Using the 5 Toltec agreements to make you happier
The book is centred around the five agreements, which are a kind of set of daily actionable principles we can use to aid us as tools in the ‘dream of the second attention’, also referred to as the dream of the warriors, which we will extrapolate on later. The agreements are as followed:
- Be impeccable with your word
- Do not make assumptions
- Do not take anything personally
- Always do your best
- Learn to listen, but be skeptical
These as the author proposes, are sufficient if applied and ‘practiced’ (very important) to create–much like an artist paints or composes–a beautiful and fulfilling life.
These laws of conduct can only be applied however, once a few preliminaries have been established:
- Everyone is the centre of their own lives, and are the main character of their own movie
- Humans use symbology to communicate, this is the language we are taught, and the cultural norms we accept
- When we are young, we are free and unconditioned, and only when we begin to learn from our parental figures and other influences, do we learn symbology and create ‘agreements’ about how we should act or perceive the world/ourselves
The way these concepts interplay is where the truly fascinating idea from this book flowers: We are able to change the way we perceive and act, to be more in accordance with happiness and truth.
Obviously there is more to this book than that, but that’s how I would summarise what this book can do for you.
✏️ Key points
Childhood and Eden
When we are born, we are tabula rasa, meaning we are not yet conditioned by fear and anxiety — so therefore free. If you observe young children, you will see that they are free-spirited and playful; loving and games come naturally to them; something a lot of people come to miss about childhood, before life got in the way, and bills and worries occupied most of our energy, we used to find amusement and lose ourselves in the smallest of things. This we can compare to Eden, the sacred garden that man occupied in his pre-self-conscious state, to this time in our lives. And the tree of knowledge (or the tree of death), which we ate from in our innocence: which began our exodus from paradise, as us gaining knowledge. Biblical terms aside, the authors use this as an analogy for leaving the blissful state of childhood ignorance — and entering the phenomenal world of trials and tribulations.
Learning symbology and making agreements
How do we end up losing our innocence? Not by the hands of cruelty, but often by our guardians who are just doing their best. You see humans use symbology to communicate and understand the world, by this we mean every single possible mode of information we create: language is the main method of this, what is an ‘R’ apart from a shape we agree makes a ‘r’ sound, one that can be combined to make a word, ‘road’, and what is a road other than something we agree we can drive on? The point here is not that the idea of a road is silly or in anyway non-important, but only that we understand that these notions are ideas we humans created. The issue arises when these symbols lead us to make agreements that are contrary to truth (truth in this context stands for love, the underlying force of the universe. Some falsehoods people learn often is that we are stupid, or that we are unpopular, and that these lead us to believe we hold less value than others.
What are these beliefs but a use of language/symbology with negative connotations. And the reason we should not accept these agreements is one of the most beautiful ideas in the book: All things are perfect in themselves.
‘Broken’ or ‘worse’ are human concepts, nature has no space for such an idea: something either is, or it isn’t. Is a dog with three legs worse than one with four? Only if you believe so. Is a person with dyslexia worse than a person without? Maybe, but only if you’re under the preconception that spelling is somehow more important than human innate value.
But how do we end up with these agreements? We are taught them, and usually, these teachers are doing their best, but sometimes people fall short, and we pay the consequences. But we should not hold resentment, because nothing anybody ever does is because of you.
Breaking old agreements and making new ones
Now that we established what are, and how agreements are formed, we can go about breaking the ones that are of no use to us; this will bring the power that we invested into making and upholding them back to us. Once you realise what truth is, and how nothing we humans can say or do is truth–even these words you are reading–and can at best only point to it, we are free to make whatever symbology you want — so why not one you like?
Before we talk about the agreements presented in this book, we should cover one more point to cement the whole ‘life is a dream’ idea.
Understanding nothing other people do is about you
The authors use the example of a cinema complex as a metaphor for human consciousness:
You are watching your life, you, the main character, are going through the ups and downs, everyone else, your wife, your friends, your kids, though very important, are the companions and secondary characters in the adventure of your life. After a while you become aware enough to realise that you are in fact watching a movie about your life; with this revelation, you decide to leave the theatre you’re in and have a look around. You come to find a series of other rooms, with other people you know, on entering you find them glued to the screen, watching the movie of their life. AND THERE YOU ARE! but wait, you’re not the hero in this story, but an extra in this persons movie.
This is analogous to life, we are all the centre of our universe — no matter how romantic you try to be — you experience life through your own perspective, and this is the same for everyone. The important realisation here is that you can begin to understand why people behave the way they do, and that no matter how personally something someone did effected you: It had nothing to do with you.
Using the agreements
Now we understand why we can use the agreements, and a little bit of how, we can look to them in greater detail
- Be impeccable with your word
As we talked about earlier, we use symbology to communicate. Words have a lot of power: we can help or mislead people, we can make a day or ruin it, we can be a force for good, or we can destroy dreams. Some people who are exceptionally good with words can send entire nations to war. This book poses a profound question: if words are power, then what kind of messenger are you? Simply, do you spread love and positivity? Or do you preach hate and negativity? Words are internal and external, so this applies to how we treat ourselves just as much as how we communicate with others.
