于是耶稣对门徒们说，若有人要跟从我，就当舍己，背起他的十字架、来跟从我。（马太福音16:24）
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me -- Matt. 16:24.
1. 所有的灵修体系都需要否定。每个时代的每种宗教都需要将某种形式的否定作为其根基。我们知道，清教徒相信，他们越是严格地否定舒适的生活，他们就越能合神的心意。迄今为止，这种观点曾经在某些时代支配过世人的心灵，虔诚的信徒因而会通过各种方式折磨自己的肉体，相信这会让他们变得更属灵，或至少能够减除神的怒气。即便在今天，许多人也会将耶稣在上文中所说的话理解为：任何人如果想要合神的心意，他就必须否定所有的欢乐和舒适、爱好和梦想，必须背起沉重的十字架，在日常生活中不断地做他不愿意做的事情。正是因为这个原因，许多年轻人会说：“等我老了，我会做个基督徒，但现在，我想先享受享受生活。”
1. All systems for spiritualizing the mind include denial. Every religion in all the ages had some sort of denial as one of its foundations. We all know how the Puritans believed that the more rigidly they denied themselves comfort the better they pleased God. So far has this idea taken possession of the human mind during some ages that devout souls have even tortured their bodies in various ways, believing that they were thus making themselves more spiritual, or at least were in some way placating an angry God. Even today many interpret the above-quoted saying of Jesus as meaning: If any man wants to please God he must give up about all the enjoyment and comfort he has, all things he likes and wants, and must take up the heavy cross of constantly doing the things that are repugnant to him in his daily life. This is why many young people say, "When I am old I will be a Christian, but not now, for I want to enjoy life awhile first."
2. 我确信，没有什么比上面这种诠释更偏离耶稣的本意了。由于我们不了解上帝和天父的本质，不了解我们与祂之间的关系，我们因此认为，我们的快乐来自于外在的事物，往往源于我们获得了以前不曾拥有的东西。穷人只有拥有大量钱财才会觉得开心，富人沉溺于所谓的人生乐事，直到他们因为饕餮过度而无法从摆满美味佳肴的餐桌前站立起来为止，而与此同时，他们却往往无比苦恼地抱怨说，人生对他们毫无幸福可言。生病的人认为，如果他身体健康，他就会幸福无比。健康而勤勉的人们则想要休息和娱乐几天，打破单调乏味的生活节奏。
2. There could, I am sure, be nothing further from the meaning of the Nazarene than the foregoing interpretation. In our ignorance of the nature of God, our Father, and of our relationship to Him, we have believed that all our enjoyment came from external sources, usually from gaining possession of something we did not have. The poor see enjoyment only in possessing abundance of money. The rich, who are satiated with life's so-called pleasures until their lives have become like a person with an over-loaded stomach, compelled to sit constantly at a well-spread table, are often the most bitter in the complaint that life holds no happiness for them. The sick one believes that, were he well, he would be perfectly happy. The healthy but hard working person feels the need of some days of rest and recreation, that the monotony of his life may be broken.
3. 因此，为了寻求满足和欢乐，心灵会关注环境和境遇的外在变化。然后，当人们品尝过人生百味并获得了各种事物以后，他们却发现后者并没有带来预料中的幸福，反而令人大为失望，于是，在绝望中，他们会转向上帝，相信自己将来会如愿以偿，生活幸福。他们试图通过这种方式来获得某种安慰。此后，他们的人生会具备耐心并顺其自然，但他们并没有真实的喜乐。
3. So ever the mind has been turned to some external change of condition or circumstance in pursuit of satisfaction and enjoyment. In after years, when men have tried all, getting first this thing and then that, which they thought would yield them happiness, and have been grievously disappointed, in a kind of desperation they turn to God and try to find some sort of comfort in believing that sometime, somewhere, they will get what they want and be happy. Thenceforth their lives are patient and submissive, but they are destitute of any real joy.
