“As children, we didn’t have the opportunity to choose our beliefs,” but, through “human domestication,” they came to rule our minds, to be “our truth.” Even as adults, “…we need a great deal of courage to challenge our own beliefs. Because even if we know we didn’t choose all these beliefs, it is also true that we,” growing up, accepted them.
Mexico’s don Miguel Ruiz, a spiritual teacher, has authored seven so-called Toltec wisdom books, which have sold millions of copies and been translated into 46 languages; the best known, first published in 1997, is The Four Agreements, quoted above. Of it, blogger Raam Dev writes, “It is not a religious book that you follow…to enlightenment, but rather something to stimulate and kickstart your own journey to self-discovery.” Not religious, but Publishers Weekly insists the four agreements “make up a larger picture of unconditional human faith.”
These agreements are compacts one makes with oneself. They provide an avenue away from society’s dictates: think this, believe that, act just so. “…this scenario keeps people in line,” a separate study guide points out, “[but] it also zaps them of their freedom to choose and think…and strips them of their identity.”
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
By don Miguel Ruiz
Amber-Allen Publishing, 1997
[The previous Featured Book, Delwin Brown’s What Does a Progressive Christian Believe?, is now available in the Library.]
