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INTRODUCTION
by
Ron Raben
I would like to say to my readers, that in no way am I a person who is trying to lead anybody. What I am trying so hard to do is share some wealth I have found, and want to give it to anybody who can use it. It is a loving act, and I would be so honored to have the friendship of those who are happy with my gestures. I am so grateful to the ordinary people like myself, who shared with me some of their successful knowledge about life and living, and finding contentment and happiness. I want as many friends as I can have. I also want very much to be liked by my fellow men and women, and to accomplish many positive things that I was given by other strangers who became friends and loved ones to me. What a great way to leave.
Chapter 1
THE STORY OF MY AFFIRMATIONS
This is a story about how affirmations finally took away my suffering and depression, and changed my life drastically from constant misery to complete happiness and contentment.
My name as you already know, is Ronald Raben, and I am going to be ninety two years old this February. Besides what I just said previously, I feel that writing my story, will help me continue to feel much younger as I am feeling right now, and to continue in my years ahead. If these writings and the telling of my story helps even one person achieve the peace of mind that I have been receiving for the last fifty or so years, then I will have succeeded, and I feel my soul will pass on in an even happier state.
The affirmation story is about a simple process that was given to me about fifty years ago to try to change my life from depression, complete unhappiness, and a lot of negativity. One day during my first marriage, which lasted twenty five years, my first wife asked me to sit down, as she had something important to say to me. She started off by telling me “Ron, you know that your father is really a very sweet man, but he is completely negative, and he worries about too many things that will probably never happen. And you are the same way, Ron.” I immediately associated with that statement, and I knew she was right. I believed that without a doubt I had the same problem. I believed that I inherited that in my DNA from my father and the generations before him. My first wife had been teaching a course called Transcendental Meditation, which I knew very little about and I had no desire to know more about it. However, I took her advice and made an appointment with her teacher and associate, Dr. Lionel Day. She called him that evening at home and made an appointment for me to go there after he closed his daytime business. Six days a week he ran an advertising agency.
Three days later, after driving about thirty minutes, I arrived at his advertising office shortly after six p.m. The front door was locked and I knocked on the misty frosted glass which had the name of his business on it. He opened the door and we shook hands as he led me in and motioned for me to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk. I sat down and after the first two minutes of listening to the words that came out of his mouth, I knew right then that my life was going to make a big change. What he was saying made logically perfect sense, and as I listened to his words, it turned out I was one hundred percent correct. Big time! He explained to me that the human brain is the best computer on this planet. Man-made computers have probably caught up with the one we were born with, and they are continually improving. But they will always lack the human element.
For most of my life I did not like school or formalized education. But when I retired here in The Villages of Florida, and after meeting my mentor and friend Dr. Dale Sams, I started to take some of the hundreds of classes that are offered here from retired professors, clergymen, psychiatrists, successful businessmen and women, and with Dale’s friendship and teachings, I have learned and come to believe that the computer-brain that we are born with is filing away information from the time you are in your mother’s womb. And that information is being stored away until the earthly knowledge you acquire after birth, is able to translate and be filed away to be deciphered as you mature. I learned from these teachers that scientists have said that the human brain controls over seven trillion cells in our body, and that we are born with our own programming from our inherited D.N.A, and also from how we were raised and brought up in our early years by our parents, relatives, and friends. My wife’s associate, Lionel, also told me the same thing. And he said even though we are born with a D.N.A program from our ancestors, which is continually developing from birth and through our early years, our computer-brain can be reprogrammed at any time if you want to take the trouble to give it a try. I was told that it was a very easy and simple process, and I am going to tell you shortly how to go about doing that.
Lionel also told me from the start that you do not have to believe in God, if you chose not to. But he said that you must start your affirmations whatever time of the day or night you choose to say them, with two preambles. And this is very important. You must say:
I have absolute faith that the Divine Spirit of God within me
will help me forgive myself
and all those who have brought me unhappiness in the past and present,
whether they meant to or not.
The second one that is said right after that is:
I have absolute faith that the Divine Spirit of God within me
is working in and through me
giving me radiantly perfect health, inner peace, abundant wealth
and the success and recognition I truly need
for my greatest good and happiness
Emotionally spirituality, and materially.
