THE FOUR AGREEMENTS

There was a time when i used to think that I have no control over my life. No control whatsoever. I have no ability to change anything that happens to me or to my children. I sit helplessly and prayed with a sense of helplessness not entirely believing that my life would be any better.


I think that was what that happened to me. In the end when we surrender, God points us in the right direction. For Muslims, the Quran and hadith form the broad guidelines, which we measure the other references that fall into our laps against. Little by little..the right people, the right books the right connections came forth in a very structured manner as if it is a curriculum in the faculty of life cut out especially for me.

One of those books that practically jumped out at me when I was browsing through shelves at Borders was The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. At the time, I didn't have much, I was feeling small and thought that people were treating me like trash, because I am a single mother with all the material limitations in world where ownership of material things determine where you stand in people's eyes.

This is going to be an oversimplified version of what I learned from the book. I am writing on the fly, purely from whatever I have stored in the memory of my grey matter, so please bear with me.

The first thing I learned from this book was that life is nothing but a dream, a concept affirmed by the Quran. And I thought , if this life is a dream, then I can change it...now that gave me hope.

The next lesson I learned from it was that we have an agreement with ourselves. The prophet PBUH said we were born as pure white cloths..but I shall add that our conditioning form the agreements that we made with ourselves about ourselves. What our parents tell us when we were young, what the people around us tell us as we were growing up, all form perceptions and filters which shape us, for example we may grow up believing we are stupid, or ugly, or super smart. These are the agreements made with ourselves with words that were used in communication with ourselves. To be able to change our dreams, we need to break these agreements..to break it we have to change the way we talk to ourselves.

Next, I learned that what we experience is a mirror of our own selves. We have a filter system which filters everything that we see in our lives, something Don Miguel Ruiz call the virus..a little like the virus in a computer system.So I was putting up a filter of lack and as a result, what that was reflected back to me was also lack. Knowing this, I can start learning about the true nature of myself and proceed to learn the true nature of my children. I also learned to stop judging and blaming other people. And whenever I experienced lack or frustration or whenever someone treats me in a way which I do not like, I paused and look within myself to see what is it that these people are mirroring. Then I try to make a shift, by taking full responsibility of my experiences, something which is not easy but made a little simpler when I decided to take full responsibility for everything that I experience.

Finally I learned that I can only do my best, and sometimes my best may not be good enough for others but it doesn't matter, what matters is it is my Best.

The four agreements are :
1 Be Impeccable with Your Word
2 Don't Take Anything Personally
3 Don’t Make Assumptions
4 Always Do Your Best

This video will make it so much clearer for you. I found a doorway to peace through Don Miguel Ruiz's teachings..who knows, you might too.