4. 对我们来说，这个耶稣是真理的最佳导师和呈现者，因此我们总是会向祂寻求帮助。祂花了近三年时间来教导人们，这些受教者都是普通人，和我们并无二致，也像我们这样需要食物、房屋、衣服、金钱、朋友和爱。祂教导他们爱自己的敌人，善待那些迫害他们的人，绝不要与恶人作对，相反，无论别人索取什么，都要加倍地给他。祂也教导他们不要为各种需求焦虑，因为“你们需用的这一切东西，你们的天父是知道的”（马太福音6:32）。后来，祂在某天讲到：“这些事我已经告诉你们，是要叫我的喜乐，存在你们心里，并叫你们的喜乐可以满足”（约翰福音15:11）。祂继续说，“你们奉我的名，无论向父求什么，他就赐给你们”（约翰福音15:16）。“你们求就必得着，叫你们的喜乐可以满足……我并不对你们说，我要为你们求父。因为父自己爱你们”（约翰福音16:24-26）。我们还了解到，上帝就是宇宙中全部美善的总和，并且上帝的心中有个永恒的愿望，那就是将祂自己——所有美好事物的实质——更多地倾倒出来，通过我们彰显出来，或进入我们的生活之中。
4. This same Nazarene, to whom we always return because to us He is the best-known teacher and demonstrator of Truth, spent nearly three years teaching the people -- the common everyday people like you and me, who wanted, just as we do, food and rent and clothing, money, friends, and love -- to love their enemies and to do good to those who persecuted them, to resist not evil in any way, but to give double to anyone who tried to get what belonged to them; to cease from all anxiety regarding the things they needed because "your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things" (Matt. 6:32). And then talking one day He said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John 15:11). And He continued, "Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you" (John 15:16). "Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. . . I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you" (John 16:24-26). We have further learned that God is the total of all the good in the universe and that there is in the mind which is God a perpetual desire to pour more of Himself -- the substance of all good things -- through us into visibility, or into our lives.
5. 显然，当耶稣说我们只有通过舍己才能酷似他并拥有他那样的力量之时，这似乎并不是在说，我们应该放弃生活中的欢乐和舒适，或以任何方式来剥夺或折磨自己。
5. Surely all these things do not make it look as though, when Jesus said that the way to be like him and to possess a like power was to deny oneself, He meant that we are to go without the enjoyable comforts of life or in any way deprive or torture ourselves.
6. 在这些课程中，我们已经看到，除了每个人内心最深处的真实自我——这个自我是神性的，因为它体现了上帝的形象，或者说将上帝彰显出来，并且始终与父合而为一——之外，我们还有人性的自我，体贴肉体的心灵，它会陈说来自外部世界的谎言，我们不能完全信赖它。当耶稣说“就当舍己”时，祂指的就是这个自我。这个充满智识的人，体贴肉体的心灵，或者你怎么称呼他都行，是嫉妒、烦躁和病态的，因为他是自私的。人性的自我渴望满足自身，必要时甚至为此牺牲他人。
6. 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.
7. 你真实的自我从来不会生病、恐惧和自私。它是那个“不求自己的益处，不轻易发怒，不计算人的恶”（哥林多前书13:5）的自我。它总是试图给予，而人性的自我总是在谋求自身的利益。此前，我们更多地活在人性的自我之中。我们相信体贴肉体的心灵告诉我们的全部东西，其结果就是，各种各样的穷困和痛苦压垮了我们。
7. 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" (I 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.
8. 在过去几年里，有些人在专门研究心智，他们发现，我们所持有的某些错误或虚假的信念是导致各种烦恼——身体的、道德的、经济的——的真正原因。他们认识到，错误的信念仅仅产生于人的心灵之中；他们了解到并在实际上证明，通过意志的不懈努力，我们可以改变信念，仅仅通过这种方式，我们就完全能够改变我们的困境和身体状况。
8. 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.
9. 他们发现，否定困境（困境是错误的想法和感受造成的）是消除困境百试不爽的有效办法：首先，否认任何这种事情有——或者可能有——能力让我们感到痛苦；其次，否认这些事情在现实中确实存在。
9. 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.
10. 根据韦氏词典的定义，否认这个词有两层涵义。在某种意义上来说，否认意味着拒绝给予，比如拒绝将面包给饥饿者。而在第二种意义上来说（我们相信耶稣在使用这个字眼时表达的正是这层意义），否认就是宣称不正确，拒绝接受完全错误的东西。因此，舍己并不是拒绝将舒适和幸福给予这个外在的肉体，更不是折磨它，而是拒不接受错误的看法，宣称这些看法是不正确的。
10. The word deny has two definitions, according to Webster. To deny, in one sense, is to withhold from, as to deny bread to the hungry. To deny, in another sense (and we believe it was in this latter way that Jesus used it), is to declare to be not true, to repudiate as utterly false. To deny oneself, then, is not to withhold comfort or happiness from the external man, much less to inflict torture upon him, but it is to deny the claims of error consciousness, to declare these claims to be untrue.
