HR ep 4 – The Four Agreements Part 1

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Welcome to the HammeredRecovery Podcast. In this episode we discussed:

I don’t think there has been a book that has changed my life more then this one.  I can tell you that my kids are absolutely sick of me quoting The Four Agreements.

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

But before we get to the four agreements we need to understand where they come from.

The Toltec

• Anthropologists have spoken of the Toltec as a nation or a race, but in fact, the Toltec were scientists and artists who formed a society to explore a conserve the spiritual knowledge and practices of the ancient ones.
  • Naguals (NA’WAL) – Masters (Spirits, Witch doctors, Shaman)
    • Forced to conceal their knowledge so it wasn’t used for personal gain from those who were not prepared to use it wisely.
    • Passed down through generations of Naguals.
    • Veiled in secrecy for hundreds of years, but ancient prophecies foretold the coming of an age when it would be necessary to return to the people.
    • Don Miguel Ruiz, Nagual form the Eagle Knight lineage has been guided to share the powerful teachings.

IT GETS PRETTY DEEP IN THE FIRST COUPLE CHAPTERS

• It starts off with The Smokey Mirror which explains where the agreements come from.
  • One of the Toltec studying to become a medicine man felt there must be something more.
  • One day as he slept in a cave, he saw himself sleeping and came out to look at the stars.
  • Transformed his life forever, “I am made of light; the stars are made of light” “Everything is made of light”.
  • He called the light Tonal and the space in between the light Nagual and he knew what created harmony between the two was Life or Intent.
  • We are all just mirrors reflecting light.  Everything in existence is a manifestation of one living being we call God (Higher Power).
  • You do not need to believe in God to see Light as a higher power.
  • Everything we see is a reflection of light.  He had a hard time explaining this to others.  They could tell he changed but couldn’t see the change.  They started to think of him as a God, which he acknowledged, but explained “we are all God as we are reflections of each other” Everyone is a mirror.  He saw himself in them, but they could not see themselves in him.
  • Everyone is dreaming, but without awareness.  They couldn’t see him as themselves because they were full of fog and smoke between the mirrors.
  • He didn’t want to forget what he learned, so he called himself the Smokey Mirror.  The smoke is the dream and mirror is the dreamer.

Domestication and the Dream of the Planet

• “What you are seeing and hearing right now is nothing but a dream.  You are dreaming right now in this moment. You are dreaming with the brain awake.”

You can literally believe we are all dreaming, or think of it as how we are just coasting through life

• Society’s dream – the dream of the planet
  • This dream is the collective of dream of billions of smaller, personal dreams

These are basically life lessons or rules we have learned growing up

• We are born a blank slate with the capacity to dream
  • We are then taught society’s dream.
  • We learn how to behave, what to believe, what not to believe, what is acceptable and not acceptable, good/bad, beautiful/ugly, right/wrong.
  • You didn’t choose what language to speak, you didn’t choose your moral values.
  • As children we didn’t have the opportunity to choose our beliefs, but we agreed with the information passed down.  If we don’t agree, we don’t store that information.
  • As soon as we agree, we believe and that is called faith.  To have faith is to believe unconditionally.
  • That is how we learn.
  • We become a copy of Mom and Dad, then we learn the word NO.
  • We form a belief system “The book of law”.
  • With out question, whatever is in the book of law, is our truth.
  • We start to judge everybody and everything by our book of law.
  • The Judge rules all.
  • Every time we do something that goes against the book of law, the judge finds us GUILTY. (ashamed)
  • Another part of us that receives the judgment, that part is called the Victim.  The Victim carries the blame, guilt, and shame.  “Poor me, I am not good enough, smart enough, attractive enough…” and the judge agrees.
  • Everything in the book of law has to be true, and anything that challenge that is going to make you feel unsafe.
  • We need a great deal of courage to challenge our own beliefs.  Even if we didn’t choose these beliefs, we did agree to them.
  • True Justice is paying only once for each mistake.  How many times do you pay for your mistakes?
  • The human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for each mistake.
  • We make a mistake and punish ourselves; shouldn’t that be enough?  But we punish ourselves again every time we remember that mistake.
  • The judge in our mind is wrong, because the belief system, book of law, is wrong.  The whole dream is based on false law.  95% of the beliefs we have stores are lies.
  • The outside dream is not pleasant.  The dream varies, but globally it is mostly a nightmare.  Suffering, anger, addiction, violence…
  • If we compare the dream of human society with the description of Hell, they are the same.
  • Others may say if you don’t do what they tell us we may go to hell.  Bad news, we are already here.
• We don’t need to dream a nightmare!  It is possible to enjoy a pleasant dream.
• We have the need to be right and make everyone else wrong.
• We trust what we believe, but what we believe is wrong.  We live in a fog that isn’t even real.
• Our biggest fear is not death, our biggest fear is taking a risk to be alive.
• During domestication we form an image of what perfection is in order to try being good enough.
• We create an image of how we should be in order to be accepted by others.  WE especially try to please the ones who love us.  Always trying to be good enough.
• The image we create is not real.  We are never going to be perfect. NEVER.
• We cannot forgive ourselves for not being perfect.
• We try to hide our real selves and wear masks to fool others.
• WE are afraid of being found out, all the while judging others based on our idea of perfection.
• We start to do harm to our physical bodies to be accepted and to forget.  (Drugs/Alcohol)
• The Judge and the victim make sure to punish us.
• If we make a mistake in public, we deny it or laugh it off, but when we are alone, we judge.
• In your whole life no one has abused you the way you have abused yourself.
• Why do you put up with it?  You start to believe “I deserve it”
• There are thousands of agreements you have made with yourself, other people, society, God…
  • The most important are the ones you have made with yourself.
  • The result is your personality.
  • One agreement is not a problem, but we have many agreements that make us suffer.
  • We need to find the courage to break those agreements that are fear based and claim back our personal power.
  • The agreements that come from fear expend a lot of energy, but those that come from love help us conserve energy.
  • When we are ready to change our agreements there are four very powerful agreements that will help us break free from those that come from fear.
• You need a very strong will in order to adopt The Four Agreements, but if you can begin to live with these agreements you will see the dream of hell disappear and start your own person dream of heaven!

