Positive affirmations can change the patterns of your mind. "I am filled and thrilled with unlimited power, now and forever." Worry is a negative influence, rather than positive energy. As the inner light begins to dawn a new positive power comes into our words, our thoughts and feelings. To simultaneously think, feel and visualize deeply with an inner all-encompassing knowing is the esoteric secret of making an affirmation work. Think, visualize and feel. Generate the feeling in the present. Feel as you will feel in the future when it happens. What you cause now, you cause in your future.

Master Course Trilogy, Merging with Siva, Lessons 72,73,74.

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

Continuing with our "Merging with Siva" lessons, "The Power of Affirmation," second lesson of "The Power of Affirmation" and it was given in 1958 at the Sutter Street Temple.

Tuesday: Affirmation is a Power.

"In applying this tantra, begin by repeating the affirmation fifty or a hundred times a day. In watching your reactions, you may find that the subconscious will not accept the three statements, 'I can. I will. I am able.' You may still have feelings of 'I can't. I won't. I am not able.' This then begins a period to live through where the mind's magnetic forces fight with one another, in a sense. The aggressive forces of your nature are trying to take over and reprogram the passive ones that have been in charge for so many years. Of course, the aggressive forces will win if you will persist with your verbal and visual affirmation. You must not give up saying, 'I can. I will. I am able,' until you find the subconscious structure actually creating situations for you in which you can and are able to be successful, happy and acquire what you need, be it temporal goods or unfoldment on the inner path."

My comment is: We need to be patient, that Gurudeva's saying the aggressive forces will win in you persist but we need to think in terms of many months and not just a few days here of effort. Back to the text:

"Here is another positive affirmation that might be helpful for you: 'I am the complete master of all my forces. My spiritual energies govern and control the force fields wherever I am for the highest good. Through understanding, being pure, full of spirited life, I am filled and thrilled with unlimited power, now and forever. I will be what I will to be. I will do what I will to do.' Affirm this affirmation each day this week for seven days. Repeat it three times each morning, three times at noon and three times each evening." So, my comment is: This is a good example of an affirmation for purely spiritual benefits. In other words affirmations can be for material benefits, for spiritual benefits or for both.

Text:

"You have perhaps often heard friends repeat the same complaint over and over again. They were not only making an affirmation, perhaps unknowingly, for their own subconscious mind, but for yours as well. Therefore, it behooves us always to be with positive people, spiritual, life-giving people, in order to be positive ourselves. It behooves us to listen to that with which we want to live, and to be the changer rather than the changed. The affirmations which violence sets up in the subconscious reactionary habit patterns in the minds of men cause them to fight and kill by spinning emotional force fields out of control. Fear then holds them in these brackets of mind as they react to what they have done. It takes great courage to go from one force field of the mind to another, for this means tearing up long-accustomed patterns, facing a period of adjustment while new subconscious patterns are recreated. It all has to do with changing the subconscious patterns. This is a power. You can change the patterns of your mind yourself. Try it. It is not too difficult."

So my example is happened, happens on a regular basis, I have a conversation with a parent who is constantly worrying about a son or daughter. One example was after the 2008 financial crash, had a mother whose son was laid off from his finance job in Singapore. So she was worrying about this every day and I suggested she visualize him at a new job in a tall building overlooking Singapore. So instead of worry we can visualize and affirm even for another person. And my comment is, of course her affirmation doesn't replace the son's doing an affirmation himself but is helpful whereas worry is a negative influence on the situation. So people may not realize that if they're worrying they're sending negative energy to the person they're worrying about rather than positive energy and that has an impact to some degree.

So the text:

"Availing the Higher Energies.

"Each day we make affirmations with our thoughts and our feelings--and the very words that we speak stabilize these patterns. But as the inner light begins to dawn its life-giving rays, a new, positive power comes into our words, our thoughts and the feelings that well up from the subconscious, making new manifest patterns in the force fields of the conscious world for us to meet and speedily experience. An affirmation can alter your life by creating mentally the patterns and moods of each day through which you will subsequently move.

