The Four Agreements

By Don Miguel Ruiz

In 2005 I attended a seminar on this book The Four Agreements at a Unity Church in Boulder Colorado.  Unity is a non-denominational church with a positive message.  I remember Jack Groverland the minister clearly.  He is an awesome motivational speaker with a crooked past and a spiritual message of a Christian bent.      

http://unityofboulder.com/ 

Ruiz takes a Toltec Indian slant in the delivery of his message.  I believe the slant in combination with his Spanish sounding name is an attention getter as there is very little of the Toltec life brought in to the Four Agreements.  And this is not meant as a knock, but to make the point that the book gives you a heavy dose of the pitfalls in the drama of modern man in America.  One’s ability to have a spiritual awareness is relentlessly attacked by the pressures of a material world and a society that lives through the fear of scarcity.  If no other fear there is time.  When will it run out on me?  The strategy seems to be that this drama played out in society during our time alive, of which Ruiz calls hell, is escapable by prescribing to the Four Agreements.

1.     Be impeccable to your word

2.     Don’t take anything personally

3.     Don’t make Assumptions

4.     Always do your best

I call this book the Agreement Sandwich.  In Agreements two and three, Ruiz provides many examples of how other peoples drama can wear at your psyche and cause you to behave negatively as a result.  The message is quite simply to not allow yourself to fall victim to the bombardment of negativity.  My reaction; well maybe I don’t need this self help lecture.  I look for and find the positive in the worst of people … most of the time.  OK as I recognize this, and now likely ten years after the seminar I can account for 'if you impeccably look for the good in people you’ll find it'.  So the reason I say most…well I am not perfect, but I try my best and know where I need work.

OK the bun… is not sesame seed.   Yeas, being impeccable is an either or thing says Ruiz.  This chapter has you in control and therefore is fraught with a very simple either or message.  When you take out the garbage this discipline is easy.  Always do your best, is equally put on you.  However, Ruiz recognizes that your best is different each day.  This allows you to stay on point with an intention but not to victimize yourself when you come up short.

By this point the reader is only somewhat motivated to indulge in the prescription.    The last two chapters bring it all together and that is where you are moved.  Breaking old Agreements speaks to forgiveness as the key.    Heaven on earth speaks to love; the kind of love that is whole or what I have come to know as W’holy.  When you unconditionally love someone, you can only see their ‘sins’ as mistakes that can be corrected.   


What moved me most is in the last chapter Ruiz claims that these are not his words but are really wrapped up in the message of Jesus Christ.  To Ruiz When Christ speaks about transition and resurrection, he is speaking about the death of the old you and the birth of the new you.  I interpret this very simply as ‘letting go and letting God’, ‘who art in heaven and his/her will be done’.  

I will challenge anyone to read the New Testament, all four Gospels and see if you can hear this in Christ’s message.  And then if you do: read the rest and let the W’holy Spirit; otherwise known as the collective conscience of ONE man...sink in  When I say One man I mean the collective conscience of all man through all of time.