11. 如果你做错了某件事情，要想纠正它，首先就需要消除错误，并从此开始新的生活。我们对上帝和我们自己怀抱着错误的信念，认为上帝对我们满怀怒气，应该对他心怀畏惧。我们认为，疾病、贫困和其他困苦是可恶的，是上帝带来的，他想通过某种方式来折磨我们，让我们侍奉他，爱他。我们认为，如果我们完全听任困境的摆布，表现得耐心而顺从，甚至不想重新站立起来或克服这些困难，我们就最能合乎上帝的心意。这些信念都是错误的，完全错误的！要想让自己摆脱困境，我们首先需要做的事情，就是消除我们对上帝和我们自身的错误信念。
11. If you have done any piece of work incorrectly, the very first step toward getting it right is to undo the wrong, and begin again from that point. We have believed wrong about God and about ourselves. We have believed that God was angry with us and that we were sinners who ought to be afraid of Him. We have believed that sickness and poverty and other troubles are evil things put here by this same God to torture us in some way into serving Him and loving Him. We have believed that we have pleased God best when we became so absolutely subdued by our troubles as to be patiently submissive to them all, not even trying to rise out of them or to overcome them. All this is false, entirely false! And the first step toward freeing ourselves from our troubles is to get rid of our erroneous beliefs about God and about ourselves.
12. “但是，”有人会反驳说，“如果某件事物是虚假的而我却相信有关它的谎言，我看不出来，我对它的错误信念怎么可能会影响我的身体健康或境遇。”
12. "But," objects one, "if a thing is not true and I have believed a lie about it, I do not see just how my believing wrong about it could affect my bodily health or my circumstances."
13. 小孩子可能会被床底下假想出来的妖怪而吓倒，以致于浑身发抖。如果你今天收到电报说，你远在千里之外的丈夫、妻子或子女突然遇害，你精神和肉体上——甚至还可能包括外在和财务上——的痛苦会非常巨大，就仿佛他们当真离开了人世，而事实上，这则消息可能完全是虚假的。同样，我们会觉得门后隐藏着鬼怪，神的愤怒和我们自身的软弱会像妖怪那样吞噬掉我们，直到我们最终被这种恐惧淹没为止。
13. A child can be so afraid of an imaginary bugaboo under the bed as to have convulsions. Should you, today, receive a telegraphic message that your husband, wife, or child, who is absent from you, had been suddenly killed, your suffering, mental and physical, and perhaps extending even to your external and financial affairs, would be just as great as though the report really were true; and yet it might be entirely false. Exactly so have these messages of bugaboos behind the doors, bugaboos of divine wrath and of our own weakness, come to us through the senses until we are overcome by our fears of them.
14. 现在，让我们唤醒自己吧。要抹除我们头脑中长久坚持的错误信念，首先就需要否定。这些错误信念如此可悲地毁掉了我们的人生。通过否定，我们意在声明，那些看似真实的事物其实并不真实。外表具有误导性，它直接违背了真理的教导。耶稣说：“不可按外表断定是非，总要按公平断定是非。”（约翰福音7:24）。
14. Now, let us arouse ourselves. Denial is the first practical step toward wiping out of our minds the mistaken beliefs of a lifetime -- the beliefs that have made such sad havoc of our lives. By denial we mean declaring not to be true a thing that seems true. Negative appearances are directly opposed to the teachings of Truth. Jesus said, "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous [right] judgment" (John 7:24).
15. 假设别人始终教导你说，太阳的确在运动，在绕着地球旋转，那么，现在应该有人来说服你，事实恰恰相反。你应该立刻意识到实际情况的确是这样的，然而，由于你经常看到太阳升起，多年以来的错误信念会让你的头脑中浮现出旧时的印象，让它显得极为真实，无可反驳。因此，你需要反复地否定旧的信仰，每当心中想到这件事时就再三告诉自己：“这是错的，太阳并没有运动，它是静止的，是地球在运动。”只有这样，你才能在心灵中消除旧的印象，如实地洞察那些虚假的事物。最终，你会意识到，太阳只是看上去在运动而已。
15. Suppose you had always been taught that the sun really moved or revolved around the earth, and someone should now persuade you that the opposite is the truth. You would see at once that such might be the case, and yet as often as you saw the sun rise, the old impression, made on your mind by the wrong belief of years, would come up and seem almost too real to be disputed. The only way by which you could cleanse your mind of the impression and make the untrue seem unreal, would be by repeatedly denying the old beliefs, saying over and over to yourself as often as the subject came up in your mind: "This is not true. The sun does not move; it stands still, and the earth moves." Eventually the sun would only seem to move.
