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Chapter 5. The Fourth Agreement
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Four Agreements, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Judgment and Fear
Beliefs, Agreements, and Transformative Happiness
Human Perception, Reality, and Universal Love
Childhood, Adulthood, and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Ruiz explains that when we don’t feel free, we blame many things, such as the government, the climate, religion, or our parents. But really, the only thing stopping us being free is ourselves—being free is the same thing as being ourselves. Toddlers are free: they do whatever they want to do. They are also “wild”: they smile, have fun, and play without caring about the future. Toddlers think only about the present, so they aren’t afraid to express what they feel, nor are they afraid to love. These, according to Ruiz, are “normal” human tendencies.
Ruiz argues that young children are the freest humans because they already live in the way he advocates: they act without fear and pursue their own desires in the moment. Ruiz emphasizes that these behaviors are all “normal” to convince the reader that the way people are gradually conditioned to behave is perverse (and the root of all suffering). The four agreements can thus be thought of as a way to regain the freedom that a child gives up when they are trained to behave according to the social order.
Themes
However, when we become adults, we let the Judge and the Victim take charge. They prevent us from expressing our true nature, and we are no longer happy. Ruiz says that you don’t have to blame your parents for domesticating you, since they, too, were domesticated. If they acted abusively it was out of their own fear, their own beliefs. You don’t need to blame yourself, either, but you do need to stop the abuse—you can do this by freeing yourself from “the tyranny of the Judge” and the “role of the Victim.”
For Ruiz, the process of domestication—or being trained to act according to society’s expectations—is the same thing as abuse because it eradicates a person’s freedom and violates their true nature (which is to act out of love, because each person is the same thing as love). This means that learning to silence the inner Judge and the inner Victim is essentially stopping a cycle of abuse.
Themes
Your true self is the little child inside you that comes out when you have fun, play, or express yourself creatively. It’s the part of you that doesn’t think about the past or the future but just enjoys the present activity. The Judge inhibits this expression by telling you that you have “responsibilities” like earning a living. Ruiz thinks that most people don’t even realize that the Judge and the Victim are ruling their lives. The first step to freedom, therefore, is awareness that we are not free. Awareness lets us examine our beliefs and discover that most of them are “based on lies.”
Ruiz argues that personal enjoyment, freedom, and being childlike are fundamentally connected. Paying attention to activities that feel fun can act as a barometer for guiding oneself toward personal freedom. Enjoyable activities are the ones a person wants to do for themselves rather than for society—just as they did when they were children—which will guide them closer to freedom. Ruiz thus reinforces the idea that being free is the same as having childlike fun.
Themes
Being a Toltec, essentially, is taking control of your own dream, having the power to change your life if you don’t enjoy your dream, and following no leaders but yourself. A Toltec, says Ruiz, is wise, wild, and free. Toltecs possess three types of “mastery”: “Awareness” (being aware of our true nature), “Transformation” (changing and freeing ourselves from domestication), and “Intent” (practicing unconditional love, which is the true nature of life itself).
Ruiz explains that the Toltec way of life (of which Ruiz himself is a nagual, or “master”) is focused on cultivating a person’s ability to recognize their own power. So far, he has focused on one way that a person can use their power to regain the freedom that they were born with: through the four agreements. Now, Ruiz will summarize three additional methods for cultivating and harnessing one’s own power, based on his understanding of the indigenous knowledge of the Toltec.
Themes
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Ruiz compares the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system you are domesticated with to a parasite: it sucks your energy in order to keep itself alive. When we realize this, we have a choice: surrender to the parasite and “the dream of the planet,” or to rebel. Shamans of the Americas call themselves “warriors” because they declare war on “the parasite of the mind.” Being a warrior doesn’t mean we win, but it means we try our best to fight the parasite. The parasite can also be described like a monster with a thousand heads—one head for each of our fears. Ruiz says there are three ways to kill the parasite and he’s going to address each one in turn.
For Ruiz, conquering fear is essential to reclaiming one’s own power. Ruiz uses the metaphor of a parasite that feeds off fear to describe the combination of the inner voices that judge, feel self-hatred, and agree to society’s belief system. Since Ruiz’s aim is to silence the voices and reject the internalized belief system, he argues that a person needs to destroy the parasite by ridding the mind of fear in some way, which is the fuel that keeps the parasite alive.
Themes
Ruiz names the first way of killing the parasite “the art of transformation: the dream of the second attention.” Domestication is the “dream of the first attention” because the first time you used your attention, it was to create that dream. Now, however, you’re not innocent—you can choose what to believe. You can become aware of the fog and the drama in your life by noticing which beliefs limit you and exist out of fear. Those are the ones you need to start disagreeing with by turning your “demons” into “angels.” Start small, work your way up, and repeat until you have mastered this task.
The “dream of the second attention” is the new belief system which Ruiz wants the reader to adopt, whereas the “dream of the first attention” is society’s belief system. A person can attain this new belief system by conquering each fear that lives inside them. This is done by facing and dismantling the fears one by one, which will transform them into “angels” (positive expressions of love) instead of “demons” (fears).
Themes
Ruiz names the second way of killing the parasite “the discipline of the warrior: controlling your own behavior.” Imagine you wake up in a good mood but then have a fight with your partner. After the fight you feel drained and spend the rest of the day trying to get back in a good headspace. Emotions deplete your energy. The state of mind in which emotions take over is like a disease, and negative emotions are like wounds that need to be healed through forgiveness. First, we forgive others, then God, then ourselves. Forgiving someone means not having an emotional reaction when you see them. Ruiz instructs you to be like a warrior and learn to control your emotions. Have the discipline to express them at the right time rather than retaliating when provoked or repressing feelings when shamed.
Ruiz urges the reader to cultivate their ability to choose when and how they express their negative emotions. This requires a lot of discipline, which means the reader must be like a “warrior” who fights every day. Instead of fighting, however, the reader must practice the art of forgiveness over and over again with the same discipline that a warrior applies to training their body to fight. This prevents a person’s emotions from taking over and depleting their power, which the person needs in order to change their agreements and adopt a new belief system.
Themes
The third way of killing the parasite, Ruiz says, is known as “the initiation of the dead: embracing the angel of death.” In this method, you learn from “death,” which teaches you how to be alive. Ruiz tells you to imagine that your doctor says you have a week to live. You have two options: suffer and feel sorry for yourself or make the most of your last week and really enjoy it. Death teaches you how to make the most of every day, be open and fearless, and cherish being alive. The “initiation of the dead” kills the parasite and allows you to be resurrected alive. The angel of death teaches you that it owns your life and can take it away at any moment, which motivates you use your life while you still have it.
The metaphor of facing “the angel of death” and killing the parasite within means becoming acutely aware of one’s own mortality and recognizing that life is a fleeting gift. Ruiz believes that keeping this thought in mind will allow the reader to focus on doing what they want in the moment (or express their freedom) instead of worrying about the past (which is no longer here) or the future (which may not come to be).
Themes
