shelved
Comments Showing 1-50 of 68 (68 new)
message 1:
by
Melissa
(new)
Dec 16, 2012 03:07AM
Do you think these ways to look at life are suitable for modern generation?
reply
|
flag
Yes, these are very important ways for acting in our modern world. This is especially so now, in the world as it has evolved in the last two hundred years. It seems to me that we are going through a process of change which may be very good...or may be a disaster. We can use this wisdom that has been shared with us as we work to make a new framework to replace the hectic and unsustainable one that is unraveling. Our current leaders have nothing to offer for guidance on how to navigate this chaotic time of transformation. Ruiz gives us four simple concepts that will serve us well as we attempt to put into place a new social organization.
Is this work rooted in the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, would you say?
Leticia wrote: "Is this work rooted in the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, would you say?"Similar, but the source of the book is the Toltec civilization of pre-invasion North America. I think that perhaps understanding the cause of suffering and placing oneself on the path toward the ending of suffering as in the Four Noble Truths is common to both disciplines.
However, there is a lot more similarity between the Eightfold Path and the Four Agreements. Just four things to mindfully practice in the Toltec way though, not eight as in the Buddhist path. Maybe that's why I like it. Fewer check boxes, but still a very challenging way to live a life.
You keep reading this book for 13 (!) years already and try to live by this agreements. Have u noticed any changes in your life on the way to become happier, to perceive world with love, to be in the state of bliss-all that the book is telling about?
Yes, I have seen many positive changes. I sense it may be a good time to update the review. Thanks for the question.
I am not yet finished with the book, but I was already thinking that I will read it again. I have seen the change in my son, striving for peace amidst terrible and ongoing stress, still struggling but more and more often achieving the goal. He gave me this book.
Wow, I MUST read this after your review! Thank you for sharing.
Richard Rohr who I now adore says you need to be at the right stage of life to be open to God's true message. I so get this in reference to the 4 agreements. I first read this 10-15 years ago. Did not get it. Saw the book as Utopian and moved on. Purchased a new copy this year and am in the read and re read cycle now. It so speaks to me.
I so understand the need to not engage in the drama around us.
I am having trouble integrating the withdrawal with my concern that my life be committed to enhancing our world in some small part. I will keep rereading as the book draws me and will integrate into my being.
You Jim are one of the few who i have seen actually innerstand such a book as this (The 4 Agreements). Many will run through this or a book like the Alchemist and reflect back like its just a simple book to read and toss. This book like its sister (the Mastery of Love) were written to actually grow as your mind grows. Grow as your Aura's expand. Each moment you learn and experience Love as a Oneness... you come back to the agreements and see what it can reveal which wasnt reveal before. Good Review Jim.
Thank you Paul. Great to point out that as I fully embrace the message of the book I also see the growth of that very same message. A subtle alchemy it is, but one for which I am quite grateful.
I have only 15 years!! And I love it!! But wow!! It make you work a lot in yourself!! I think I would start one stept at time!! Also I think that I'm not too much domesticated... so it' s a good time too start!!
Anytime is a good time to start. I wish you good fortune as you travel down your path to life beyond the dream.
I read it two years ago and l think I must read it again and again
It will be fun to see if your awareness of his message has changed. As Paul pointed out above there may be a new insight the next read around.
I'm on my first reading of a lifetime of readings. Thank you for your review.
Jim - This is such a well written review. Props to you for revisiting what you originally wrote so many years later. Please don't take this personally but I admire how you keep rereading this book (Yes, I just finished Ch. 3). Peace!
Excellent review Jim! This is one that has a permanent home on my nightstand as well, as I enjoy picking it up and reading a few pages, or a chapter, at a time to remind myself how difficult it is to stick to the agreements. I find more often it's my thoughts that stumble before I catch myself and stick to the agreements in action. Every time I read this book something new pops up, it really does grow along with the reader.
I have kind of done the same thing. And just today I took it off the shelf to read again as something happened, or did not, that seems to creep into my thinking at the end of the day, kind of when you are lying bed and falling asleep, and there it is. So I figured today, sitting outside in the waning sunshine of our Indian Summer reading Penn Warren's "All the King's Men," and I thought to myself, it's time for The Four Agreements. Nice review.
Thanks Stephen. What an interesting juxtaposition between Warren and Ruiz. It has been a while, but I think the novel is possibly a good example of the dream of life which Ruiz reminds us is the basis of our projection of reality into the world around us. Don't have time to read through that tome again, but I wonder if Sean Penn's movie does justice to the novel.
