Wil Biggers: Wil Biggers is a stained glass designer and painter living in Greenville, SC. and can be contacted at wilbiggers@charter.net online. This review was originally published in WHITE CRANE: A JOURNAL v.52 (Spring 2002). It is reprinted from www.whitecranejournal.com online.
This book is simple truth, the same truth told in myriad ways by innumerable teachers throughout the ages. Dr. Ruiz is yet another teacher telling truth; his perspective will reach those others have been unable to touch; yes, same story, different version, and what a refreshing version. His wisdom is that
simple and that delightful. The Four Agreements is a deceptively simple and provocative book, and it is a quick read many would want to revisit. I would not recommend Ruiz to anyone who embraces cynicism, anyone choosing anger, or those requiring convoluted reasoning and complicated practice. They probably won't get the message and will only deride Ruiz's plain and simple language. The agreements are simple:
1) Be Impeccable With Words
2) Don't Take Anything Personally
3) Don't Make Assumptions
4) Always Do Your Best.
Like any good teacher Ruiz repeats his themes, all based on the precepts of the ancient Toltec, his ancestral tradition borne in Mexico. Ruiz, a surgeon, embraced this legacy of his family's healing tradition after a near death experience. The event jettisoned him into a practice of self-inquiry and it led to a personal freedom that he shares with his readers.
One of my favorite passages in The Four Agreements is, “True justice is only paying once for our mistakes, but we judge ourselves and others over and over; Fear is the controlling force.” Yes we've all read about fear and how it controls our lives. Ruiz holds a brightly polished mirror to Fear's face and illuminates its dream by showing how one can follow simple steps to peace and release. Quite simply, our attitudes and beliefs are the agreements we hold as true, the vast majority of them we took on as our own without question. Ruiz explains that a life of joy and fulfillment is there waiting when we find the courage to break free of those old agreements that are fear-based and claim dominion over our personal power.
Implementation of these four simple agreements requires a strong will, a survivor's will, a resolute determination. Ruiz illustrates how the ability to change our beliefs, that force, resides within each of us. Everyone can tap that truth-force. He illustrates how words we use to cast spells and how we spread these fertile spells upon one other. Words and their ideas created the power of a Hitler as well as the power of Gandhi. We always have that choice, that power in each of us, ready to tap at every moment of our lives. Like the ten worlds (our personal inner worlds), as described in Buddhist texts, we simultaneously embody Hell at our lowest world, all the way to Heaven in our ninth world and Buddha-hood (realization) in our tenth. The simultaneity of all ten worlds resides within us. We have the power to embrace our heaven or embrace our hell. Our only reasonable task is to reach for the higher rung on the ladder of joy, and share it.
Ruiz states: “The difference between a warrior and a victim is that a victim represses and a warrior refrains; victims repress because they are afraid to show the emotions, afraid to say what they want to say. To refrain is not the same as repression. To refrain is to hold the emotions and to express them in the right moment, not before, not later.”
This little book can give those who choose innocence a step up with a full and growing awareness of all that surrounds them. Set aside one afternoon to read this book. Ruiz is also the author of The Mastery of Love where some of the original ideas of “The Four Agreements” first appear.
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