THE FIRST AGREEMENT: BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD
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 you have to create. Your word
is the gift that comes directly from God. The Gospel of John in the Bible,
speaking of the creation of the universe, says, “In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God, and the word is God.” Through the word you
express your creative power. It is through the word that you manifest
everything. Regardless of what language you speak, your intent manifests
through the word. What you dream, what you feel, and what you really are, will
all be manifested through the word.
The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is
the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create
the events in your life. You can speak. What other animal on the planet can
speak? The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of
magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most
beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is
the misuse of the word, which creates a living hell. The other edge is the
impeccability of the word, which will only create beauty, love, and heaven on
earth. Depending upon how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can
enslave you even more than you know. All the magic you possess is based on
your word. Your word is pure magic, and misuse of your word is black magic.
The word is so powerful that one word can change a life or destroy the lives
of millions of people. Some years ago one man in Germany, by the use of the
word, manipulated a whole country of the most intelligent people. He led them
into a world war with just the power of his word. He convinced others to
commit the most atrocious acts of violence. He activated people’s fear with the
word, and like a big explosion, there was killing and war all around the world.
All over the world humans destroyed other humans because they were afraid of
each other. Hitler’s word, based on fear-generated beliefs and agreements, will
be remembered for centuries.
The human mind is like a fertile ground where seeds are continually being
planted. The seeds are opinions, ideas, and concepts. You plant a seed, a
thought, and it grows. The word is like a seed, and the human mind is so fertile!
The only problem is that too often it is fertile for the seeds of fear. Every human
mind is fertile, but only for those kinds of seeds it is prepared for. What is
important is to see which kind of seeds our mind is fertile for, and to prepare it
to receive the seeds of love.
Take the example of Hitler: He sent out all those seeds of fear, and they grew
very strong and beautifully achieved massive destruction. Seeing the awesome
power of the word, we must understand what power comes out of our mouths.
One fear or doubt planted in our mind can create an endless drama of events.
One word is like a spell, and humans use the word like black magicians,
thoughtlessly putting spells on each other.
Every human is a magician, and we can either put a spell on someone with
our word or we can release someone from a spell. We cast spells all the time
with our opinions. An example: I see a friend and give him an opinion that just
popped into my mind. I say, “Hmmm! I see that kind of color in your face in
people who are going to get cancer.” If he listens to the word, and if he agrees,
he will have cancer in less than one year. That is the power of the word.
During our domestication, our parents and siblings gave their opinions about
us without even thinking. We believed these opinions and we lived in fear over
these opinions, like not being good at swimming, or sports, or writing.
Someone gives an opinion and says, “Look, this girl is ugly!” The girl listens,
believes she is ugly, and grows up with the idea that she is ugly. It doesn’t
matter how beautiful she is; as long as she has that agreement, she will believe
that she is ugly. That is the spell she is under.
By hooking our attention, the word can enter our mind and change a whole
belief for better or for worse. Another example: You may believe you are
stupid, and you may have believed this for as long as you can remember. This
agreement can be very tricky, causing you to do a lot of things just to ensure that
you are stupid. You may do something and think to yourself, “I wish I were
smart, but I must be stupid or I wouldn’t have done that.” The mind goes in
hundreds of different directions, and we could spend days getting hooked by
just that one belief in our own stupidity.
Then one day someone hooks your attention and using the word, lets you
know that you are not stupid. You believe what the person says and make a new
agreement. As a result, you no longer feel or act stupid. A whole spell is
broken, just by the power of the word. Conversely, if you believe you are
stupid, and someone hooks your attention and says, “Yes, you are really the
most stupid person I have ever met,” the agreement will be reinforced and
become even stronger.
Now let us see what the word impeccability means. Impeccability means
“without sin.” Impeccable comes from the Latin pecatus, which means “sin.”
The im in impeccable means “without,” so impeccable means “without sin.”
Religions talk about sin and sinners, but let’s understand what it really means to
sin. A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself. Everything you
feel or believe or say that goes against yourself is a sin. You go against yourself
when you judge or blame yourself for anything. Being without sin is exactly the
opposite. Being impeccable is not going against yourself. When you are
impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or
blame yourself.
From this point of view, the whole concept of sin changes from something
moral or religious to something commonsense. Sin begins with rejection of
yourself. Self-rejection is the biggest sin that you commit. In religious terms
self-rejection is a “mortal sin,” which leads to death. Impeccability, on the
other hand, leads to life.
Being impeccable with your word is not using the word against yourself. If I
see you in the street and I call you stupid, it appears that I’m using the word
against you. But really I’m using my word against myself, because you’re going
to hate me for this, and your hating me is not good for me. Therefore, if I get
angry and with my word send all that emotional poison to you, I’m using the
word against myself.
If I love myself I will express that love in my interactions with you, and then
I am being impeccable with the word, because that action will produce a like
reaction. If I love you, then you will love me. If I insult you, you will insult me.
If I have gratitude for you, you will have gratitude for me. If I’m selfish with
you, you will be selfish with me. If I use the word to put a spell on you, you are
going to put a spell on me.
Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means
to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself. If you make an
agreement with yourself to be impeccable with your word, just with that
intention, the truth will manifest through you and clean all the emotional poison
that exists within you. But making this agreement is difficult because we have
learned to do precisely the opposite. We have learned to lie as a habit of our
communication with others and more importantly with ourselves. We are not
impeccable with the word.
The power of the word is completely misused in hell. We use the word to
curse, to blame, to find guilt, to destroy. Of course, we also use it in the right
way, but not too often. Mostly we use the word to spread our personal poison
— to express anger, jealousy, envy, and hate. The word is pure magic — the
most powerful gift we have as humans — and we use it against ourselves. We
plan revenge. We create chaos with the word. We use the word to create hate
between different races, between different people, between families, between
nations. We misuse the word so often, and this misuse is how we create and
perpetuate the dream of hell. Misuse of the word is how we pull each other
down and keep each other in a state of fear and doubt. Because the word is the
magic that humans possess and misuse of the word is black magic, we are using
black magic all the time without knowing that our word is magic at all.
There was a woman, for example, who was intelligent and had a very good
heart. She had a daughter whom she adored and loved very much. One night she
came home from a very bad day at work, tired, full of emotional tension, and
with a terrible headache. She wanted peace and quiet, but her daughter was
singing and jumping happily. The daughter was unaware of how her mother was
feeling; she was in her own world, in her own dream. She felt so wonderful,
and she was jumping and singing louder and louder, expressing her joy and her
love. She was singing so loud that it made her mother’s headache even worse,
and at a certain moment, the mother lost control. Angrily she looked at her
beautiful little girl and said, “Shut up! You have an ugly voice. Can you just
shut up!”
The truth is that the mother’s tolerance for any noise was nonexistent; it was
not that the little girl’s voice was ugly. But the daughter believed what her
mother said, and in that moment she made an agreement with herself. After that
she no longer sang, because she believed her voice was ugly and would bother
anyone who heard it. She became shy at school, and if she was asked to sing,
she refused. Even speaking to others became difficult for her. Everything...
