Category: books

Reread: Jan 2024

The Four Agreements is a philosophical self-improvement book that was recommended by my husband years ago before we were married. It intruiged me as he said this book has helped shape his life, and he had reread it several times.

I took his advice and read it for the first time years ago, then a couple more times. It has changed me in a simple yet fundamental way. Read my first review here.

Who should read this book?

I have always battled my inner self, and I am most often my biggest enemy. This book helped me take control and responsibilities of how I feel and act. It brought me a bit of peace in this crazy, crazy world. I recommend this book to anyone who feels they are suffering from external forces such as the need to compare with others, the feeling of injustice, or working with difficult people and situations in their lives.

Summy and Notes

The Four Agreements
1) Be impeccable with your word – make sure the word that comes out of me do not hurt me in the long run.
2) Don’t take anything personally – It is not about myself. It is about them.
3) Don’t make assumptions
4) Always do your best

I am drawn to certain concepts than others depending on the challenges I’m facing at the time. In this particular reread, I was deeply changed by the introduction and the first two agreements.
Everyone is affected by the
How my opinion changed, how book affected me

My Favorite Quotes

I used Clippings to get all my highlights in one place on the computer. Below is a collection of my favorite quotes from the book:

Light is Life, We are Life

• “Everything is made of light,” he said, “and the space in-between isn’t empty.” And he knew that everything that exists is one living being, and that light is the messenger of life, because it is alive and contains all information.
• He saw that Life mixed the tonal and the nagual in different ways to create billions of manifestations of Life. “It is true. I am God. But you are also God. We are the same, you and I. We are images of light.

Everyone is Dreaming, Humans are Taught to dream the way society Dreams.

• “Everyone is a mirror,” he said. He saw himself in everyone, but nobody saw him as themselves. And he realized that everyone was dreaming, but without awareness, without knowing what they really are.   
• We are born with the capacity to learn how to dream, and the humans who live before us teach us how to dream the way society dreams.   
• Attention is the ability we have to discriminate and to focus only on that which we want to perceive. We can perceive millions of things simultaneously, but using our attention, we can hold whatever we want to perceive in the foreground of our mind. The adults around us hooked our attention and put information into our minds through repetition. That is the way we learned everything we know.   
• 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.   
• Language is the code for understanding and communication between humans. Every letter, every word in each language is an agreement.   
• In human domestication, the information from the outside dream is conveyed to the inside dream, creating our whole belief system. First the child is taught the names of things: Mom, Dad, milk, bottle. Day by day, at home, at school, at church, and from television, we are told how to live, what kind of behavior is acceptable. The outside dream teaches us how to be a human. We have a whole concept of what a “woman” is and what a “man” is. And we also learn to judge: We judge ourselves, judge other people, judge the neighbors.

Life is a system of dreams put upon you by the larger society without a choice – domestication of humans: Agreement  

• The reward is the attention that we got from our parents or from other people like siblings, teachers, and friends. We soon develop a need to hook other people’s attention in order to get the reward.
• We became afraid of being punished and also afraid of not receiving the reward. The reward is the attention that we got from our parents or from other people like siblings, teachers, and friends. We soon develop a need to hook other people’s attention in order to get the reward.   
• We try to please Mom and Dad, we try to please the teachers at school, we try to please the church, and so we start acting. We pretend to be what we are not because we are afraid of being rejected.   
• 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 justice exists, then that was enough; we don’t need to do it again. But every time we remember, we judge ourselves again, we are guilty again, and we punish ourselves again, and again, and again. If we have a wife or husband he or she also reminds us of the mistake, so we can judge ourselves again, punish ourselves again, and find ourselves guilty again. Is this fair?   
• If we look at human society we see a place so difficult to live in because it is ruled by fear.   
• Whenever we feel the emotions of anger, jealousy, envy, or hate, we experience a fire burning within us. We are living in a dream of hell.   

Mitote: Mind Fog from Societal Dreaming

• We search for beauty because it doesn’t matter how beautiful a person is, we don’t believe that person has beauty. We keep searching and searching, when everything is already within us. There is no truth to find. Wherever we turn our heads, all we see is the truth, but with the agreements and beliefs we have stored in our mind, we have no eyes for this truth.   
• We don’t see the truth because we are blind. What blinds us are all those false beliefs we have in our mind. We have the need to be right and to make others wrong. We trust what we believe, and our beliefs set us up for suffering.   
• Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive — the risk to be alive and express what we really are.     