He told me once again that I do not have to believe in God…but just follow the instructions about saying the two affirmations regarding the Holy Spirt within me. After that you can start to make them up however and whatever way you care to, and you can use any wording or sentencing that makes your point. There is not a wrong way to
say your affirmations when using your own words, as long as you acknowledge before you start, by saying The Holy Spirit of God within me. Any positive wording that you come up with is adequate, as long as it is coming from love and your honesty. I was told by my first teacher that you can repeat yourself as many times as you like, and your sentences don’t have to be grammatically correct. You can make errors here and there, but as long as you get your point out in your own words, however grammatically correct or incorrect they are, they will work for you. That analogy (source) has worked for me for the last fifty five years, and the rewards have been unbelievable.
My Personal Affirmations
I am going to give you just one or two samples of my affirmations that I say every night before going to sleep. Hopefully they will give you an idea of how vast the possibilities are for your speaking honestly from your heart, through the Holy Spirit. Once again, I want to say that you can say them any way you want as long as you get your point across. I believe your computer-brain will automatically accept the information, which will helpfully ensure your reprogramming.
After saying those two necessary opening ones having to do with the Holy Spirit of God, I would then start my affirmations along these lines and add and picture the body parts I want to remain healthy…my heart, or my kidneys, and so on. I always affirm for me not to have any cancers in any part of my body for the next year. After that, I mention all my other body parts, and contemplate normal wear and tear, along with age circumstances, and I let my imagination determine the degree of the disfunction. I break it down to a year at a time, because I feel my computer-brain will operate better that way. However, I feel that it is up to each individual to experiment and keep it as simple as possible.
I kept adding a few more here and there and after the first six month, I was up to saying about almost an hour’s worth of affirmations having to do with my body and my bodily parts. I may have overdone some of the wording, but I believe that does not matter as long as I honestly repeat it over every night, and add on extras as they come into my mind. For instance, I would say “I affirm to have no cancers in my arms, and no cancers in the muscles in my arms.” I believe that there is no harm in using your imagination to cover all the bases. It is entirely in your ball park as to what makes you most comfortable. For those body parts that are going to react with age, I left some space.
My memory was excellent remembering back through all my years, and I had no problems. Everything seemed to have reacted positively, and it was not until many years later when I reached the age of eight-nine that my memory stopped working that well. I started to forget many of my affirmations, and I made the decision to write them down and print out a final copy to be read, or read them from my computer every night. In all honesty, I know I had forgotten some of them that I had been quoting from
memory all those years, but as I said, there are no rules if you do them from your heart and to the best of your honesty and ability.
When my memory started to fail me, I decided to break down my affirmations and divide them into sections which I read from every night. I took the liberty of just saying each night one of the three sections on file in my computer. By doing so, I shortened the time element, so that my reading of my affirmations now takes only about thirty-five minutes in total. As you can see, I believe we can take great liberties along the guidelines that I feel we should follow.
The first section was about my health, as I have told you.
The second section for the next night was the affirmation where I thank God for all the people that have come into my life as far back as I can remember, along with those who are still coming into my life, and how much I love them and how they have helped me in so many ways. I picture the face of each person who has been instrumental in teaching and mentoring me to become who and what I am, and to teach me how to love everybody, and pass it on. I finish by affirming for each face I am picturing that they have wonderful health, great happiness, peace of mind, and more than abundant wealth. And I thank God for each one of those that have enriched my life and helped me to become who and what I am.
The third section was also about the people in my life. But with this one, I sent blessings and affirmations FOR all of them, that they also have perfect health, inner peace, great happiness, great spirituality and more than abundant wealth.
As you can probably notice, I feel I have complete freedom to do my affirmations in the way that makes me happy and comfortable, and as long as I feel they are the way our creator would want us to do them. But number ONE…I am thanking God within me for bringing every one of them into my life.
Once again I would like to say that these are MY words and thoughts and desires. I believe everybody should phrase them in THEIR own way. It is very personal, and I believe our intent is the most important factor.
Many sources appeared with every step I took, and for me, the beauty in all the messages that have come into my life are that they are very simple and contemporary, and I am so comfortable not to have to quote writings that are tens of thousands of years old. I feel the words I read and learn from these writings today answer every question in my mind, and I have no problem understanding them in their simplicity.
Having gone through the Covid experience, and being unable to think clearly, I am finally getting better, and my memory is top notch for my age. During the epidemic, my mind seemed to be in a sleep mode, and I had no desire to try to write or try to pass on my new belief system. Now I am thinking and writing down my thoughts as fast as I
can, lest I forget them, and I am trying to share them with you, which is one of my most important goals for me in this lifetime.
