PART THREE DENIALS Suppose you grew up believing that the sun moved around the earth, and someone now showed you that the opposite is true. You would accept the demonstrated truth, but still, at every sunrise or sunset, the old idea would come up, seeming almost too real to be disputed. The only way to cleanse your mind of the old impression would be by repeatedly denying the old beliefs. You would say over and over to yourself, whenever the subject came up in your mind, "This is not true. The sun does not move around the earth; the earth moves around the sun." Eventually, the sun would only seem to be moving. Similarly, it appears that our bodies and circumstances control our thoughts, but the opposite is true. Our thoughts control our bodies and our circumstances. So, if you repeatedly deny a false or unhappy condition, it loses its power to make you unhappy. What everyone desires is to have only good in our lives and surroundings. We all want to live lives full of love, to be perfectly healthy, to know all things, to have great power and much joy, and this is just exactly what God wants us to have. All good, of whatever kind, is God made visible. When we crave more of any good thing, we are in reality craving more of God to come forth into our lives so we can realize it with our senses. Having more of God doesn't take out of our lives the good things it only puts more of them in. Now, we may be able to see the possibility of our own God-being, which never changes, but what we need is to realize our oneness with the Creator at all times. And in order to realize it, we must deny, in ourselves and others, any appearances that seem contrary to this. We deny their reality. We declare that they are not true. There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence anywhere. We have seen that the true reality is spiritual. "The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (II Cor. 4:18). By using this denial you'll soon break your bonds to matter and material conditions.* You will know that you are free. Pain, sickness, poverty, old age, and death are illusions and cannot master me. God is all life, eternal. God is all substance, everywhere present. God lives in and through you and is the truth of you. The "I" of you, therefore, experiences eternal wellbeing and can never be touched by these material illusions. There is nothing in the entire universe for me to fear, for greater is the One in me than anyone in the world. The "I" of you is the infinite omnipotence of all that is! You need not wait to discuss this matter of evil, or of illusion, or even to understand fully why you deny them. Simply begin to practice the denials in an unprejudiced way and see how wonderfully they will, after a while, deliver you from some of the so-called evils of your daily life. Repeat these four denials silently several times a day, not with effort or anxiety, but calmly realizing the meaning of the words spoken: Almost hourly, little issues and fears come up in your life. Meet each one with a denial. Calmly and coolly say to yourself: "that's nothing at all; it can't hurt me or make me unhappy." Don't fight it. Let your denial be the denial of any possible superiority over you, just as you would deny the power of ants in their hill disturbing you where you stand across the road. If you feel anger, stand still and silently deny its power. Say that you are not subject to anger; you are Spirit, love made manifest, and cannot be made angry, and the anger will leave you. If someone is mean or tries to hurt you, remember that the One in you is greater than anyone outside of you and silently deny anyone's power to hurt you or make you unhappy. If you feel jealousy or envy, deny their power over you. Declare that you are really Spirit, love made manifest, and that negative feelings have no power over you. There is, after all, really no reason for jealousy or envy, for all people are one and the same Spirit. Shall the foot be jealous of the hand, or the ear envy the eye? Remember that in reality, you, however insignificant you may appear, are absolutely necessary for God to make the perfect whole. If you find yourself dreading to meet someone or afraid to step out and do what you want or have promised to do, immediately begin to deny the power of fear. Say "It's not true. I am Spirit, and no one駐othing in the entire universe can hurt me; I have nothing to fear." Soon you'll find that all the fear has disappeared; all the anxiety is gone. CREATING OUR CIRCUMSTANCES For now, remember: no person or thing in the universe, no chain of circumstances, can in any way come between you and all joy, all good. You may think something stands between you and your heart's desire, and so live with that desire unfulfilled, but it's simply not true. This "think" is the bugaboo under the bed that has no reality. Deny it. Deny it and you will realize that this appearance was false. Deny it and you will find yourself free. Then you will see the good flowing toward you and into you, and you will understand clearly that nothing can come between you and your own. Denials are for us alone. Speak them silently or aloud, but not in a way to create antagonism or invite discussion. This is your work, and its results will be felt around you when you have fully realized the truth of the words you speak.
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