Be Impeccable with your word!

• The First agreement is the most important one, but also the most difficult one to honor!
  • It is so important that with just this agreement you will be able to transcend to the level of heaven on earth.
  • Sounds simple but is very powerful.
  • Why your word?  Your word is the power you create.  Your word comes directly from God (Higher Power). Gospel of John: in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word is God.
  • Through your word you express your creative power.
  • No matter what language you speak YOUR INTENT manifests through your word.  What you dream, what you feel, and what you really are.
  • It is not just sound or written symbols, your word is your force, it is your power to communicate, to think, and thereby create the events of your life.
  • Your word is the most powerful tool you have as a human.
  • But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or it can destroy everything around you.
  • One edge is the misuse of your word, which can create a living hell, and the other is the Impeccability of your word which can create beauty, love, and heaven on earth.
  • Don’t believe your word has power?
    • Not to long ago a man in Germany, with just his word, created hell on earth.
    • With just his word a nation of very smart people was convinced to do unspeakable acts of violence.
    • His word will be remembered for centuries if not forever.
  • The human mind is like fertile ground where seeds are continuously being planted.
  • The seeds being planted are spoken word, opinions, ideas, concepts.
    • Problem being to often the seeds being planted are fear.
  • Every human mind is fertile, but only for the seeds it is prepared for.
  • Example:  If you see a random person on the street and say “I can tell by the color of your face you have cancer”
    • Many people will shrug that off, but there will be those that let that seed grow and manifest into fear.  They will start to believe they have cancer.
  • When you call someone ugly, dumb… in some people those seeds will grow.
  • As alcoholics we do this all the time.  I must be dumb, or I would not have done that.
    • All of a sudden you believe you are dumb and have self-doubt.
    • The beauty is that this works both ways.  Get up in the morning and say, “I’m going to kick the shit out of this day because I am smart and a great person.”!
  • The word Impeccable means without sin.
  • Let’s take religion out of it and realize that sin means anything you feel or believe which goes against yourself.
    • You go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything.
    • When you are impeccable you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.
    • Self-Rejection is the biggest sin you can create.  It is a mortal sin and leads to death.  Impeccability on the other hand leads to life.
  • Being impeccable with your word Is not using the word against yourself.
    • When I am mad and call someone stupid it may appear I am using the word against them, but it is going to make that person hate me, so I am using it against myself.
    • When you use kind words to others it will create a kind reaction, which is good for me, so that is using your word for good.
    • If I love you, you will love me back.
    • If I insult you, you will insult me back.
    • If I am selfish to you, you will be selfish back.
  • Being impeccable with your work is the correct use of your energy.
  • Be impeccable with your word and the truth shall set you free (heaven on earth)
  • However, this is not easy we have trained ourselves to be liars and we have gotten really good at it. It almost comes second nature.
  • The power of the word is completely misused in hell.  It is used to curse, to blame, to find guilt, to destroy and to spread our person poison through jealousy and hate.
    • We plan revenge we create chaos (Hitler)
  • Story of a women who had a bad day and snapped at her daughter while she was signing, and she snapped and said she had an ugly voice.
    • This girl grew up and although she had a beautiful voice she never sang again.
    • She developed a complex from her own mother.
    • The mother never realized what she had done.
    • How often do we do this in our everyday lives?
  • How often do we wake up feeling great and one person’s comment tears us down?
  • That person gave you an opinion and you let that seed grow. If you accept that opinion it becomes an agreement.
  • Those agreements are hard to break.  The only thing that can break those agreements are the truth.  And only you know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
• Look at everyday interactions and realize how often we misuse our word.
  • Gossip is the worst use of your word.
  • Misery loves company.
  • You don’t want to be alone in hell.
  • Gossip is like a computer virus.
  • Once a virus spreads the computer doesn’t work quite right anymore.
• “Oh, that instructor was such a pompous jerk.  He doesn’t’ t know wat he is talking about and he’s a pervert too, so watch out!”
  • That person could be angry for failing the class.
  • Could be making assumptions based on fears and prejudices.
  • But because you have learned to ingest information like a child, part of you believes it.
  • You spread the word and start to believe it and over time you drop the class and blame it on the teacher.  Gossip is to blame.
  • When you try to gain some relief from the poison you spread it to others.
  • Now imagine this never-ending pattern happening between all humans on earth.
  • (election)
  • Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
  • As children we are quite thoughtless with the lies, we spread, but as we get older we get more calculated and we begin to lie to ourselves an say things like “that person deserved it.”
• We receive gossip from others, but also from the way we talk to ourselves. “I look fat, I look ugly, I am too old, I am losing my hair” …
• We must understand what the word does.  If you understand the first agreement you begin to see all the changes that can happen in your life.
• First you must change the way you talk to yourself; next you change the way you talk to others.
• When you adopt the first agreement you stop spreading emotional poison, but this will also give you immunity from anyone spreading negativity to you.
• 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 ae directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word.
• You can transcend the dream of hell just by being impeccable with your word
• Right now, this seed has been planted in you.  Weather or not it grows is up to you!