The Toltec Path To Freedom

Introduction

Today the world is full of chaos and uncertainty. Beautiful emotions such as love, compassion, and care lives under the weight of fear, anxiety, insecurity, and competition, etc. These negative emotions cling us to societal norms and demands that make us a prisoner to this worldly order. All of us now seek some kind of liberation in one form or the other.
The Toltec Wisdom is a thousand years old society in Mexico to conserve the spiritual knowledge and practices and teaches us the way of life where we make few agreements to ourselves which are life-changing and liberating.

The Four Agreements

1. Be Impeccable with your word
Being impeccable with your word is the first agreement. Whatever we speak brings a great deal to our life. We should always speak with integrity that is we should always be truthful and honest while communicating with others one should always say what he means as it strengthens the character of the person. One should avoid using the words to speak against oneself or to gossip about others. We should always use the power of words in the direction of truth and love.
The most beautiful dreams and the destruction of everything around us are done mainly by the Words of a person. When a person takes responsibility for his/her actions but does not judge or blame himself/herself, that person is said to be impeccable. This agreement is difficult because we have learned to do the opposite. We sometimes use it in the right way but mostly, we use the words to express anger, jealousy, envy, and hate. We must understand what the word is and what it does. We should always take care of how we use words with others. Gossiping is a poisonous habit. If we are impeccable with the words, we can clean our minds of lies and provide ourselves with immunity to the negative words of other people. To Embrace the Truth is the only way to make a new agreement.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally
Taking things personally is an act of expression of selfishness because then we presume that everything is about ourselves. You feel offended very quickly and you react to defend your personal beliefs, you experience the need to be always right and make everyone else wrong whenever you take things personally. People have their own opinions according to their belief system. So, whatever they think about us is not about us but it is about them. We shouldn’t take anything personally because by doing this, we make ourselves suffer for nothing. By making it a strong habit not to take things personally, we tend to avoid many upsets in our lives. By this, the anger and jealousy of a person will disappear. One can thus, break agreements with suffering and make himself/herself free.
3. Don't make assumptions
We generally tend to make assumptions about everything and the problem with these assumptions is that we believe that they are true. We keep on making assumptions about what others are doing or thinking and then, we take it personally and start blaming others. We make assumptions about ourselves too, and this leads to the creation of inner conflicts. To stop making assumptions, one must ask questions and make sure that the communication is clear. If you are unable to understand, you must ask questions until you are clear.
4. Always do your best
The fourth agreement talks about the action of the first three agreements. You must always do your best under any circumstances. One must keep in their mind that their best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Your best sometimes is very high quality and the other times it is not so good. You must do your best because you love it and not because you are expecting a reward in return. Most people do exactly its opposite. They take action only when they expect a reward which is why they don’t do their best. The habit of misusing your words, taking things personally, and making assumptions will become weaker and less frequent with time by doing your best in all your actions.

Summary

Taking action refers to being truly alive and expressing your dream. Living in past by not enjoying whatever is happening right now, causes self-pity and suffering. We must live in the present moment. You may not be able to follow all four agreements perfectly but you can at least do your best. You will soon become an expert at doing your best by practicing doing your best.
We must honour our body, our soul, and our mind for which we should exercise, eat and enjoy.