New Agreements for Living: Interview with Don Miguel Ruiz Sr

The Four Agreements is an introduction and is a challenge for everything that we believe and is made in a very short way that is so easy to read and easy to understand, but as you have noticed, is sometimes difficult to apply. But it is meant to shake somebody’s beliefs like “hey, what are you doing, what are you thinking, how are you living your life?” So this creates doubts about all these personal agreements that we create. The book is being read all over the world by everyone and therefore it is not that easy to have contact with everybody, especially after my heart attack, when my body was in a very bad shape. But it is like I started all over again and I am getting up to speed very quickly again. It is like the earth is responding. So the “New Agreements for Life” will be a very good tool for everyone to apply the four agreements.

SS: The Four Agreements is such an incredible masterpiece and is written in a very clear and understandable language. But when we read The Four Agreements or follow any other teaching, I personally believe that ‘domestication’ is our biggest challenge. Can you explain what domestication is and do you have some practical tips to break free from this domestication?

DMR: Well, this is the real challenge. When we were born, we had no knowledge, but society already existed, the entire humanity already existed and there are all those rules. Before you were born, there was already injustice, poverty, violence, war, you name it, it all existed. Individually, we didn’t create it. When we were born, our parents hooked our attention and through the attention they taught us what they knew. We also went to school; teachers hooked our attention and downloaded in our brain what they knew. In this way we start accumulating knowledge. And the knowledge that we accumulate depends on the beliefs that everybody around us have. Then it is not really our choice.