I received the book for a Christmas gift & I couldn't of received it a better time. I work in a industry where I encounter a lot sarcasm and bigotry. It's easy to take what someone says to you personally & next thing you know, ,you're living in hell if you don't ( come to the realization that they're dealing with themselves ). When I encounter people in the work place that have revealed themselves as black magicians should I say; I avoid them as much as possible.. I completely ignore them unless it's something in relation to work. I remain professional & diplomatic. I can go home and relax, I haven't lost my job. Once upon a time, if someone said something nasty to me at work; I'd take it as insult, I'd take it personally and take it a step further by hostile reprisal. I have a copy of the four agreements by my bed, and it has saved me my job lol.. Great review jim
I love your comment, Joshua! That's how it is for me too. And it's a delight, reading Jim's review. Thumbs up.
I came here looking for the perfect 4th book for the year and here @Jim just convinced me on the Four Agreements!
thank you , loving reading it .
Yes, it is one I keep in my nightstand and have recommended it to several friends and family members.
I am halfway through this book. Love your review as I can definitely see how it is useful to read short extracts and then mull them over in your mind.
Exactly what I thought! Love this review (:
Your review is one of the reasons I decided to read this book and I absolutely loved it. I already feel changed by what I read and will definitely reread it. Thanks so much for your review.
You are very welcome. We both want to thank Miguel Ruiz for writing it, I am sure.
Cant say any thing more. This book is going to be a life changer for me.
Thank you for your review Jim, going to order this book as we speak
Jim, I couldn't have said it better myself. And couldn't agree more!This book was one of the first of many that have been so instrumental in my discovering the path to my own personal freedom. Learning to master these agreements (which I still work on, day to day), and letting go of so many flawed beliefs that I'd picked up from others, has helped me to find a life brighter and more fulfilling than I'd ever thought possible. It was as if every page came with its own "ah-ha" moment: the more I read, the more I wanted to read. But like Jim said, a few pages was at times all I wanted to take in, as I found I wasn't always ready to proceed further just yet. I would often need time to fully process what I'd just read in small bites; to break up with my old agreements, and adjust to the shift that I was experiencing within. It's not always easy for us to let go of old beliefs, ways of thinking that we've held for so long, however false they may be. It can be scary for some of us. But I can tell you that learning to let go of my old agreements felt like breaking out of my own personal prison, one that I wasn't even aware of until I'd found a way out.
Like Jim, I find myself re-reading The Four Agreements still to this day :) a habit I don't see ending anytime soon, though I do have to buy myself a new copy occasionally. I'll often give mine to others I meet, if I feel led to do so. The positive response I always get back from them is ever so worth the price!
Well said. I read it less and less often on a daily basis. Partly because, after these years, I have finally been able to savor the list of four agreements anytime I wanted to conjure them in my mind.
With the mental checklist firmly in hand, I do a tally every day (or as soon as I have that feeling that for some reason I missed the point of one of the agreements) and I seem to be doing better. But when I get stuck taking things personally, making assumptions (by far my biggest stumbling block), or taking the easy way out with a lie, I go back and read a chapter, ponder, let the words sink into my thoughts and I find myself refreshed, ready to do my best again.
Glad to hear from you.
I saw that you were reading this Lis and decided to listen to it as well while I travel alone today. 👍🏻
Great review thank you
Tifany wrote: "Great review thank you"You are very welcome. We both want to thank Miguel Ruiz for writing it, I am sure.
Wow! Great review.
Thank you for your review!
I have been doing the exact same thing!! I also have it in audiobook format and do the mediation/prayer almost daily💜
I have recommended this to countless people !!
Appreciate the review. Just started the book. I suspect it will be a companion with me for awhile to come. How long? Who knows? Attachment to things and all!
The key of this book, I believe, os to read it Many times, as much as the circumstances of your life ask for it. For me Don Miguel Ruiz designed it with that intention.
Totally agree. As our life circumstances change, so also our ability to understand complex aspects of life change. As we bring new understanding to reading Ruiz, we can gain new insights from his analysis of the dream of life.
Thank you for your review!
You are welcome. I hope you find the little book to be meaningful, as well as helpful, in your life.
Thank you for sharing this review!! I am new to reading this book but I see the tremendous value in it already!!
Thanks. Do you think some of the cosmology is compatible with children's literature? I wonder if I could explain the dreamscape that Ruiz writes about to a third grader. But it might be good to give it a try. I hope you get a lot of value from the book.