16. 从表面来看，我们的身体和各种境况主宰着我们的思想，但事实恰恰相反。思想主宰着我们的身体和境况。
16. The appearances are that our bodies and our circumstances control our thoughts, but the opposite is true. Our thoughts control our bodies and our circumstances.
17. 如果你再三地否定虚假或不快的境遇，它就无法再主宰你，让你感到不快。
17. If you repeatedly deny a false or unhappy condition, it loses its power to make you unhappy.
18. 每个人都希望他的生活和环境完全美好如意：他的人生充满爱，拥有完满的健康，无所不知，拥有巨大的力量和喜悦。这正是上帝希望我们拥有的东西。我们在前面的功课中了解到，所有的爱都是上帝的化身。上帝就是全部的智慧，是全部的生命和健康，是所有的喜乐（因为万物都是好的）和力量。上帝就是全部的美善，它透过世人或其他可见的形式彰显出来。当我们渴求更多的美好事物之时，事实上，我们就是渴求上帝更多地进入我们的生活，以便我们可以通过感官来了解它。更多地与神联合并不会夺走我们人生中的美好事物，相反，它只会让我们获得更多。在上帝的心意中，他始终渴望给予更多，因为上帝的旨意始终都是彰显更多的善。
18. What everyone desires is to have only the good manifested in his life and surroundings -- to have his life full of love; to have perfect health; to know all things; to have great power and much joy; and this is just exactly what God wants us to have. All love is God in manifestation, as we have learned in a previous lesson. All wisdom is God. All life and health are God. All joy (because all good) and all power are God. All good of whatever kind is God come forth into visibility through people or some other visible form. When we crave more of any good thing, we are in reality craving more of God to come forth into our lives so that we can realize it by our senses. Having more of God does not take out of our lives the good things -- it only puts more of them in. In the mind that is God there is always the desire to give more, for the divine plan is forever to get more good into visibility.
19. 从理智上来说，我们可以意识到上帝活在我们的生命之中，这个事实永远不会改变。我们需要做的就是，始终和父合而为一。为了做到这点，我们和他人就要否认与此相反的表象——否认它们是真实的。我们要宣称，它们是虚假的。
19. Intellectually we may see the fact of our own God-being, which never changes. What we need is to realize our oneness with the Father at all times. In order to realize it we deny ourselves and others the appearances that seem contrary to this -- deny them as realities; we declare that they are not true.
20. 每个人几乎都会受到四种常见错误想法的强烈影响。那些通过祷告摆脱了疾病和烦恼的人们发现，为了让心灵消除由于相信这些想法而带来的可怕影响，否定它们是有益的。可以这样来否定它们：
20. There are four common error thoughts to which nearly everyone grants great power. Persons who have grown out of sickness and trouble through prayer have found it good to deny these thoughts, in order to cleanse the mind of the direful effects of believing them. They can be denied like this
21.第一：恶并不存在。
21. First: There is no evil.
22. 宇宙中只有一种力量，那就是上帝，亦即善。上帝是善的，无所不在的。表面的邪恶本身并不是真实的实体或事物。它们表面上只是善的缺乏，就像黑暗只是没有光而已。但上帝或者说善，是无所不在的，因此，善表面上的缺乏（恶）是不真实的。恶只是个假象，就像太阳的运动只是个假象而已。你不必费心讨论有关恶的这个问题，也不必充分了解我们为何要否认它，你只需要毫无偏见地开始练习否定它，看看不久以后它如何奇妙地拯救你脱离日常生活中若干所谓的恶。
22. There is but one power in the universe, and that is God -- good. God is good, and God is omnipresent. Apparent evils are not entities or things of themselves. They are simply apparent absence of the good, just as darkness is an absence of light. But God, or good, is omnipresent, so the apparent absence of good (evil) is unreal. It is only an appearance of evil, just as the moving sun was an appearance. You need not wait to discuss this matter of evil or to understand fully all about why you deny it, but begin to practice the denials in an unprejudiced way, and see how marvelously they will, after a while, deliver you from some of the so-called evils of your daily life.
