As you may know, the Four Agreements were first introduced by don Miguel Ruiz in his bestselling book called the same, The Four Agreements. Recently he has published a sequel to The Four Agreements called The Fifth Agreement. But why the emphasis on agreements?

I would like to introduce to you the Ultimate Agreement. But, before I do, it will help to understand the four agreements a little more and their history.

Don Miguel is a Toltec. The word Toltec means a man or woman of knowledge. He comes from a lineage of naguals (Toltec masters). His grandfather on his mother’s side was a nagual descended from several generations.

This is important as agreements are a central theme in Toltec wisdom. According to Toltecs, your reality, how you see the world, is determined by the agreements and beliefs you have. What actually ‘is’ may or may not be what you see, hear or perceive. This is why different people, and different cultures may perceive the same exact thing very differently.

I sometimes use the example of Japanese and the Japanese language because I went to graduate school in Japan where I studied Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics. I also speak Japanese so I am familiar with their wonderful culture and language. You have probably heard that it is difficult for a native Japanese to hear the difference between ‘fried rice’ and ‘flied lice’. They simply do not hear the difference between an ‘r’ sound and an ‘l’ sound. Why? Because of an agreement they made.

From the time you are born, the people around you, your parents, siblings and extended family, talk to you, usually in a common language. They all have an agreement that they will communicated with each other in a certain language. The language consists of words. Everyone who speaks the language has an agreement on what the words mean. The word cat is different than the word dog and everyone agrees on this. Words consist of sounds. Everyone who speaks the language agrees on what sounds make up what words. However, someone who speaks a different language doesn’t share the same agreements.

A Japanese speaker, for example, doesn’t agree that the words lice and rice are different. To the Japanese they sound like the same word.

What is most significant about this is that because they have different agreements, they actually hear the exact same sound differently. Their reality of sound is different. Once a child agrees that a certain sounds make up certain words, that have certain meanings, their reality has changed.

This is true for anything in life. Take colors, for example, in traditional Japanese, the word ‘aoi’ meant both green and blue. Point to the blue sky and ask what color it was and the Japanese would say ‘aoi’. Point to a green leaf and ask the color and the answer would be ‘aoi’, the same color. Why? Because Japanese have different agreements on how to divide up the color spectrum. It turns out that blue and green are next to each other on the color spectrum. However, English speakers agree to divide the range into two colors, while Japanese speakers have a different agreement. Traditionally, they saw the same range as one color.

The truth is that there are an infinite number of light frequencies in the range green-blue, but different cultures and speakers of a certain language agree to divide it up in different ways. Most profoundly, once they have agreed to it, they no longer see an infinite number of colors, they see what they agree upon in the language they speak.

Toltecs called the mechanism that determines perception in human beings, the assemblage point. All that is, called the Nagual by Toltecs, consists of an infinite number of rays or frequencies. The assemblage point assembles these into groups enabling us to perceive the group. A group of color frequencies is assembled together into the color group called green and we then perceive green when one of the color frequencies are present.

The assemblage point determines what we perceive to be reality based on our agreements.

Knowing this, Toltecs realized something very significant – by changing your agreements you can change your reality!

An even greater realization by the Toltecs was, however, that if you were able to eliminate all your agreements, you would be able to perceive other realities and other worlds.

It is difficult, if not near impossible to just drop all your agreements. It is easier to replace some of your agreements with agreements that serve you better. Don Miguel Ruiz did so in The Four Agreements. He came up with four powerful little agreements that have the ability to change your life.

He has now come out with the Fifth Agreement, which states, ‘don’t believe anyone, don’t believe me, don’t believe yourself.’ The Fifth Agreement tells us to eliminate our beliefs. Beliefs are a type of agreement we have. Beliefs, particularly limiting beliefs, skew your perception of the world and stops you from reaching your highest potential.

In the next series of posts, I will be talking about the Ultimate Agreement, the agreement that, when followed, can put you on a path of love, abundance, knowingness, wisdom, empowerment and more.

In the meantime, I would like to hear from you. How have the Four Agreements or Fifth Agreement? impacted you? Do you see places in your life where agreements have either limited or expanded your life?

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