Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz

As a long time reader of don Miguel Ruiz’s books, I have been avoiding this one because I made the assumption that I knew what it was about – and therefore it would end up being a waste of time to read it. For those that might not be aware of his writings, one of the most popular of his books was “The Four Agreements.” I assumed that somewhere along the line he realized that while the four are important, he neglected to include one more.

The four agreements that he discussed were:
– Be impeccable with your word;
– Don’t take anything personally;
– Don’t make assumptions;
– Always do your best.

The fifth agreement is:
– Be skeptical, but learn to listen.

the first four of these are almost easy to understand, but quite challenging to bring into your life. As usual, I assumed the fifth agreement was going to be similarly “obvious” but difficult to live. It turned out that this new book is very different from what I expected. For one, the first half of the book is a restating of the four agreements in a way that is quite different from the original. The book The Four Agreements makes use of a lot of allegories and metaphors in presenting the ideas. I found them to be impactful, but far from obvious. I had listened to don Miguel in person describing the ideas behind the “agreements” so was somewhat prepared to interpret the meanings behind the allegories. Over the years, I have had many people ask me to help them understand the meanings behind the stories. The discussions in The Fifth Agreement don’t depend upon the allegories and metaphors. The discussions are much closer to how I have been attempting to explain the concepts using clear straightforward explanations. Perhaps they are only “clearer” to me because I have been attempting to understand the concepts and integrate them into my life for the past 15 years or so. Maybe they are only clearer to me because they align with what I had come to understand. In any case, the duplication was not wasted, both styles of presentation have much value and seem to enhance each other.

The second half of the book was devoted to the ideas embodied in the rather simple statement of being skeptical but learning to listen. My first level of interpreting this had to do with being skeptical about what I hear, read, or see because it is likely to be far from “the truth” – but to continue to engage because it is likely to contain much that is true. This is a pretty straightforward idea. Given the source of the statement, I also assumed that it includes paying attention to myself – be skeptical about what I am telling myself, but listen because there is almost certainly a lot of “truth” and important information in my personal story (dream).

While all of this is in fact included in the book, there is a much deeper and more interesting thread running through it. There is a big idea about how we create and use symbols (letters, words, objects, pictures, etc) when engaging with the world. I think the general idea is that we create our “knowledge” out of symbols, and we understand that knowledge based upon manipulating the symbols (including talking to ourselves in our own head). But – since that knowledge is only based upon symbols used to represent “the truth” it is not the truth. There is a truth of who we are, but it is not contained in our knowledge represented by these symbols.

I don’t think this is the place to expand further upon these ideas, afterall it took don Miguel and his son over 200 pages to describe the ideas. I can’t possibly do them justice in a few lines. However, I can recommend exploring these two small books if you are interested in getting to know yourself better, and to find ways to live your life with more peace, joy and happiness. These little books contain ways to make amazing transformations in your life and happiness.