The Four Agreements are very simple, but very profound. To embrace and live each of the Four Agreements is to find yourself experiencing personal freedom--possibly as never before. The Four Agreements are:

Be Impeccable With Your Words
Don't Take Anything Personally
Don't Make Assumptions
Always Do Your Best

From the cover of the book:

Be Impeccable With Your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don't Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

Don't Make Assumptions: Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always Do Your Best: Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

This book may be small in size, but it packs a hefty punch in terms of shattering personal illusions and opening up a path to personal freedom. I consider this book a must-have for anyone wanting to become more conscious and wanting freedom from personal stories and agreements that cause suffering.


A beautiful guide to achieve a life of freedom and happiness   May 29, 1998
 319 out of 340 found this review helpful

I have read so many books promising joy in my life, yet I have read none so simple and practical as that of the Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. The book is a beautiful instruction guide to achieve a life of freedom and happiness. He teaches four lifestyle commitments, which can transform life into the realization of your own personal dream. Written from his heart, the Four Agreements has made profound changes in my life. What seemed insurmountable challenges became powerful lessons which I was able to embrace with faith and love. What is the dream that you hold for yourself? Allow the magic of don Miguel's wisdom to shift your life into a masterful awareness of all you want for yourself.Become the power that you want in yourlife, realize the opportunites before you and then you can live in a heaven created from the beauty of your own heart. I have given the book to many people, who, only reading it once, have initiated life changes. My personal experience with don Miguel is that no matter how little you are exposed to him, your heart will always be touched. He and his words are the touch of an angel. Treat yourself to a world without limits!


Toltec Wisdom? Come on!   June 6, 2001
 193 out of 259 found this review helpful

Are we so bereft of guidance and spirituality in our contemporary culture that we think this is some kind groundbreaking revelation? Based on most of these reviews, I'd say, unfortunately we are. Of course the four agreements are good advise! These are the exact same things my grandmother taught me while she peeled potatoes over the kitchen sink, or gathered eggs from the henhouse. But then, no one ever marketed her as a Toltec mystic, so I guess that's where all the difference lies.

The book is very poorly written. So, just read the cover and save yourself some time. Better yet, save your money too. Let me summarize for you. 1. Tell the truth, to and about yourself and others. Don't gossip. Gossip hurts people. 2. Don't take responsibility for other's words and actions. They have nothing to do with you. 3. Ask questions and be a good listener. Don't assume you know what others want, need, or mean. (Ever heard of 'walk a mile in my shoes'?) And don't assume they know what you want. 4. Always do your best. Does this really need explanation?


How well does it work.   October 16, 2004
 149 out of 153 found this review helpful

The author says the we have chosen to believe what we have been programmed to believe. Recognizing how difficult it is to change core beliefs, he merely makes practical suggestions about how one can view things differently. All of the rhetoric, pro and con, about this book may stimulate the intellect; however, the ultimate question to ask about new ideas is `How well do they work". These Four Agreements work. This is precisely why an open mind is so important for spiritual growth. With an open mind one can experiment with new ideas instead of sitting around debating the merits of the ideas.

If you doubt the validity of what this author says, I would invite you to call up any one of your friends and see if they can carry on a conversation for 10 minutes without engaging in character assignation. The author says they can't, and I discovered he was right.

If you are open to new ideas, this book will be beneficial to you.

If you have the courage to further question what you have been programmed to believe, I would strongly recommend the book An Encounter with a Prophet by Clyde A. Lewis. An Encounter with a Prophet enabled me to give up my programmed beliefs about God -beliefs that were causing me a good deal of disturbance. The book also provided practical suggestions that I could experiment with. Those suggestions also worked.



Isn't writing this book an assumption?   September 10, 2001
 121 out of 224 found this review helpful

Voters take your mark (mouse), set, object. Warning, I'm afraid I sense uncontrollable episodes of spasmodic mixed metaphors to follow. Without lapsing into a discussion of the morality of conquest and colonialism, if the Aztecs truly adhered to this philosophy its a wonder Hernan Cortes met with any resistance whatsoever in Mexico. Now I remember why I avoid the self-help section like leprae bacillus was imbedded in the cover of each volume. In order to spare others exposure to the contagion, here are the four agreements:

1)Be impeccable with your word;
2)Don't take anything personally;
3)Don't make assumptions;
4)Always do your best.

How might any rational being question with the validity of these rather benign objectives? I would surmise most have heard them in some form or fashion from wiser elder mentors since the beginnings of time. Yet, as elucidated by Don Miguel Ruiz, the simplistic text has more un-detonated land mines than an eastern European war zone. In essence, Toltec wisdom, which is fundamentally identical to Yaqui wisdom as expounded by Don Juan Matus in the Castaneda series, has threads of commonality with most spiritually based belief systems known to man, dating back to homo.Erectus. In this easy-to-read little volume, Don Miguel offers clear analogies to Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and at one point appears to veer off into a flight of pantheistic fancy. New Age might be inclusive, but this is way over the top.

The internal contradictions I noticed here reside with the Castaneda books as well. It took years to recognize them in those books when I was too consumed with becoming a sorcerer or warrior of the Yaqui tradition to notice. I may have been young or naive; young and naive; or young, naive and unwilling to acknowledge the complexities of human interaction. In this case the inconsistencies are easier to recognize without the metaphor, allegory and mysticism (or peyote) that permeates Castaneda's works.

Don Miguel's calm and controlled pedagogy is solipsism. He explains how each of us has undergone a process of domestication, where the inculcated lessons result in value and belief systems that preclude independent thought and autonomy. We construct a set of negative agreements we employ to arrive at negative self-assessments, self-abnegation and self-victimization. If man sprang as a physically mature being from the head of some entity like Athena from Zeus, Ruiz's objections might make sense, as it is we do have to learn how to become productive members of a culture or society. Toltec wisdom infers aversion to acceptance of responsibility and accountability for one's actions; a narcissistic outlook where any proscribed behavior may be excused as the attempt to do one's best, as is clearly evident in the following excerpt from the book:

"The first three agreements will only work if you do your best. Don't expect that you will always be able to be impeccable with your word. Your routine habits are too strong and firmly rooted in your mind. But you can do your best. Don't expect that you will never take anything personally; just do your best. Don't expect that you will never make another assumption, but you can certainly do your best."

Two-thirds of the book is devoted to clarification and expansion of each of the four agreements, with contradiction and repetitious passages leading the way. The final third is devoted to explanation of the techniques to elimination of our existing personal agreements, implementation of the three phases to mastery of Toltec philosophy (awareness, transformation, intent), and how to arrive at a new dream of the world. He concludes with a couple of prayers for freedom and love.

The wisdom here is sacrosanct. Write down the agreements and attempt to incorporate them into your daily routine if you wish. But, you don't need this book as a guideline.