“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 your brain awake.”
These are words taken from the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I’ve been looking forward to sharing this practical guide to personal freedom with you, and I believe this series will enlighten, encourage and empower you in your spirit.
I remember the first time I heard about this book. I was invited over to a lovely female couple’s home for dinner. Around the table we were talking about TheFour Agreements, and what I heard really resonated with me. So they gave me a copy.
The Four Agreements are:
• Be impeccable with your word
• Don’t take anything personally
• Don’t make assumptions
• Always do your best
We’re going to explore these in detail in the coming weeks. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I do.
The Four Agreements is “A Toltec Wisdom Book.” Thousands of years ago, the Toltec were known throughout southern Mexico as “women and men of knowledge.” 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 and conserve the spiritual knowledge and practices of the ancient ones. They lived by the pyramids just outside of Mexico City.
Toltec knowledge comes from the same unity of truth as all the sacred traditions found around the world. Though it’s not a religion, it honors all the spiritual masters who’ve ever taught on Earth. It embraces spirit, described as a way of life and distinguished by happiness and love.
They say we are dreaming all the time. Toltec wisdom teaches that before we were born, humanity created a big outside dream called society’s dream, or the dream of the planet.
The dream of the planet is the collective dream of billions of smaller, personal dreams, which together creates a dream of a family, a dream of a community, and finally, a dream of the whole of humanity. The dream of the planet includes all of society’s rules, its beliefs, its laws, its religions, its different cultures and ways to be, its governments, schools, social events and even holidays.
We’re born with the capacity to learn how to dream and we are taught how to dream the way society dreams. The outside dream uses parents, schools and religion to teach us how to dream. Through this, we’ve learned how to behave in society, what to believe and what not to believe.
The outside dream hooks our attention and teaches us what to believe, beginning with the language we speak. Language is the code for understanding and communication between humans. Every letter, every word in each language, is an agreement. (Think Four Agreements). The information from the outside dream is conveyed to the inside dream, creating our whole belief system. We are taught what a “woman” is and what a “man” is. And we also learn to judge.
When we went against the rules we were punished; when we went along with the rules we got a reward. Soon we became afraid of being punished and also afraid of not receiving the reward, the reward being the attention we got. We pretend to be what we’re not because we’re afraid of being rejected.
Our belief system is like a Book of Law that rules our mind. Even if we didn’t choose our own beliefs when we were born, it is true that we agreed to them. The agreement is so strong that even if we believe they may not be true we still feel the blame, the guilt and the shame every time we go against these rules.
True justice is paying only once for each mistake. Makes sense? But true injustice is paying more than once for each mistake. How many times do we pay for one mistake? Thousands of times! We have a powerful memory. We make a mistake, we judge ourselves, we find ourselves guilty and we punish ourselves.
I’m so grateful for God’s great love to us. What a gift. All we have to do is receive the gift of God’s love. Believe it and live out the Agreement in your life.
All of humanity is searching for truth, justice and beauty. Toltec wisdom points out that to be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Unfortunately, many have learned to live their life trying to satisfy other people’s demands. Trying to be good enough for them, we create an image of perfection. We create this image, but this image is not real and this only leads to a cycle of disappointment.
We have a need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but how can we do that if we cannot accept and love ourselves? Many times we gloss over these powerful words of Jesus, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
There are thousands of agreements we’ve made with ourselves, with other people and with God, with society, our parents, our spouse, our children. But the most important agreements are the ones we’ve made with ourselves. In these agreements you tell yourself who you are, what you feel, what you believe and how to behave.
Over the next weeks we will look at ways to find the courage to break those agreements that are fear-based, and then adopt the agreements that come from love. Remember, perfect love casts out all fear.
Be empowered!
Pastor Dan
Rev. Dan Koeshall is the Senior Pastor at The Metropolitan Community Church (The Met) in San Diego, California. www.themetchurch.org