Chapter 2
The Early Years
I grew up in a home where my father’s father was a very orthodox Jewish rabbi, who came from a long line of rabies in Lithuania. My dad came here as a six year old boy with his two brothers and one sister. All my grandfather’s children and siblings, after having arrived in this great country, grew up and became very Americanized. One of the big changes in all their lives was that none of them wished to carry on in their father’s and their ancestor’s footsteps. They all knew of their heritage, and were very proud to have been born into the Jewish race. However, even though they were born from generations of high Holy Rabbis, they and all their siblings became very conservative in their religious belief system. Every one of them grew up and raised wonderful families that adapted and lived out very loving and honest lives. They and all their families were and are successful in their professions, and fair in their treatment of fellow human beings. Why they dropped out of their father’s strict orthodox practices is open for discussion, but I do know that my sister Joan and myself were not into that heavy belief system at all.
Out of respect for our grandfather; Rabbi Morris Rabinowitz, we went along with a few of the very important beliefs from our family’s orthodox background. All the male children and grandchildren had to go through the ritual of bar mitzvah at the of age of thirteen, when the Bible said that they had reached manhood. We had to study for that ceremony for about two years, reading books that we had to memorize, in a language we didn’t understand. The bar mitzvah ceremony was performed in the temple in the Hebrew language, and most of us did not know what was being said. However, we did get the gist of the background behind it, and we were thankful for us being forced to go to Hebrew school classes every Sunday morning.
I was also thankful for the sweet wonderful lady that taught the class in English, without any accent, and for those two years, I got a fairly good version of the history of our ancestors. The Saturday morning of the bar mitzvah, we had to give an acceptance speech. It was probably the only part of the ceremony that I fully understood, as we gave it in English. Even though I didn’t feel like I had become a man at that point, I was brainwashed to believe that there is a God, that he stood for some pretty important rules, and that we were given the free choice to obey or disobey. Even though I didn’t always practice it, I did believe in good and bad, and that there were punishments for not complying with the rules.
I grew up having the belief that there is a God for everybody, and every race, but I could not fathom many things that didn’t make sense to me. During most of my early years, I told myself that I had many more important things to accomplish and figure out, like keeping a job, and raising a family. And maybe one day, I would look for the answers more closely.
I had been saying the affirmations for many years, and I had changed them along the way when all of my affirmations were blossoming. One of the changes I made was in the opening affirmation where I ask for abundant wealth. I took the liberty of adding and changing the words to “more than abundant wealth.” I followed my gut-feeling, which told me not to affirm for things like winning the lottery, or specific items that might be considered greedy. The voice within me guided me to make many decisions, and for me, they all seemed to work out very well.
After my second wife passed on, life took its twists and turns.
The crowning glory of my affirmations was after 22 years . I was now 55 years old, and I was dating. One day I realized that the dating game was not for me. So that night, when I went to bed, I added a new affirmation which went this way:
I have absolute faith that the Divine Spirit of God within me
will bring me a reflection of my soul.
The next day, I went into my restaurant and an old friend and neighbor whose name was Uncle Rhem came over to me and said, “Ron, I know you are going through a rough time. And I just wanted to tell you that my wife and I were happily married for 64 years, and owe it all to a church we belonged to here in Fort Lauderdale.” And then he said to me, “Would you like to go with me tomorrow?” And I said “Absolutely!”
The next morning, he drove me there to the church. As we pulled up, I was taken with what I was seeing…people talking and hugging in the parking lot. When we entered the church, people came up to me, introduced themselves, and started hugging me. I was overtaken with the demeanor of the different speakers, and the messages they were giving seemed to be in line with everything I was thinking and feeling. But then, after the service during coffee hour, my affirmation was answered. I was introduced to Joyce.
We talked, then went out for brunch together, and I found that we seemed very compatible. I asked for her phone number, and waited two week before I called her because I didn’t want to “come on” too strong. But when I DID call, she said “If you can find my house here in the Everglades, we have a date.”
I knew without a doubt that I had received an answer to my greatest affirmation, and had finally met…
“…the reflection of my soul…”
We were married two months after that first date, and it has been the happiest 36 years of my life.
When I was seventy two, my third wife Joyce and I moved to a retirement community in central Florida called The Villages. It was and is truly like a Disney World for seniors, and even though I kept trying to start new businesses at that late age, I found out that I better stop trying to prove myself, and look into other things. It was then that I realized I now had the time for those things that in my earlier years I had ignored. This came to me shortly after moving to this community of one hundred and forty thousand people.
