The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom: 1 : Ruiz, Don Miguel, Mills, Janet by Don Miguel Ruiz

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom: 1 : Ruiz, Don Miguel, Mills, Janet Reviews

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  Maggie Gelush

  Love this book! So helpful and easy to read, explains how the brain works so beautifully and how we can change negative patterns positive in such a simple relatable way! Got this as a gift and ordered one from here to gift too, arrived in great condition!
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  Kerri

  Lard jezus, what I just read b'y? Buddy be over here telling me I's an "auto domesticated animal". Who knit you!? G'wan b'y quit yer nonsense.Luh, I sums it up fer ya and saves ya a buck. Watch yer gob, don't be crooked when the b'ys are going on bout ya and you'll be best kind.Toltec wisdom Oh me nerves, he got me drove.Not fit fer reading. I gives er 1 out of 5 cod fish.🐟✖✖✖✖
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  Nilanjana

  It’s such a shame I didn’t read this book back in school or childhood and read chemistry and mathematics instead!!!!Page 20, stated by Miguel Guiz: “In your whole life nobody has ever abused you than you abused yourself”I am speechless and shedding silent tears. For this is absolutely true!For a very long term ever since my journey in the field of medicine began I have been trying to acquire a way to liberate myself from the hell the whole industry casts upon its service providers should they not measure up to what’s needed at any point——I wanted to liberate myself from that hell for probably a decade or . I wanted a hard boiled answer for the reason behind why, as doctors, we should be denied compassion and consideration in the process of becoming an expert. Why? This book gave me the answer and I can honestly say, I have found it!I wanted to know why, if this is what I will doing for a while now, I would need to brave for the rest of life through a career that is forever hinged against people who are ever ready to curse these very doctors at the slightest unintended mishap. This includes teachers and professors who don’t ever mind using terse, objective language to teach the students. Whatever happened to compassion????? I wanted to know how, just how I could, by any means match the whole process of being a doctor to my personality of being a silent, calm minded, compassionate, creative individual who above all, really cares about peace. I was seeking liberation from this maze forever and ever, and Miguel answered it very handsomely! The agreements that bully my mind are right here (pointing to my head). So to repeat his revelatory words:Page 20, stated by Miguel Guiz: “In your whole life nobody has ever abused you than you abused yourself”A personal story to explain how this book helped me. To be honest, it beautifully liberated me from a personal life issue and so many others!!! Putting this story up in public is a way of overriding the 'shame whisper' that's right me urging me back from typing. If you want to dearly understand how this book helped me you have to read this story I am writing:My Story > I am an Ophthalmologist. In Ophthalmology, while doing Cataract Surgery, we are required to carefully extract the cataract out and then assess if the posterior capsule of the cataracts lens is intact and thereafter proceed towards placing a human made Lens over it. If the capsule is damaged, you are in trouble, you can't place the lens over it. This is a skill which takes every surgeon lot and lot of time to learn months, yearsI recall making a rent in the posterior capsule in a patient recently. Accidentally. In the process of making it, I had not noticed that I had made it but when I did, my teacher yelled at me like crazy inside the operation theatre right there in front of the patient and others. This, I disagree with. Why? Not because I shouldn't be told where I am wrong but because a rent, which is often inevitable no matter how much experience you gain, is supposed to be learnt to handle as much as otherwise (which of course doesn't mention that you rent away at will!!). Second reason, the patient's ears are wide open and he can sense disturbances in the words spoken by the surgeons swarming around him by no means should the patient be allowed to understand that a problem has happened else he will agitate and grow apprehensive for the life of his delicate organ. Third reason > The problem can be handled in various ways and there are actual tutorials on that and it is very possible to recover from it by following one or the other of those ways. And, fourth reason > This reason I saved for the last and yet I think it is pertinent for a teacher to not reject a beginner in the skill for an error she had only noticed a little late > rejecting someone solves nothing, :) that's why. It's just an emotional outburst that is serving no one > not the patient, not me (because I could freeze the urge to learn further simply because I am being berated so harshly when on the whole I REALLY was trying my best), not even the yeller > yelling, raises bad hormones (cortisol, Adrenaline), tenses the muscles, robs one off peace. It is doing no good to the deliverer. Ignorance, hell!But, needless to say, I kept ruminating about it for days—this happens to be the very bad habit that allows me to write well. But look at the amount of suffering it causes in the process!As Miguel Ruiz imparts wisdom of the Toltec, he states that there was once a man who lived in a cave who suddenly woke up from a dream, one day, to take a serious look at his hands and feet, to come to a strange realisation——that we are all made up of stars and light——the exact same thing—only on the surface we are different. This usher of clairvoyance enabled him to operate forever thereafter from a very different standpoint, all the time——that is he saw himself in everything and everyone, everywhere! In that he attained personal liberation. Miguel explains that if this is possible for one man, what currently rests in the world is a dream world. And honestly, dear friends, in the midst of AUM chanting which I do everyday, I discovered that we really are locked in a waking dream. The focus around "what I like" and "what I dislike" creates a separation oriented dream world when reality is we are all one and the same. Even the concept of ourselves as who we have defined ourselves is a concept——it is as much a reverberating bleep as is every other thought. Essentially, as Miguel says, we are operating from the way we were domesticated (that’s the word he uses) as a child——when we were branded with “what is good” and “what is bad”, so that by and by we learnt to push aside our natural tendencies and become one of the crowd. By adulthood, we are absolutely unrecognisable from what we original came here as!These inner domestication code of ethics that we operate form serve to demonise our experience of life all the life——anytime we stray from it, we punish ourselves——it may not even be visible to outsiders.Now how this book came to help me nullify the memory of my issue at work, is through two of his statements:1.According to Miguel Ruiz,“Not being perfect, we reject ourselves, And the level of self rejection depends upon how effective the adults were in breaking our integrity. After domestication it is no longer about being good enough for anybody else. We are not good enough for ourselves because we don’t fit with our own image of perfection. We cannot forgive ourselves for not being what we wish to be, or rather what we believe we should be. We cannot forgive ourselves for not being perfect.”So, I was clinging onto a code of ethics of how I MUST BE to be a good person at work. In doing so, a mistake, even if unintended and accidental is like a baton being dug into the tissues of my brains!2.“We judge others according to our image of perfection as well, an naturally fall short of our expectations.”I was judging my ma’am. You may have felt it when you read my description of my personal issue. But then am I not living the exact same dreamscape as herself?!The solution, as described in the book, is seeing things for what they are. Fullstop.||||Another line from his book which completely transformed me ever since I read it and began applying it is:“ Taking everything personally is an expression of the maximum form of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about “me””I am often cursed for preferring silence and solitude as opposed to social circles (I prefer being an introvert). I began applying this line and I actually felt liberated despite the recent scorns of introversion from close circles. Wow!||||There is so much this book taught me, but I refuse to state because that would take away the delight of reading it.Oh and one ! One of his teachings revolve around doing work such for the sake of doing. When you do it that way, you experience liberation. So if I am promoting my book, if I am doing it for the mere pleasure of promoting, there you go, I experience liberation! Because the process itself is becoming joyous now reaching out to people who genuinely care about books, coming to think of it I actually love it! The I think this way, the I enjoy the process and I actually forget the outcome when I am enjoying the process!If I am doing it for a reward, it is crushing to watch anybody refuse at my request!I had to share this because these personal examples of transformation as a result of Miguel’s book will show you just how much it is opening doorways into liberation for me!Trust me, ultimately, all of us want one thing—liberation!We really don’t need the other things!these books should be taught in childhood!I recommend this book for everybody I promise you these four agreements if applied will liberate you!
• 
  Æzen

