The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

“The only way to store information is by agreement. The outside dream may hook our attention, but if we don’t agree, we don’t store that information. As soon as we agree, we believe it, and this is called faith. To have faith is to believe unconditionally.”

In this passage, Ruiz sets up his argument by explaining how children learn and form beliefs. Understanding this passage is essential to understanding how self-limiting agreements are formed and how to break them.

“I call this process the domestication of humans. And through this domestication we learn how to live and how to dream. In human domestication, the information from the outside dream is conveyed to the inside dream, creating our whole belief system.”

This quote introduces human domestication and how it makes people who they are. Understanding how humans develop their belief systems is essential in understanding how to create a new one.

“True justice is paying only once for each mistake. True injustice is paying more than once for each mistake.”

Here, Ruiz explains why the Book of Law, Judge, and Victim mentality isn’t a just cycle. According to the Book of Law, the Judge causes the Victim to pay for every mistake multiple times. This feels like justice because we believe we deserve punishment, but Ruiz points out that it’s just the opposite.