"Here is one that can be used to dynamically begin each day. 'I am now open to a flow of spiritual energy in which I perceive the most worthy course of action for this day. My service, being selfless, opens new doors of supply, making available all of the tools required so that my work will be beautiful, energetic and influential to the highest degree.' The subconscious mind is like a piece of clay that can be impressed. These impressions go into the subconscious from the conscious mind and remain there vibrating until changed. The intuitive mind, which we call the superconscious, works through the subconscious when the channels of the subconscious are open. Hence, in impressing the subconscious mind, we must be very careful to create positive channels, and not to create a negative block. You can write your own affirmation, but it must always be positive and carefully worded."

So if you're writing your own affirmation you want to, don't want to say anything that's equivocal. You want to make a positive statement, choose very positive statements about what's going to happen. And then they work; the affirmation will work properly.

"Utilizing the Power of Feeling."

In the first lesson in this chapter on affirmation, oh this is my comment here. My comment was before the text. Usually I give my comment after the text. So the text is about "Utilizing the Power of Feeling."

In the first lesson in this chapter on affirmation, Gurudeva stressed the importance of visualization. He stated: "An affirmation is a series of positive words repeated time and time again in line with a visual concept. Such a statement can be repeated mentally or, preferably, verbally. Words in themselves, without a pictorial understanding, make a very poor affirmation." And then my comment was: Create a visualization that shows in a picture the desired result. For example, if you are affirming more customers in your store, visualize your store filled with customers.

So in this lesson Gurudeva is adding another important component to effective affirmations which is feeling. So we have the meaning itself, the visualization and now Gurudeva is adding importance of feeling.

[Text:]

"An antidote to this is to use affirmations in this way. Repeat the affirmation, 'All my needs will always be met,' and feel how it is to feel after all of your needs have been met. Until you find this feeling, you should not expect the affirmation to work. Every time that you have a need and that need is met, a certain feeling is then produced in you. That same feeling you have to feel the very instant you speak the affirmation. You then open a channel that instant to your own intuition through which all good comes. In this state of mind one has inspiration and will. It is from the intuition that, at the eleventh hour, fifty-ninth minute, fifty-ninth second, every need is met.

"The next time you have complete feelings from the innermost sources of your being that your every need will be met, quietly repeat that affirmation over again: 'All my needs will always be met.' Simultaneously think, visualize and feel deeply within an inner, all-encompassing knowing that each need will be met. This is the esoteric secret of making an affirmation work."

That's the text I use a lot in my presentation on affirmations. Think, visualize and feel. Very simple to remember. Think is the same as the meaning. Have in mind what it means. Don't let the mind wander to what you're going to have for your next meal or something, some other part of your daily routine. Keep focused on the meaning, have a visualization and feel as you will feel in the future when it happens. So you have to generate that feeling in the present.

And the text again:

"People say affirmations work for them but sometimes they do not. Why do affirmations only work sometimes? It is because the subconscious is receiving the affirmation at a psychological moment, and a greater knowing, visualization and feeling has been awakened to some extent. However, at the times when an affirmation did not work, there was no knowing, no visualization or feeling attached to it. Just words. When affirmations are repeated over and over again without feeling or visualization, occasionally negative results are produced, as the vibrations of the words themselves may not register what is intended in the subconscious."

One way of keeping the mind focused on the affirmation is to change your visualization. If you visualize the same thing day after day, year after year, it's easier for the mind to wander than if you say if you change your visualization ever month. It's easier for the mind to stay focused on it.

And the last part of text:

"Here is another affirmation: 'I am the master of my body.' Sit and feel that you are the master of your body. Say to yourself over and over again, 'I am the master of my body.' Now, quietly, without thinking, feel and visualize that you are the master of your body. Really know that you are director of your physical vehicle. In repeating this next affirmation, 'I am the master of my body, my mind and my emotions,' feel and visualize exactly what the words mean. Then repeat time and time again, 'I am the master of my body, my mind and my emotions,' all the while visualizing and feeling exactly what you eventually want to be like... Then repeat time and time again, 'I am the master of my body, my mind and my emotions,' all the while visualizing and feeling exactly what you eventually want to be like, because what you cause now you cause in your future."

And have a wonderful day.