23. 第二：任何地方都不缺乏生命、本质或智慧。
23. Second: There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence anywhere.
24. 我们已经看到，真实的事物都是属灵的。“因为所见的是暂时的，所不见的是永远的”（哥林多后书4:18）。利用这种否定的力量，你很快就能消除物质和物质环境对你的束缚。你会知道，你是自由的。
24. We have seen that the real is the 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 will soon break your bondage to matter and to material conditions. You will know that you are free.
25. 第三：疼痛、疾病、贫困、衰老和死亡都不能主宰我，因为它们是不真实的。
25. Third: Pain, sickness, poverty, old age, and death cannot master me, for they are not real.
26. 第四：我不必担心宇宙中的任何事物，因为，上帝在我里面，祂胜过了世间的万事万物。
26. Fourth: 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.
27. 上帝说，“与你相争的我必与他相争”（以赛亚书49:25）。祂对世间的每个子民如是说，每个人都是祂的孩子。
27. God says, "I will contend with him that contendeth with thee" (Isa. 49:25). He says it to every living child of His, and every person is His child.
28. 每天将这四个否定断言默默地重复好几次，不要焦虑不安地想要从中获得任何好处，只要尽量保持冷静，理解这些话的涵义：
28. 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:
29. 恶并不存在。
29. There is no evil.
30. 任何地方都不缺乏生命、本质或智慧。
30. There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence anywhere.
31. 疼痛、疾病、贫困、衰老和死亡都不能主宰我，因为它们是不是真实的。
31. Pain, sickness, poverty, old age, and death cannot master me, for they are not real.
32. 我不必担心宇宙中的任何事物，因为，上帝在我里面，祂胜过了世间的万事万物。
32. 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.
33. 几乎每个小时，你的生活中都会遇上小小的烦恼和恐惧。要否认每个烦恼和恐惧，从容冷静地对自己说：“根本就没啥事儿。它不能伤害我，搅扰我，让我不快。”不要激烈地抗拒它，而是拒绝让任何念头主宰你，就像你绝不会让小山丘上的蚂蚁搅扰你那样。如果你很生气，那就站着不动，默默地否认它。说你不生气，说你就是彰显出来的爱，而且不可能生气，这样，怒气就会离你而去。
33. Almost hourly little vexations and fears come up in your life. Meet each one with a denial. Calmly and coolly say within yourself, "That's nothing at all. It cannot harm or disturb me or make me unhappy." Do not fight it vigorously, but let your denial be the denial of any thought of its superiority over you, as you would deny the power of ants on their little hill to disturb you. If you are angry, stand still, and silently deny it. Say that you are not angry; that you are love made manifest, and cannot be angry and the anger will leave you.
34. 如果有人向你显示出恶意，那就默默地否认他有能力伤害你或让你不快。如果您发现自己在嫉妒或忌恨他人，那就利用否定的力量来对付这条九头怪物。声明你并没有妒意或嫉恨，是完美的爱的化身（是彰显出来的上帝之爱），不可能感受到负面情绪。我们确实没有理由去嫉妒他人，因为所有人都是同一个灵。保罗说，“功用也有分别，神却是一位，在众人里面运行一切的事”（哥林多前书12:6）。如果你身上的某个身体部位显得更加可爱，你怎么能够嫉妒它呢？
34. 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. There is really no reason for jealousy or envy, for all persons are one and the same spirit. "And there are diversities of operations [or manifestations], but it is the same God which worketh all in all" (I Cor. 12:6), says Paul. How can you be envious of a part of yourself that seems to you more comely?
35. 脚能嫉妒手吗，或者耳能嫉妒眼吗？要想身体俊美，那看似软弱的肢体不是和其他肢体同等重要吗？你岂是比其他肢体有所缺欠呢？要记住，所有的嫉妒和忌恨都是错误的想法，而事实上，不管你多么微不足道，为了成就完美的肢体，你在上帝眼中都是绝对必不可少的。
35. Shall the foot be envious of the hand, or the ear of the eye? Are not the seemingly feeble members of the body as important to the perfection of the whole as the others? Do you seem to be less, or to have less, than some others? Remember that all envy and all jealousy are in the error consciousness and that in reality you, however insignificant, are an absolute necessity to God in order to make the perfect whole.
