Denials & Affirmations

Denials

In these lessons we have seen that, besides the real innermost self of each of us--the self that is the divine self because it is an expression or pressing out of God into visibility and is always one with the Father--there is a human self, a carnal mind, which reports lies from the external world and is not to be relied upon fully; this is the self of which Jesus spoke when He said, "let him deny himself." This intellectual man, carnal mind, or whatever you choose to call him, is envious and jealous and fretful and sick because he is selfish. The human self seeks its own gratification at the expense, if need be, of someone else.
Your real self is never sick, never afraid, never selfish. It is the part of you that "seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil" (1 Cor. 13:5). It is always seeking to give to others, while the human self is always seeking its own. Heretofore we have lived more in the human region. We have believed all that the carnal mind has told us, and the consequence is that we have been overwhelmed with all kinds of privation and suffering.
Some people who, during the last few years, have been making a special study of the mind find it a fact that certain wrong or false beliefs held by us are really the cause of all sorts of trouble--physical, moral, and financial. They have learned that wrong (or, as they call them, error) beliefs arise only in the human mind; they have learned and actually proved that we can, by a persistent effort of the will, change the beliefs, and by this means alone entirely change our troublesome circumstances and bodily conditions.
One of the methods that they have found will work every time in getting rid of troublesome conditions (which are all the result of erroneous thinking and feeling) is to deny them in toto: First, to deny that any such things have, or could have, power to make us unhappy; second, to deny that these things do in reality exist at all.
Repeat these four denials silently several times a day, not with a strained anxiety to get something out of them, but trying calmly to realize the meaning of the words spoken:

1.      There is no evil.

2.      There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence anywhere.

3.      Pain, sickness, poverty, old age, and death cannot master me, for they are not real.

4.      There is nothing in all the universe for me to fear, for greater is He that is within me than he that is in the world.

The beauty of this is that what Emma Curtis Hopkins stated in 5 (five) denials, Cady reduced it to 4 (four)

If someone shows you ill will, silently deny his power to hurt you or to make you unhappy. Should you find yourself feeling jealous or envious toward anyone, instantly turn the heel of denial on the hydraheaded monsters. Declare that you are not jealous or envious; that you are an expression of perfect love (an expression which is God pressed out into visibility) and cannot feel negation.

If you find yourself dreading to meet anyone, or afraid to step out and do what you want or ought to do, immediately begin to say, "It is not true; I am not afraid; I am perfect love, and can know no fear. No one, nothing in all the universe, can hurt me."

Richard Bach - "We teach best what we most need to learn."

Affirmations

The saying over and over of any denial or affirmation is a necessary training of the mind that has lived so long in error and false belief that it needs this constant repetition of Truth to unclothe it and to clothe it anew.

As it is with the denials, so with the affirmations. There are four or five sweeping affirmations of Truth that cover a multitude of lesser ones, and which do marvelous work in bringing good to ourselves and to others.

Our affirming His mind working both to will and to do, makes us will only the good; and He, the very Father in us, does the works, hence there can be no failure. Whatsoever we fully commit to the Father to do, and affirm it is done, we shall see accomplished. These, then, are the four comprehensive affirmations.

1.      God is life, love, intelligence, substance, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence.

2.      I am a child or manifestation of God, and every moment His life, love, wisdom, power flow into and through me. I am one with God, and am governed by His law.

3.      I am Spirit, perfect, holy, harmonious. Nothing can hurt me or make me sick or afraid, for Spirit is God, and God cannot be sick or hurt or afraid. I manifest my real self through this body now.

4.      God works with me to will and to do whatsoever He wishes me to do, and He cannot fail.

Commit these affirmations to memory, so that you can repeat them in the silence of your own mind in any place and at any time. Strangely, they will act to deliver you out of the greatest external distresses, places where no human help avails. It is as though the moment you assert emphatically your oneness with God the Father, there is instantly set into motion all the power of omnipotent love to rush to your rescue. And when it has undertaken to work for you, you can cease from external ways and means, and boldly claim: "It is done; I have the desires of my heart."
Some minds are so constituted that they get better results from repeated use of denials; others, from using denials less and affirmations more. *
* (See also http://pvrguymale.blogspot.ca/2012/07/i-am-healthy-happy-wise-and-free.html)
No definite rules can be laid down as to which will work most effectually in each individual case to eradicate apparent evil and bring the good into manifestation, but some little hint that may be helpful can be given.
Denials have an erasive or dissolving tendency. Affirmations build up, and give strength and courage and power. Persons who remember vividly, and are inclined to dwell in their thoughts on the pains, sorrows, and troubles of the past or present, need to deny a great deal; for denials cleanse the mind and blot out the memory of all seeming evil and unhappiness, so they become a far away dream. Again, denials are particularly useful to those who are hard and intolerant, or aggressively sinful; to those who, as a result of success have become overconfident, thinking the human is sufficient in itself for all things; to the selfish, and to any who do not scruple to harm others.
Affirmations should be used by the timid and by those who have a feeling of their own inefficiency; those who stand in fear of other minds; those who "give in" easily; those who are subject to anxiety or doubt, and those who are in positions of responsibility. Persons who are in any way negative or passive need to use affirmations more; the ones who are self-confident or unforgiving, need denials more.
Deny the appearance of evil; affirm good. Deny weakness; affirm strength. Deny undesirable conditions, and affirm the good you desire. This is what Jesus meant when He said, "All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe [or claim and affirm] that ye have received them, and ye shall have them" (Mk. 11:24). This is what is meant by the promise: "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon [or that you stand squarely or firmly upon], to you have I given it" (Josh. 1:3).
Practice these denials and affirmations silently in the street, in the car, when you are wakeful during the night, anywhere, everywhere, and they will give you a new, and, to you, a strange, mastery over external things and over yourself. If there comes a moment when you are in doubt as to what to do, stand still and affirm, "God in me is infinite wisdom; I know just what to do." "For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to gainsay" (Lk. 21:15). Do not get flustered or anxious, but depend fully and trustingly on your principle, and you will be surprised at the sudden inspiration that will come to you as the mode of procedure.

From

Lessons in Truth, by H. Emilie Cady, [1894], at sacred-texts.com