The Judge, The Victim of our Minds

• We judge others according to our image of perfection as well, and naturally they fall short of our expectations.
• Nobody abuses us more than we abuse ourselves, and it is the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system that make us do this.   
• If we make a mistake in front of people, we try to deny the mistake and cover it up. But as soon as we are alone, the Judge becomes so strong, the guilt is so strong, and we feel so stupid, or so bad, or so unworthy. 
• One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreements that make us suffer, that make us fail in life. If you want to live a life of joy and fulfillment, you have to find the courage to break those agreements that are fear-based and claim your personal power. The agreements that come from fear require us to expend a lot of energy, but the agreements that come from love help us to conserve energy and even gain extra energy.
• Our personal power is dissipated by all the agreements we have created, and the result is that we feel powerless.
• When we are finally ready to change our agreements, there are four very powerful agreements that will help us to break those agreements that come from fear and deplete our energy.  

Be Impeccable With Your Word

• Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself. We misuse the word so often, and this misuse is how we create and perpetuate the dream of hell.   
• Over time this interaction has become the worst form of black magic, and we call it gossip.   
• Think back to a time when you or someone you know was angry with someone else and desired revenge. In order to seek revenge you said something to or about that person with the intention of spreading poison and making that person feel bad about him-or herself.
• Think back to a time when you or someone you know was angry with someone else and desired revenge. In order to seek revenge you said something to or about that person with the intention of spreading poison and making that person feel bad about him-or herself. As children we do this quite thoughtlessly, but as we grow older we become much more calculated in our efforts to bring other people down. Then we lie to ourselves and say that person received a just punishment for their wrongdoing.   
• You will only receive a negative idea if your mind is fertile ground for that idea.

Don’t take things personally   

• 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.
• Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.  
• “You look so fat,” don’t take it personally, because the truth is that this person is dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs, and opinions. That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours.   
• You may even tell me, “Miguel, what you are saying is hurting me.” But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself. There is no way that I can take this personally. Not because I don’t believe in you or don’t trust you, but because I know that you see the world with different eyes, with your eyes.
• If you get mad at me, I know you are dealing with yourself. I am the excuse for you to get mad.   
• Even the opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily true;
• If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you.
• There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally. You become immune to black magicians, and no spell can affect you regardless of how strong it may be. The whole world can gossip about you, and if you don’t take it personally you are immune.
• Then you can be in the middle of hell and still experience inner peace and happiness. You can stay in your state of bliss, and hell will not affect you at all.

Don’t Make Assumptions

• We don’t need to justify love; it is there or not there. Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If we try to change them, this means we don’t really like them.   
• If others feel they have to change you, that means they really don’t love you just the way you are.   
• A white magician uses the word for creation, giving, sharing, and loving.   
• Mastery of intent, the mastery of the spirit, the mastery of love, the mastery of gratitude, and the mastery of life.

Always do your best

• Routine habits are too strong and firmly rooted in your mind. But you can do your best.   
• By doing your best, the habits of misusing your word, taking things personally, and making assumptions will become weaker and less frequent with.
• Sometimes that little child comes out when you are having fun or playing, when you feel happy, when you are painting, or writing poetry, or playing the piano, or expressing yourself in some way.

Closing Notes

• The freedom we are looking for is the freedom to be ourselves, to express ourselves. But if we look at our lives we will see that most of the time we do things just to please others, just to be accepted by others, rather than living our lives to please ourselves.
• To be Toltec is a way of life. It is a way of life where there are no leaders and no followers, where you have your own truth and live your own truth.   
• If we look at the description of a parasite, we find that a parasite is a living being who lives off of other living beings, sucking their energy without any useful contribution in return, and hurting their host little by little. The Judge, the Victim, and the belief system fit this description very well. Together they comprise a living being made of psychic or emotional energy, and that energy is alive.   
• The Toltecs believe that the parasite — the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system — has control of your mind; it controls your personal dream. The parasite dreams through your mind and lives its life through your body. It survives on the emotions that come from fear, and thrives on drama and suffering.