The Four Agreements
It is true that we are so gripped or, in the author's words, "domesticated" by our belief systems as fed and shaped into our mind since birth time that they become the source of so many of our sufferings - fear, frustration, anger, jealousy and, basically, all the other negative emotions which plague the otherwise tranquil mind. Fundamentally, it is our inherent urge to conform to the ideals in our belief systems and the fear of all imagined consequences of non-conformity which cause us to suffer. For example, why do we have to beat ourselves to death in self-blaming for our past mistakes or blunders time and time again.
The four agreements which the author advocates to help us break free from the affliction of false beliefs sound simple enough, but are indeed enlightening and far-reaching on pondering:
1) Be impeccable with your word
2) Don't take anything personally
3) Don't make assumptions
4) Always do your best
While the first one seems the least straight forward, its meaning is profound. Tracing the Latin origin, being "impeccable" means "without sin". As a sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself, by definition, being impeccable is not to do anything which goes against yourself. Self-rejection, for example, is the biggest sin you can commit. On the other hand, as the author explains, "when you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself."
So being impeccable with your word is not using the word against yourself. But if you say something against another person, as in gossip or slander, any negative energy consumed will get back to yourself and hurt you - indeed what everyone can understand without comprehending Einstein's theory of relativity. On the other hand, a word for the truth and love will also produce a like reaction.
"You can measure the impeccability of your word by your level of self-love. How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word."
In other words, it all starts with self-acceptance: accepting and loving yourself just the way you are, and exactly the way that you are.
From self-love, however, it has to take a shift in paradigm to "not to take anything personally" - the second agreement.
To not take anything personally is to accept that the world is not about you, therefore, the conception of being selfless. How can we possibly honour the self but to accept oneself as being irrelevant at the same time? Are not the two ideas exactly antipodes to each other?
Or perhaps they are more like the two sides to the same coin: it may be a matter of appreciating your own existence, but doing so and understanding it as part of a bigger scheme.
So with that, and the other two agreements, we can purge sufferings and strive for freedom again - the freedom to be who we really are. "The freedom we seek is to use our own mind and body, to live our own life, instead of the life of the belief system."
But here again, there may be a loophole for confusion: the belief system is so part of ourselves that sometimes it is hard to understand where does and should "free will" actually begin. For example, for a married man who has fallen in love with another lady or vice versa, what is freedom: to divorce his wife (her husband) or break off with his (her) lover?
Of course this is the kind of hard choices one should avoid in the first place. But if one wants to simulate the sensation closest to freedom, as the author suggests, it is like living as a two-years old kid - curiously and innocently exploring life, totally unbound by conventions. That is a very useful inspiration, and the four agreements are very useful advices, as "forgiveness" is a very useful cure for mental wounds.
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