2. Do not make assumptions
As we have seen, people are the centre of their own world — and god only knows whats going on in this world. It is also to note that symbology is liable to many mistakes and miscommunications, so can we really be sure of the intentions behind peoples actions? Or can we have any chance of predicting what is going to happen? The world is a complicated place, so no, we can’t. Would it not be healthier than to live without worrying about whats to come? What someone is doing, or to be disappointed when something didn’t happen the way we planned? I think so. This idea is seen also in stoicism, and is summarised well by this quote from Seneca:
“We suffer more in imagination than in reality”
3. Do not take anything personally
This is a natural binary of not making assumptions; if we are aware enough to know that we should not assume potential future events, or reasons for a persons behaviour, then we should quickly assimilate this concept. What this does in essence is give us a shield from the actions of others. If someone thinks we’re stupid — so what? If someone is upset with us — so what? We didn’t mean to upset them; even if someone does something that effects us physically or emotionally… So what? We are aware enough now to know that what that person did–what ever that person did– wasn’t about us: it was all about them.
4. Always do your best
This is the agreement that gives us an element of grace, it assures us that we can confidently move through our life without stress or regret; I mean, we did our best right? Like all the agreements, this plays a role in all others to some degree, if we do our best we have: done our best to be impeccable with our word, we have no need to make assumptions or to take anything personally. Make life simple, always do your best.
5. Learn to listen, but be skeptical
People are great, in fact, they are the greatest aspect about life; building relationships and meeting interesting characters is by far the most rewarding part of living… But people can come with issues. It is likely that the reason you’re interested in a book like this is because somewhere down the line you got burnt. But before we start pointing fingers at so-and-so saying that they betrayed, beguiled or traumatised us, it is worth remembering what we have covered so far: nothing, anybody ever did, was personal, and in fact, they were probably just doing their best. I understand that this is a hard concept to accept, and the spectrum of damage done is a wide one; but ultimately, the choice to forgive and move on comes down to us, we have that power. Because as St Augustine puts it:
“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die”
How then do we overcome our shortcomings and build relationships even when we’ve been hurt and don’t trust people, the answer is something of a paradox, but stay with me; we listen, we respect, but most importantly, we remain sceptical. ‘“But how do you build relationships when you don’t even believe people?!” I hear you yelling at me (I really do); well like I said, its a bit of a tricky one to get your head around, but in essence you have to learn to not believe anyone; and stranger more, that includes yourself to some extent. You are fallible just as much as everyone else, and we won’t get too far into the reeds of this as it’s a topic for another of Miguel Ruiz’s books ‘The Voice of Knowledge’, but in brief the voice in your head is not you, it is the voice of knowledge, and it helps us and enables us to interact with the world, but in truth it is far removed from your authentic self — the real you. Ever wonder why you sometimes say something in the heat of an argument you didn’t mean to say? Or come out with something genius in the flow of conversation? There are layers of human consciousness, different aspects of our overall personality, and sometimes they shouldn’t be listened to. We can keep invasive negative thoughts in check, and stay the opinions of others from affecting our lives for the worse, by simply being sceptical, but listening with respect all the same.
Coming into the second dream
So you know the agreements, you’re ready to take your life in your own hands, this is good, you should be excited. But there is one more thing you should know before setting out on this journey, and that is that it is a journey, one with ups and downs. Once you understand what life is, a dream, you–as the Toltecs say–leave the first dream (the dream of the first attention or the dream of the masses) because you understand its a dream, and enter a layer deeper, the dream of the second attention. As alluded to earlier, this is the dream of the warriors; you’re a warrior now, congrats, but this does imply one thing… Theres gonna be some fighting. Now this is a different kind of war, far removed from any physical battlefield, no no, this one takes place in your mind: you’re a spiritual warrior now.
There will be kickback from the decisions you now make, and this is because they are ones that will change your life. Old habits will need breaking, old comforts will need forgetting, but most regrettably, many people will have something to say about your new found strengths. As the great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said:
“One is punished most for ones virtues”
Unfortunately the people that know us–or think they know us–find it quite uncomfortable watching us change, they have ideas about us, schemas they spent perhaps years forming about who we are; but we never truly know somebody, most of us don’t even know ourselves. What I will say is do not be put off by this, you have a toolset now to guide you through what ever is thrown at you, just remember to be forgiving to those who trespass against us, forgivingness is a-hell of a power, please use it.
The third dream
Where does this all lead? Agreements and voices of knowledge and wars in our heads? Well my friends, now we come to the dream of the third attention… Or the dream of the masters. This is a beatific state, we have conquered ourselves — so therefore the world. We face conflict, deal with it, and continue our life without even losing an inch of happiness. This in essence is what people mean by heaven on earth, maybe you’ve experienced it before, maybe from romance, maybe from a drug; but this time, it is here to stay, we are in control, and nothing about getting here was an accident.
If that sounds like something you want, then apply the basics discussed here, read the books, start the process. I hope you found this enlightening, please feel free to ask anything you want.
