Affirmations
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
Introduction
What Is The Secret Of Happiness?
The Great Mystery
What Do We Want? Happiness!
Pure Mind Over Matter
A New Paradigm
Out With The Old
Spiritual Philosophy Of Radical Forgiveness
Truth Is You
Dive In, The Water's Fine!
The Truth Makes You Jump For Joy
Our Thoughts Are Creative
Go With The Flow
Swimming In Love, Dancing With Desire
Exercise 1: Negative Programming To Positive Affirmations
Exercise 2: Mirror Of Me
Exercise 3: I Love Myself
Exercise 4: Be Free
Exercise 5: I Accept Myself
Exercise 6: Absolute Acceptance
Exercise 7: Write About Your Experience
Exercise 8: I Desire
Exercise 9: Be Aware
Exercise 10: Speak Your Mind
More Exercises, Positive Affirmations
Bibliography
Written by Devon Love
Introduction
Love After Love
The time will come when,
With elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other’s welcome,
And say, sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
—Derek Walcott
Poems can be life affirming, and Love After Love is a beautiful example. Remembering how to affirm life is the focus of this course. So what does this mean?
Webster’s Dictionary(1983) defines affirmation as “The act of affirming” and “To assert as valid or confirmed.” Affirm is defined as “validate, confirm,” and “to state positively.”
Why would we have to affirm life? Are we not validated by our existence? Why do poems such as the one above fill us with elation, yet elation tinged with desire, longing and sadness? When and where did we become disconnected from the constant flow of vital life force energy, flowing from all around and within us, which is our birthright, our knowing of ourselves as sacred life vessels?
The answers to these questions are the foundation for beginning to explore those voices and energies within us which are blocking the flow of life force energy, leaving us disconnected, depressed, confused, unsure, and unable to express our deepest truth and live meaningful and self-realized lives.
“Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live unreflectively and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to raise it to its true value. To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will to live.”
—Albert Schwietzer
The first step to affirming ourselves is to shake things up a bit, and take notice of the negative programming we accept from others and internalize. We can realize that the source of these voices is not within us, is not our truth, and we can release any ideas of who we have been told we are. The truth of ourselves then unfolds and we blossom, in our own way, like a beautiful and unique flower. Out of the depths of ourselves emerge new thoughts, new voices, which flow through open channels, becoming life’s sacred vessel. We are claiming our birthright when we let go of old programming and become our true selves.
How did it feel to read those last few lines? Notice the positive, active language. Notice the shift in energy. We are doing this. We are blossoming, in this moment, together. We are.
Now, we begin a journey together. We are going a little deeper, digging down into the soil, and seeing what we can dig up and return to life. Let’s see what energies and forms we can shift and release, freeing up the channels, unfolding and affirming our true, shining self. This journey will lead us to explore the meaning of happiness, and peace. Let us reawaken human understanding of the mind and its properties, and how it interfaces with the flow of life force to create our reality. We will meet pure mind by being fully present Now. We will listen to voices from cultures in which people have never fallen asleep to this truth, and how language itself plays such a vital role in our understanding of ourselves. We will look at how science is beginning to find the concrete proof of the power of the mind, and the value of positive affirmations, which is the true herald of a new age of exploration in the field of human consciousness and reality creation. We will then begin to explore how we can apply these processes to our own lives, and practice some exercises to shift energy and open to life’s generous flow. Now, take a slow, deep breath. Release it slowly, and prepare to change your mind…