68 pages • 2 hours read
Don Miguel RuizA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz was first published in 1997. Born into a family of healers and shamans, Ruiz dedicated his life to creating a philosophy that blends ancient Toltec wisdom with modern sensibilities. After its publication, The Four Agreements stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 10 years and ranked as the 36th best seller of the decade. Many celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Tom Brady, have quoted and recommended the book.
A self-help and personal growth book, The Four Agreements is the first of six Toltec Wisdom Books by Ruiz, which explore the teachings of the Toltec culture (an ancient civilization centered in Mexico). The book focuses on understanding self-limiting agreements learned through domestication, the necessity of choice in making and breaking agreements, and living in a state of unconditional love in which one looks forward to the new dream of heaven on earth.
This guide refers to the Amber Allen 1997 print edition.
Note: The term “black magic” is not intended to convey racial connotations. Ruiz uses the term in the usual sense: to describe the use of magic for harmful purposes.
Summary
Ruiz begins the book by introducing the dream of the planet, the collective dream of all of humanity. This includes family, school systems, religion, and culture. Children learn the dream of the planet from their parents, teachers, and religious leaders through a process Ruiz calls the domestication of humans. In Chapter 1, he notes that everyone makes agreements about what to believe, how to feel, and how to behave. However, these self-limiting agreements cause people to continue living in hell, or the dream of the planet. To escape it and form a new dream, Ruiz outlines four new agreements people can make to rapidly change their lives and lead them to personal freedom.
These four agreements are the subjects of Chapters 2-5:
In Chapter 6, Ruiz discusses how to break old agreements. In the Toltec path to wisdom, one must choose to be a warrior and fight the dream of the planet to live freely. To do this, one can follow one of three paths:
Each of these paths leads to breaking the self-limiting agreements one learns through human domestication and to embracing the New Dream of Heaven on Earth.
Chapter 7 is dedicated to the New Dream. Ruiz notes that the New Dream goes by many names. For example, Buddhists call it Nirvana; Jesus called it Heaven. Either way, all people are searching for the same thing: a happy and fulfilling life. Ruiz describes the fullness of life that one can experience by dedicating one’s energy to the four agreements. In closing, Ruiz includes a prayer of freedom and a prayer of love to guide a meditation focusing on the new dream and the experience of unconditional love it offers.
By Don Miguel Ruiz