Repetitions and Affirmations

Q: I was wondering what you think about the affirmations for forgiveness in Gary Renard's books?

A: Affirmations, like anything else, can have a right or wrong-minded use. The way affirmations are often used fosters denial. Repetition for repetition sake is about as helpful as saying, "I am not a body, I am not a body" while you're using the body's lips and tongue to repeat the affirmation. "To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything." (W-pI.185.1:1)

Nothing here heals... and by here, I mean the physical universe. And by the physical universe I mean, or include, the brain. Reading the Course with our eyes does not awaken us. Saying things with our lips, repeating the lessons, telling ourselves we are Spirit does not awaken us. Putting the Course on our MP3 player, and putting it on "repeat" when we go to sleep does not awaken us. However, the Course, and I would assume The Disappearance of the Universe because of its congruency with the content of the Course, uses affirmations differently, and thus are not "affirmations" as we know them.

The Course has us pay attention to our thoughts, namely our guilt-sourced thoughts, and has us bring the darkness to the light, not the other way around which is how affirmations are traditionally used in other spiritual systems.

Affirmations in The Disappearance of the Universe, or repetitions / "affirmations" in the Workbook for Students or elsewhere in the Course help to remind us that we have a mind, they help us pay attention to our thoughts and apply forgiveness; in this way they work within the framework of the Course and its overall theme.

The key thing to remember is that we are seeking the blocks to love so that we may forgive them, not to block out the blocks with affirmations. When we use affirmations to remind us of our purpose, then we can practice that purpose. That's when they have value.

They can't awaken us, but they can point us back to our mind and the practice of forgiveness which does.