When we are born, there are no words in our mind, but we have a brain and we have eyes, and our brain captures images that come from light. We start perceiving light and the reaction of our brain to light is an endless play of images in our imagination, in our mind.

When the brain is awake, there is a material frame that makes us perceive things in a linear...

We are born with the right to be happy and to enjoy life. We are not here to suffer; we are here to create and have fun. Whoever wants to suffer is welcome to suffer, but we don’t have to suffer.

Then why do we suffer? Humans choose to suffer because we learned to suffer, because the whole world suffers, and we make the assumption that suffering is normal. Then we...

Today, Creator of the Universe, we ask that you help us to accept ourselves just the way we are, without judgment. Help us to accept our mind the way it is, with all our emotions, our hopes and dreams, our personality, our unique way of being. Help us to accept our body just the way it is, with all its beauty and perfection. Let the love we have for ourselves...

Before you learn to speak, your brain is like a perfect computer, but without a program. Once you learn a language, the program is introduced to you, mainly through your parents, as well as other people around you. They hook your attention, teach you what they know, and the program goes inside you little by little, by agreement. You agree, and now you have the program.

Everything you know, all of...

Many people come to me and say, “Gosh, I want someone who loves me. I want the right man or the right woman to come into my life.” Who is the right man or the right woman? It’s not about them; it’s about you. If that person comes into your life, and you treat that person the way you treat yourself, which means with selfishness, then you are going to...

I invite you to participate in a new dream for humanity, one in which all of us can live in harmony, truth, and love. In this dream, people of all religions and all philosophies are not just welcome, but respected. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in Christ, Moses, Allah, Brahma, Buddha, or any other being or master; everybody is welcome to share this dream. Each one of us has...

For thousands of years, humans have tried to understand the universe, nature, and mainly human nature. It’s amazing to observe humans in action all around the world, in all the different places and cultures that exist on this beautiful planet Earth. Humans make a lot of effort to understand, but in doing so we also make a lot of assumptions. We distort the truth and create the most amazing theories;...

Think of a problem in your life that has caused you to worry or suffer. Then imagine that you can view your life through the lens of a magical camera. When you zoom in, you see and feel every detail and facet of your life; anything that touches your life comes into focus within the frame of the viewfinder.

Imagine that you can also zoom out whenever you choose in order...

The first and most important of The Four Agreements is be impeccable with your word. The word is your power of creation, and that power can be used in more than one direction. One direction is impeccability, where the word creates a beautiful story — your personal heaven on earth. The other direction is misuse of the word, where the word destroys everything around you, and creates your personal hell.

The...

Forgiveness is an act of self-love. You must forgive those who hurt you, even if what they did to you is unforgivable in your mind. You will forgive them not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because you don’t want to suffer and hurt yourself every time you remember what they did to you.

It doesn’t matter what others did to you; you are going to forgive them because you...

The fourth agreement — Always Do Your Best — is the one that allows the other three agreements to become deeply ingrained habits.

Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality,...

When you are ready to change your life, when you are ready to change your agreements, the most important thing is awareness. You cannot change your agreements if you aren’t aware of what you like and what you don’t like. How can you change anything if you are not even aware of what you want to change? But it’s more than just being aware. It’s the practice that will make...

Are you aware that almost everything you tell yourself is an assumption? Humans have a powerful imagination, very powerful, and there are so many ideas and stories that we can imagine. We listen to the symbols talking in our head. We start imagining what other people are doing, what they’re thinking, what they’re saying about us, and we dream things up in our imagination. We invent a whole story that’s...

Imagine a perfect relationship. You are always intensely happy with your partner because you live with the perfect woman or man for you. How would you describe your life with this person?

Well, the way you relate with this person will be exactly the way you relate with a dog. A dog is a dog. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s going to be a dog. You are not going...

Every human being has a personal dream of life, and that dream is completely different from anyone else’s dream. We dream according to all the beliefs that we have, and we modify our dream according to the way we judge, according to the way we are victimized. That is why dreams are never the same for any two people.

In a relationship, we can pretend to be the same, to think...

For many of us, it is easy to give, but very difficult to receive. Yet gratitude for what we receive is one of the noblest gestures of humankind. The best way to show our gratitude is to receive the gift, and give our thanks by enjoying the gift. When we master gratitude, we can easily receive without feeling guilty because we know that by receiving, we give pleasure to the...

Imagine that today is your wedding day, the beginning of a new life for you. You are getting married, and the expectation of joy and happiness is in your heart. Imagine that you are the bride, God is the groom, and you are ready to live in an eternal romance with your Creator.

How are you going to treat your beloved? How are you going to treat the one who loves...

The first agreement is the most important one and also the most difficult one to honor. It is so important that with just this first agreement you will be able to transcend to the level of existence I call heaven on earth.