36. 如果你觉得自己不敢见人，或不敢站出来做你想做或应该做的事情，那就立刻开始说，“这是不对的，我不害怕，我就是完满的爱，不知何为恐惧。宇宙中没有任何人或事能够伤害我。”很快你就会发现，所有的担心都消失了，所有的恐惧也不复存在。
36. 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." You will find after a little that all the fear has disappeared, all trepidation has gone.
37. 否定能够让人摆脱奴役，当我们成功地不再让任何事物影响或搅扰我们之时，幸福就会来临。
37. Denial brings freedom from bondage, and happiness comes when we effectually deny the power of anything to touch or trouble us.
38. 多年以来，你都生活在否定之中，觉得自己是魔鬼的后裔或软弱的孩子，不承认自己能够获得成功，不承认自己身体健康，不承认自己具备神性，甚至不承认自己能够完成任何事情吗？如果是这样，这种不断的否定就毁掉了你，削弱了你的力量。
38. Have you been living in negation for years, denying your ability to succeed, denying your health, denying your Godhood, denying your power to accomplish anything, by feeling yourself a child of the Devil or of weakness? If so, this constant negation has paralyzed you and weakened your power.
39. 在接下来的课程中，你会学到与否定相反的东西：肯定，然后，你就会知道如何摆脱失败并获得成功了。
39. When, in the next lesson, you learn something about affirmations, the opposite of denials, you will know how to lift yourself out of the realm of failure into that of success.
40. 你全部的幸福、健康和力量都来自于上帝。它们从这个源头源源不断地流入你生命的中心，并从这个中心向周围传播开来。如果你始终承认这点，拒不认为外界的事情能够妨碍你的幸福、健康或力量，那么，它就可以帮助你获得健康、力量和幸福。
40. All your happiness, all your health and power, come from God. They flow in an unbroken stream from the fountainhead into the very center of your being and radiate from center to circumference. When you acknowledge this constantly and deny that outside things can hinder your happiness or health or power, it helps you to realize health and power and happiness.
41. 宇宙中的任何人、事或环境，都绝不可能妨碍你获得完满的喜乐。你可能会觉得，某些事物妨碍了你内心的愿望，让你在生活中无法实现那个愿望。但其实并不是这样的。这种“想法”就是床底下并不存在的妖怪。不断地否定它，你就会获得自由，并意识到这种表象完全是虚幻的。然后，你就会看到美好的事物向你涌来，清楚地知道没有任何东西能妨碍你。
41. No person or thing in the universe, no chain of circumstances, can by any possibility interpose itself between you and all joy -- all good. You may think that something stands between you and your heart's desire, and so live with that desire unfulfilled; but it is not true. This "think" is the bugaboo under the bed that has no reality. Deny it, deny it, and you will find yourself free, and you will realize that this seeming was all false. Then you will see the good flowing into you, and you will see clearly that nothing can stand between you and your own.
42. 可以在心中默念这些否定句，也可以念出声来，但不要用它们来对抗和争辩。
42. Denials may be spoken silently or audibly, but not in a manner to call forth antagonism and discussion.
43. 在有些人看来，这种想要拥有更属灵生活的呆板做法似乎显得非常怪异。有些人能够轻松自然地摆脱昔日的物质生活，不需要任何外界帮助就能拥有更属灵的生活。但也有成千上万的人基本上在追逐世俗成功的饼和鱼，然而，那些真心寻求更高人生道路的人必须遵行这些最初的步骤。对于这些来人来说，如果他们想要净化自己的心灵和人生，想要更多地认识上帝并在每件事情中都获得满满的喜乐，那么，最好的做法莫过于全心全意并毫无偏见地实践这些呆板的做法。
43. To some, all this sort of mechanical working will seem a strange way of entering into a more spiritual life. There are those who easily and naturally glide out of the old material life into a deeper spiritual one without any external help; but there are thousands of others who are seeking primarily the loaves and fishes of bodily health and financial success, but who really are seeking a higher way of life, who must take these very first steps. For such, the practicing of these mechanical steps in a wholehearted way, without prejudice, is doing the very best thing possible toward attaining purity of heart and life, toward growth in divine knowledge and fullness of joy in all things undertaken.
