Lorri Walters, Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate - Saskatoon

“There is only one agreement left, but it is the one that allows the other three to become deeply rooted habits. The fourth agreement concerns the action of the first three: always do your best. I also found it strange to judge a book by the behavior of a person who claims to have read it and by the elderly people who are the ancestors of the author of the book. For this reason, I did not respond to Cccc`s comment. If the commentator explained why he believes the four agreements cause people to behave recklessly and selfishly, I might have had an answer. As it stands, I maintain the idea that – Toltec or not – these principles are a healthy lifestyle and are consistent with best practices supported by modern psychology: but there is also another type of “selfishness” that simply means taking care of yourself and going what you want, without harming others. I wrote about this in another PT blog post, “Good, Neutral, and Bad Selfishness.” Although he should be the heart of his contribution – Ruiz is just as weak at the third point, death. It would have been exciting to find here a carefully crafted discourse (both risks and rewards) about the rich tradition of shamanic ceremony and the use of plants to attain altered states of consciousness designed to accelerate enlightenment. Instead, we are pampered by a half-hearted warning: “Wake up every day, as if death is at the door every hour.” If we can see that it is our agreements that govern our lives, and that we do not like the dream of our lives, we must change the agreements. When we are finally ready to change our agreements, there are four very powerful agreements that will help us break those agreements that come from fear and deplete our energy. His contributions among the first two can be vaguely summarized as follows: “Be aware of the agreements that dictate your reality and have the discipline to change them.” You could get a little more out of his writing, but not much.

Unfortunately, his references to travel don`t go far beyond a well-made “Just do it”. The most damaging of these agreements is that you are never enough; that you are constantly lagging behind a bizarre ideal. The result? The agreements you have made knowingly and unconsciously are the fundamental source of suffering and aspiration in your life. Worse, they make you a vector of suffering in the world around you. Cccc`s comment seems to come from a person who is something high-end. Being really kind and generous doesn`t mean you have to let selfish people crush you. When this happens, you`re probably not as “enlightened” as you think. Seeking what you want in life is neither selfish nor hurting others. Cccc`s point of view seems, quite honestly, very dependent on the code. Although he talks about it in his latest “Toltec Path to Freedom,” the greatest weakness of the Four Accords is that Ruiz does not (or could) clearly have (or could) the crucial importance of this plant-based tradition in Neochamanism. The result is a good description of “what” awakening looks like, but little real advice on the “how” to get there. .