  It presents itself veiled in profundity and has the pretence to fix all of life’s complexities with shallow promises that are overly reliant on cliches and platitudes built on a facile, childlike logic. A naiive reading of this book may convince the new age type that it is preaching insightful truths (I should know, I once was a naiive fool who at one time would have eaten this tripe up!). But anyone who has actually opened their eyes to the strangeness of life, the nuances of experience, and has even a glimmer of comprehension into the psychology of motivation, habit formation, and how we render the world in our conscious minds will (I anticipate) see through this book and find it empty of any real substance, as I have.If you want a clearer view of how and why are what we are, I’d sooner recommend Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Behaviour’, or ‘Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, or even ‘The Red Queen’ by Matt Ridley. And if you want a truly transformative practical philosophy of life, then I’d recommend ‘Buddhism Without Beliefs’ by Stephen Batchelor, or ‘Minset’ by Carol Dweck. Real, practical books with depth, coherent philosophies, and a realistic appraisal of what it means to be human and what we can do about it.I will say, however, that The Four Agreements within the book themselves, while simple, are worth adhering to. But save yourself the money and here they are:1) Be Impeccable With Your Word2) Don't Take Anything Personally3) Don't Make Assumptions4) Always Do Your BestNow you can invest your time and money in a better book.
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  Anne Duff

  I really wanted to love this book. I wanted to learn secret Toltec wisdom and have my life changed for the better forever. I didn't like this book. Not one bit. The author contradicted himself. The Agreements are just plain common sense to the point of banality. The style of writing seems to be aimed at a very young reader, repetitive and oversimplified. I stuck with it, though I was very irritated by the end, and really wish I hadn't bothered. I would never recommend this to a friend.
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  TheJayS

  I've read it in an afternoon, just in one sip. The way it's written makes it a very enjoyable read, even though I can understand the comments of some readers about the language used in the book. It has a very new age/ esoteric language which can bother who is not into this kind of philosophy (me included) Although after getting in the mindset of a metaphorical language, it is actually very effective to deliver the message.Being a Landmark graduate I have to say the concepts in this book aren't neither new nor mind blowing, however they are a good way to remind what are the key behaviors to put into action, to have a powerful life.I didn't like very much the self centered approach in the relationship with other people, where the message I got is "I deal with my own business, you deal with yours and I have no interest in what you're dealing with". This is how it occurred to me.