The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery

Since 1997, The Four Agreements has transformed the lives of millions of people around the world with a simple but profound message.

Now bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz and his son, don Jose Ruiz, collaborate with this powerful sequel The Fifth Agreement.

The Four Agreements provides the foundation for breaking thousands of agreements that create needless suffering and with The Fifth Agreement you recover all the power of your authenticity, which is who you really are when you are born.

 

 (59 customer reviews)

"The Fifth Agreement" is the sequel to "The Four Agreements," which outlines a simple foundation for a happy life that anyone can implement regardless of one's religion or lack of one. They convey the core of the Toltec shamanic tradition in a nutshell: Be impeccable with your word; don't take things personally; don't make assumptions; and do your best.

Don Miguel Ruiz wrote that bestseller 12 years ago, and now has written "The Fifth Agreement" with his son, don Jose. The fifth agreement is deceptively simple, yet incredibly profound. It states, "Be skeptical but learn to listen." While the first four agreements deal with our relationship to ourselves and how to create a happy life, the fifth agreement deals with our relationship to others, and how to create a better world.

"The Fifth Agreement" asks us to be skeptical and use discernment when listening others, and to understand that everyone has his or her own perspective and agenda reflected in their words...Read more

I just this minute finished reading don Miguel's new book, The Fifth Agreement, for the first time. It opens with a recap of the first four agreements, which is a little draggy if you've read The Four Agreements three times, but which is still worth reading because it is a reminder of the ramifications of the four agreements, and a chance to refocus on them in a new light. The fifth agreement, be skeptical, but learn to listen, is a stealth stunner.It seems simple and basic, but it's one of those that if carried to it's obvious conclusion, leads to complete freedom. In sum, it is a great book, a book to read, and reread, and read again. It is a book to practice and to live.
Don Miguel has a great knack for taking "keep it simple, stupid" to it's optimum.
Get it. Read it. Live it.

This is a wonderful book. Although there is some repeat of information from Ruiz's book "The Four Agreements," there is also a lot of new and very insightful content. In particular, I got the sense that Don Miguel Ruiz's son Don Jose, and the other co-author, Janet Mills, brought another dimension to the work that clearly added value to the book. As such, I highly recommend The Fifth Agreement as a spiritual growth resource. Here's one of my favorite passages:

"Let's say you're living with guilt and shame for a mistake you made ten years ago. The excuse for your suffering is, "I made a terrible mistake," and you're still suffering for something that happened ten years ago, but the truth is you're suffering from something that happened ten seconds ago. You judged yourself again for the same mistake, and of course the big judge says, "You need to be punished." It's simple action-reaction. The action is self-judgment; the reaction is self punishment in the form of guilt and...Read more