The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

Ruiz begins the book’s final chapter by encouraging people to forget everything they’ve learned because the material presented in the book is the beginning of a new understanding. This new understanding affords people the power to create the reality they want to see. One has the choice to live in heaven or to stay in hell.

Next, Ruiz walks through the process of imagining a new life, where one is happy, free to enjoy life, and unafraid of judgment or openly expressing oneself. He invites imagination of a life in which one loves freely and fully, respects oneself and everyone else, and can live with an open heart, unafraid to be hurt. He emphasizes that this is possible and that men and women all over the world are currently living this blissful life.

What Ruiz calls “the new dream” is the same thing humans have been searching for since the dawn of time: happiness. Buddhists call it Nirvana, Jesus called it Heaven. It’s simply happiness, and it’s a choice. However, most people’s identity is mixed up in the fog of the planet’s dream. They believe that the Judge and Victim are part of their identity.