The first agreement is to “be impeccable with your word.” It sounds very simple, but it is very, very powerful. Why your word? Your word is the power that...

I was born into an ancient wisdom tradition known as Toltec. My grandfather was an old nagual (shaman), and I worked hard all my youth to earn his respect.

As a teenager, I wanted to impress him with my opinions about everything I was learning in school. I told him my point of view about all the injustice in the world, about the violence and the conflict between good and evil....

When you were born, a whole society of storytellers taught you how to be human. First they told you what you are — a boy or a girl — then they told you who you should or shouldn’t be. They gave you a name and a role to play in their story. They prepared you to live in the human jungle. They filled you with knowledge, and you learned how...

Have you ever noticed that we are all messengers? Every one of us uses the word to form our opinions, to express our point of view. We are constantly using the word to deliver and receive messages to those around us and to ourselves. The question is: What kind of messages do we deliver? Do we deliver the truth, or do we deliver lies?

The world is populated by billions of...

Before you learned to speak, you loved with no effort, you forgave with no effort. It was natural to love; it was natural to forgive. But then you learned how to behave from other people who didn’t love, who didn’t forgive. Today, if you really want to, you can return to love and let go of whatever is not love. Today can be a new beginning — a day to...

Many times there are things in our lives that we don’t like, that we want to change, but we make the same mistakes, the same choices, expecting that the result will be different. Well, it will not be different. Every action has a consequence or reaction, and when we repeat the same actions, we suffer the same results. Perhaps we cannot see the action or the choices when we make...

This practice idea will help you to become aware of the agreements you’ve made with yourself, and to recover the awareness of your authentic self. The objective is to become aware of any agreements that limit the expression of your creativity, your happiness, or your love.

Are you aware of all the distorted images you have about yourself? What are the images that others projected onto you as a child? What...

Thousands of years ago the Toltec created three masteries to guide us out of suffering and return us to our true nature, which is happiness, freedom, and love. The Toltec encouraged us to see ourselves with truth, and they created a mastery just for awareness. The first mastery, the Mastery of Awareness, is the first step toward personal freedom because we cannot be free if we don’t know what we...

The fifth agreement is be skeptical, but learn to listen. Be skeptical because most of what you hear isn’t true. You know that humans speak with symbols and that symbols are only the truth because we agree, not because they are really the truth. But the second half of the agreement is learn to listen, and the reason is simple: When you learn to listen, you understand the meaning of...

Respect is a beautiful word, and it’s one of the most important symbols that we can understand. Imagine that you never heard the word before, and let’s make it up and agree on the meaning, because just like any other symbol, we need to agree with the symbol or it will not work for us. Respect, like many of the symbols, begins with ourselves, then it goes to everyone and...

Think of a recent event in your life that caused you emotional pain. Then imagine this event from a “distant” perspective; that is, try to detach yourself emotionally from the actions–reactions that were part of this event.

Imagine yourself as the director of a dramatic play in which the same scene is unfolding upon a stage. You can see the part each character has in the play, and you have the...

Many years ago, after finishing a cycle of teaching with my apprentices, we created the first Circle of Fire ceremony. The ceremony was for those who had recovered their will, their faith, and their love. All the people at the ceremony had experienced their divinity, but the challenge for them was to stay in heaven. They asked me, “Miguel, how can we stay there? Why do we have to come...

Everything that exists is a manifestation of one being, and it manifests through messengers. The word “angel” means messenger, and messengers deliver the will of the one being.

The supreme messenger is light. Light is alive, and it carries the message of life all around the universe. Light, the divine messenger, has billions of different frequencies. Though it is only one being, it divides itself for the creation of life into...

You are here to be happy, to live your life, and to express what you are. You were created to perceive the beauty of creation and to live your life in love. But if you cannot find the love inside you, the whole world can love you, and it will not make a difference in you.

Instead of looking to other humans for love, we need to align with our own...

When you are one, two, or three years old, you cannot see yourself. The only way to see yourself is to look at your image in a mirror, and other people act as that mirror, which means they tell you what they believe you are. You don’t know what you are, but your mother tells you what you are, and your father tells you what you are, and your brothers...

Imagine that you have a magical kitchen in your home. In that magical kitchen, you can have any food you want from any place in the world in any quantity. You never worry about what to eat; whatever you wish for, you can have at your table.

You are very generous with your food; you give your food unconditionally to others, not because you want something in return from them. Whoever...

Today you can take a great step toward a return to love by healing your relationship with yourself. Love for yourself is the key to loving others. When your relationship with yourself is based on love and respect, your relationship with everything in life will change, including your relationships with the people you love.

How do you feel about yourself? Do you love, respect, and honor yourself? If the answer is...