Chapter 3
The Later Years
During the first week in our new retirement community, I met that new neighbor one afternoon, and he invited me in to his home to have a chat. As I entered his home, he led me into his office, which was the exact size and location of that room in our house.
His name was Dr. Dale Benton Sams, and it turned out to be another one of the biggest days for moments that changed my life. As he led me in his office, which was the same exact duplicate room that was in our house, my jaw dropped. Our room was our den and television room, and we had our large TV along with an out-of-this-world leather massage chair and other body and mind comforters. His office had three or four desks joined together, with five computers on them. Along with the different computers, there were two extra large computer screens amongst them, and right in front of all of that sat two humongous microscopes at the edge of one of the desks. I Immediately asked about them, and he quickly reached up into his closet to the top shelf, and pulled down a book and as he handed it to me he said, “‘I am a doctor of microscopy and I have written this book about blood work in human beings. Would you like me to take a sample of your blood and analyze it?” I said “Sure.”
After taking some drops of my blood, he showed them to me. He had placed them on a small little glass panel under the microscope. That one small drop of blood was magnified to where you could see three or four stacks of what looked like white lifesaver candies. They were in piles of four and five, with a few stacks of two. I had just started to learn how to make movies as a hobby in my senior years, and I always had a Sony movie camera hanging over my shoulder. So I filmed the images, and still have them filed away. He then said to me, “Ron, we need to make some changes to your diet. Would you like me to suggest a diet that will change your blood count back to where it should be?” I said, “Sure. Why not.”
Before I left his house, he had made a list of foods and beverages that he thought would help solve my problem. I took the list home and followed his instructions, and about four weeks later, he did another blood test. This time my blood corpuscles were all in stacks of two’s, with quite of few single ones. Boy, was I impressed! I have come to learn that he improved my immune system with the changes I made, and his second test proved that.
Getting back to that first day with him, I will never forget what was said, and how my life changed even more from that day on. The success with my affirmations was blowing my mind somewhat, and little did I know how this man’s knowledge would add to that success formula.
While sitting there, he started telling me the story about his life. I listened intently, and to this day I am still amazed at what I heard. I have written this part in detail in my first book, but I am going to try to condense it now. He told me that his mom had a bible-type book that she had given him as a gift at about the age of nine. She read aloud to him from it for many years. The family was also very church-going, and he knew the Christian bible very well. However, he told me that when he was given that new version, his whole life changed, and it kept changing, and became his inspiration for the rest of his life. Because of that book, he wound up applying for seminary school and was accepted to a Presbyterian college in Kentucky.
He continued with his story. “Ron, after studying The Urantia Book almost all of my life, I have written a page summing up the whole thing. I would like you to read that paper. “
Having so many unanswered questions about God, I was a little bit hesitant, but I said I would like that. I read that paper in less than a minute, and I still refer to it as The Paper That Changed My Life. Almost every thing I was searching for the answers to came before my eyes in the flash of that momentous minute. I became even more thrilled as I saw that the affirmations, along with almost everything I had been searching for, had been answered. It all made sense to me, and that was also what I had been looking for.
We remained very close friends and spent time with each other every day for six years, until he passed on, and went home.
Looking back, after studying and spending so much time with Dale, I remember and realize the experiences and changes that have come about from my saying my affirmations, and the lessons learned from Dale..
I also saw once again a connection to my whole new God belief system when I spent a year in AA. (Alcoholics anonymous). The spirituality that was discussed and taught there fits in with everything I have learned from The Urantia Book, my affirmations, and the people that have come into my life through my beliefs in their offerings.
And I am so grateful for that number one affirmation for me. That was answered the day when I was led to the Unity Church, and given the gift of meeting “the reflection of my soul” after affirming for it just the day before. That was when I was introduced to the great love in my life, my wife and best friend, Joyce. She has turned out to be the best person I have ever met in my whole lifetime..
Once again, almost everything I affirmed for during the last fifty-five years has appeared to me to have come true.
I would like to add: Last night, September 20, 2024, I heard on a national news broadcast in the television, that a famous scientist, and or physician, (my short term memory is not that good anymore), that they believe that our brains can be reprogrammed. I don’t remember if they said ‘our computer brain’, but I believe they inferred that.
It seemed to work for me. Perhaps it will work for you, too.
God bless.
Ron Raben
Sept 21, 2024
ronchefthree@yahoo.com