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don Miguel Ruiz was born into a family of healers, and raised in rural Mexico by a curandera (healer) mother and a nagual (shaman) grandfather. The family anticipated that Miguel would embrace their centuries-old legacy of healing and teaching, and carry forward the esoteric Toltec knowledge. Instead, distracted by modern life, Miguel chose to attend medical school and become a surgeon. A near-death experience changed his life. Stunned by this experience, he began an intensive practice of self-inquiry. He devoted himself to the mastery of the ancient ancestral wisdom, studying earnestly with his mother, and completing an apprenticeship with a powerful shaman in the Mexican desert. In the tradition of the Toltecs, a nagual guides an individual to personal freedom. don Miguel is a nagual from the Eagle Knight lineage, and is dedicated to sharing his knowledge of the teachings of the ancient Toltecs. He is the author of The Four Agreements, The Mastery of Love, and The Four Agreements Companion Book. Website: www.MiguelRuiz.com

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The Four Agreements

Amber-Allen Publishing

Chapter One

There are thousands of agreements you have made with yourself, with otherpeople, with your dream of life, with God, with society, with yourparents, with your spouse, with your children. But the most importantagreements are the ones you made with yourself. In these agreements youtell yourself who you are, what you feel, what you believe, and how tobehave. The result is what you call your personality. In these agreementsyou say, "This is what I am. This is what I believe. I can do certainthings, and some things I cannot do. This is reality, that is fantasy;this is possible, that is impossible."

One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreementsthat make us suffer, that make us fail in life. If you want to live a lifeof joy and fulfillment, you have to find the courage to break thoseagreements that are fear based and claim your personal power. Theagreements that come from fear require us to expend a lot of energy, butthe agreements that come from love help us to conserve energy and evengain extra energy.

Each of us is born with a certain amount of personal power that we rebuildevery day after we rest. Unfortunately, we spend all our personal powerfirst to create all these agreements and then to keep these agreements.Our personal power is dissipated by all the agreements we have created,and the result is that we feel powerless. We have just enough power tosurvive each day, because most of it is used to keep the agreements thattrap us in the dream of the planet. How can we change the entire dream ofour life when we have no power to change even the smallest agreement?

If we can see it is our agreements which rule our life, and we don't likethe dream of our life, we need to change the agreements. When we arefinally ready to change our agreements, there are four very powerfulagreements that will help us break those agreements that come from fearand deplete our energy.

Each time you break an agreement, all the power you used to create itreturns to you. If you adopt these four new agreements, they will createenough personal power for you to change the entire system of your oldagreements.

You need a very strong will in order to adopt the Four Agreements - but ifyou can begin to live your life with these agreements, the transformationin your life will be amazing. You will see the drama of hell disappearright before your very eyes. Instead of living in a dream of hell, youwill be creating a new dream - your personal dream of heaven.

Chapter Two

The first agreement is the most important one and also the most difficultone to honor. It is so important that with just this first agreement youwill be able to transcend to the level of existence I call heaven onearth.

The first agreement is to be impeccable with your word. It sounds verysimple, but it is very, very powerful.

Why your word? Your word is the power that you have to create. Your wordis the gift that comes directly from God. The Gospel of John in the Bible,speaking of the creation of the universe, says, "In the beginning therewas the word, and the word was with God, and the word is God." Through theword you express your creative power. It is through the word that youmanifest everything. Regardless of what language you speak, your intentmanifests through the word. What you dream, what you feel, and what youreally are, will all be manifested through the word.

The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; itis the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby tocreate the events in your life. You can speak. What other animal on theplanet can speak? The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human;it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word cancreate the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everythingaround you. One edge is the misuse of the word, which creates a livinghell. The other edge is the impeccability of the word, which will onlycreate beauty, love, and heaven on earth. Depending upon how it is used,the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know.All the magic you possess is based on your word. Your word is pure magic,and misuse of your word is black magic.

The word is so powerful that one word can change a life or destroy thelives of millions of people. Some years ago one man in Germany, by the useof the word, manipulated a whole country of the most intelligent people.He led them into a world war with just the power of his word. He convincedothers to commit the most atrocious acts of violence. He activatedpeople's fear with the word, and like a big explosion, there was killingand war all around the world. All over the world humans destroyed otherhumans because they were afraid of each other. Hitler's word, based onfear-generated beliefs and agreements, will be remembered for centuries.

The human mind is like a fertile ground where seeds are continually beingplanted. The seeds are opinions, ideas, and concepts. You plant a seed, athought, and it grows. The word is like a seed, and the human mind is sofertile! The only problem is that too often it is fertile for the seeds offear. Every human mind is fertile, but only for those kinds of seeds it isprepared for. What is important is to see which kind of seeds our mind isfertile for, and to prepare it to receive the seeds of love.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Four Agreementsby Don Miguel Ruiz Copyright © 2003 by Don Miguel Ruiz. Excerpted by permission.
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