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 second agreement; created out of the First Agreement.

If you are on the street, and I say “Hey, you are so stupid”, without knowing you, it’s not about you; it’s about me.

You take it personally because you agree with whatever someone said. As soon as you agree, the poison goes through you, and you get trapped in the dream of hell.

What causes you to be trapped is what the Author calls personal importance. Personal importance or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we assume that everything is about “me.”

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is about 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 assume that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

It is not important what you think about me, and I do not take it personally. Do not take it personally when people say, “Sam, you are the best” or “Sam, you are the worst.” Either way it should not affect you. Whatever they feel or think is their problem and not mine. It is nothing personal because they are dealing with themselves and not with me. Others are going to have their opinion according to their belief systems, so nothing they think about is about me, but it is about them.

Even opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily true; therefore, you do not need to take what you hear from your own mind personally. There are sometimes thousands of voices in your mind with conflicting opinions, called a mitote. The mitote is the reason humans do not know what they want, how they want it, or when they want it.

Do not take anything personally because by taking things personally you set yourself to suffer for nothing.

Humans are addicted to suffering at diverse levels and to different degrees, and we support each other in keeping these addictions. We help each other suffer. If you have the need to be abused, you will find it easy to be abused by others. Like if you are with people who need to suffer, something in you makes you abuse them. Their addiction to suffering is nothing but an agreement that is reinforced every day.

You may tell me, “Sam, what you are telling me hurts me “But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you.; it is that you have wounds that I touch that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself. There is no way I can take that personally. I am the excuse for you to get mad. And you get mad because you are afraid, because you are dealing with fear. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will hate me. If you live without fear and if you love, there is no place for those emotions and therefore you would feel good.

Wherever you go you will find people lying to you, and as your awareness increases, you will notice that you also lie to yourself. Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to themselves. You must trust yourself and choose to believe or not believe what someone says to you

When we really see people as they are without taking it personal, we can never hurt by what they say or do. Even if others lie to you, it is okay. They are lying to you because they are afraid. They are afraid you will discover that they are not perfect. If others say one thing and then do another, you are lying to yourself if you do not listen to their actions.

When you make it a strong habit not to take anything personally, you avoid many upsets in your life.

Your anger, jealousy, and envy will disappear, and even your sadness will disappear if you do not take things personally.

If you keep this agreement, you can travel the world with your heart completely open and no one can hurt you. “You can say, “ï love you”, without fear of being ridiculed or rejected. You can ask for what you need. You can say yes, or you can say no—whatever you choose—without guilt or self-judgement. You can choose to follow your heart always.