Book Title: The Four Agreements (a Toltec Wisdom Book).

Author: DON MIGUEL RUIZ

Pre-amble: As children, we did not have the opportunity to choose our own beliefs, but we simply agreed with the information that was passed on to us by other humans; parents, teachers, churches society etc. The only way to store information is by agreement. The result is surrender to the beliefs with our agreement. Blackmail, reward and punishment were used in most cases to make us conform. Soon we lost our normal selves and became someone that we are not and become a copy of the beliefs of mummy, daddy, society and religion.

This process is called domestication of humans and our whole belief system is created on it. For example, we learn the concepts of what it is to be a “man”, or a “woman” is and also learn to judge ourselves, other people and our neighbours.

We trust everything that we belief in and this sets us up for suffering. Our whole mind is a fog (called mitote by the toltecs).

Everything we believe about ourselves and the world, all concepts and programming we have in our minds, are all the mitote. You cannot see who we truly are; we cannot see that we are not free. That is why we resist life.

Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We live our lives according to other people’s demands, their points of view because of fear of not being accepted and not being good enough for someone else. We create an image of what perfection is in order to be accepted by everybody, particularly those we love and unfortunately, we are never going to be perfect from this point of view. NEVER!

The third agreement:

“Don’t Make Assumptions“

We have a tendency to make assumptions about everything and the problem with that is that we believe they are the truth.

We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking—we make it personally—then we blame them and react to them by sending emotional poison with our word.

Making assumptions therefore is asking for problems.

What is even worse is that we start gossiping about our assumptions.We are afraid to ask for clarification,we make assumptions,believe in them,then defend our assumptions and try to prove someone else wrong.

So it is important to ask questions than to make assumptions as assumptions will set us up for suffering.

The big mitote in the human mind creates a lot of chaos which causes us to misinterpret and misunderstand everything.

We don’t perceive things the way they are because we see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear.

Because we don’t understand something,we make an assumption about the meaning and when the truth comes out,we realise we were wrong.

Making assumptions in relationships,for example,leads to a lot of fights,a lot of difficulties,and a lot of misunderstandings with people we supposedly love by assuming that our partner knows what we think and want ,such that we don’t have to say what we want or think.Now if they do not do know what we want,what we assume they should do,we get hurt—-we may ask “How could they do that ?”

The way the human mind works is the need to justify everything ,to explain and understand everything,in order to feel safe.

The reason we make assumptions is because we have millions of unanswered questions that the reasoning mind cannot explain—so whether the answer is right or wrong ,does not matter,just the answer makes us feel safe This is why we make assumptions.

We make assumptions that other peoples world view is similar to ours—that others think,feel,judge and abuse the same as we do.This is the biggest assumption that humans make and is the reason why we fear being ourselves around others.

When you look for love,find someone you don’t have to change at all.Your love will not change anybody.If they change,it is because they want to change and not because you can change them.For example;When we get into a relationship,with someone we like,we justify why we like them.You only see what you want to see and deny there are things you don’t like about that person.You lie to yourself to make yourself right.Then you make assumptions that “my love will change that person” which is not true.Then something happens between the two of you,and you get hurt because you suddenly see what you did not want to see before,only now it is amplified by your emotional poison.Now you justify your emotional poison and blame them for your choices.

Real love is accepting other people without trying to change them.If we try to change them,it means we do not really like them.

Imagine the day you stop assumptions with your partner and ultimately everyone else in your life,your way of communication will improve and you will no longer suffer from conflicts of mistaken assumptions.

Therefore,becoming aware of the Third Agreement,”Don’t Make Assumptions “and practicing it repeatedly and creating new agreements that become second nature in the process,your whole life will be greatly transformed for the better.