#102: Whom Seek Ye?

Whom Seek Ye?

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

Whom seek ye? This is the question that confronts every man who finds himself in any form of want. You have answered it a thousand times with the name of the thing you believe will set you free. You have said, “I seek more money,” or “I seek restored health,” or “I seek the love of another,” or “I seek a better position.” Yet the answer you give is never the true answer, for the thing you name is not what you are truly seeking. You are seeking a state of self. You are seeking to occupy a particular consciousness, a particular feeling of being, in which that thing is already your natural experience.

The thing itself is never the object of your desire. The thing is but the effect, the outer picture, the shadow that must appear when the state is firmly occupied. Men remain in poverty while they seek wealth. They remain ill while they seek health. They remain lonely while they seek love. They do not understand that the state of poverty, the state of illness, the state of loneliness, is the very consciousness they continue to assume, and therefore the very state they continue to out-picture. The search for the thing while the state of its absence is still accepted is the reason the thing does not appear.

You are always assuming a state. There is no moment in which you are not conscious of being something. That something may be rich or poor, strong or weak, loved or unloved, free or bound. Whatever you are conscious of being, you are. And whatever you are conscious of being, you express. The world does not give you what you want. The world gives you what you are. This is why the question “Whom seek ye?” must be answered not with the name of a thing, but with the name of a state. When you say, “I seek wealth,” you are really saying, “I seek to be conscious of being wealthy.” When you say, “I seek health,” you are really saying, “I seek to be conscious of being well.” The savior you seek is never the thing. The savior is the state of consciousness in which the thing is already true.

You have been taught that you must seek first the kingdom, and all things shall be added. The kingdom is not a place. It is a state of consciousness. It is the awareness of being the one who already possesses what the world calls desirable. When you seek the kingdom first, you are not postponing the thing. You are establishing the only cause that can produce the thing. The thing has no life of its own. It lives only as long as you are aware of being its possessor. When your awareness of being the possessor fades, the thing fades with it. Therefore, the wise do not chase things. They assume the state of the one who has the things, and they dwell there until the state becomes natural.

The senses will always bear witness to the state you have most deeply accepted. If you are conscious of being poor, your senses will show you poverty. If you are conscious of being unwell, your senses will show you the evidence of illness. The senses are not the cause. They are the faithful reporters of the state you occupy. To change what the senses report, you must change the state. You do not argue with the senses. You do not deny what they show while still remaining in the state that produced it. You simply rise in consciousness to the state in which the opposite is true, and you dwell there. In that dwelling, the senses are compelled to change their report.

You ask how long this must be done. You ask what must be done when the senses continue to contradict. The answer is simple. You continue until the state becomes natural. You do not count the days. You do not measure the evidence. You simply feel yourself to be the one who is already what you formerly sought. The feeling of the state is the substance that clothes itself in form. When the feeling is established, the form appears. It cannot help appearing, for form is the shadow of feeling, and feeling is the substance of consciousness.

Many have sought for years and have grown weary. They have said, “I have assumed, and yet nothing has changed.” But assumption is not a single act performed once. Assumption is the persistent occupation of a state until it becomes the only state you are conscious of being. A single feeling, no matter how intense, will not rewrite the pattern of your life if it is followed by a return to the old state. The old state is the state of the seeker, the state of the one who lacks. The new state is the state of the one who has. You cannot occupy both at the same time. You must die to the one and live to the other. This dying and living is not a future event. It is the daily, hourly choice of the state you will assume.

When you lie down at night, you have the opportunity to choose the state in which you will sleep. Most men sleep in the state of their problems. They review the day’s lacks, the day’s fears, the day’s disappointments, and they fall asleep in that consciousness. They wake in the same state and wonder why the new day brings the same old results. But you who have heard this truth can do otherwise. You can assume, before you sleep, the state of the one who is already fulfilled. You can feel the relief of having what you formerly sought. You can feel the naturalness of being the person who lives in the condition you desire. And you can persist in that feeling until sleep comes. In that sleep, the state is impressed upon the deeper levels of consciousness, and the world must rearrange itself to reflect the new assumption.

The question “Whom seek ye?” is answered every time you feel yourself to be the one who has what you desire. When you feel yourself to be wealthy, you have answered, “I am he.” When you feel yourself to be well, you have answered, “I am he.” When you feel yourself to be loved, you have answered, “I am he.” The “I am” is your awareness of being. It is the only reality. It is the door through which every manifestation must pass. When you say “I am” and then name the state you desire, you are opening that door and inviting the expression to enter. When you say “I am” and then name the state you fear, you are opening the same door to the expression of that fear. The door is always open. The only choice is which state you will name.

You have believed that the thing you seek must come from outside yourself. You have looked to conditions, to persons, to circumstances, to bring you what you want. But the thing you want cannot come from outside, because the outside is only the projection of the inside. The world is your consciousness pushed out. When you change the state of your consciousness, you change the world that is pushed out from it. There is no other way. To continue to look outside for the change while the inside remains unchanged is to continue the search that never ends. The search ends only when you realize that what you have been seeking is a state of self, and that state is assumed by feeling “I am he.”

Consider what it means to be the one who is already what you desire. It means that the struggle is over. It means that the anxious watching for results is over. It means that you move through your day in the quiet certainty that the thing is already yours, not because you have seen it with your eyes, but because you have felt it with your consciousness. This certainty is not loud. It does not argue with appearances. It simply is. And because it is, the appearances must change to conform to it. This is the law that cannot be broken.

You who feel stuck in any area of your life are stuck only because you have remained in the state of the one who is stuck. The state of being stuck is a state of consciousness. It feels heavy, limited, without movement. But you are not required to remain in it. You can, in this very moment, assume the state of the one who is free, the one who is moving forward, the one for whom the way is open. You do not need to know how the way will open. You need only to feel that you are the one for whom it is already open. The feeling itself begins to arrange the incidents, the persons, the opportunities that will make the feeling visible in your world.

The senses will test you. They will show you the old condition and ask, “Where is the evidence of your new state?” But you do not answer the senses with argument. You answer them with persistence in the new feeling. You say within yourself, “I am he. I am the one who is already fulfilled. I am the one who lives in the condition I desire.” And you continue to say it until the senses grow silent and begin to report the new condition. This is not a battle. It is a simple choice of which state you will occupy. The state you occupy long enough becomes the only state you know, and the world must reflect it.

You have been told that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is not belief in a far-off event. Faith is the feeling of the state you desire as if it were already true. When you feel the state, you have the substance. When you have the substance, the form must appear. There is no power in the universe that can prevent the form from appearing when the substance is there. The only power that seems to delay it is your own return to the old state. Every time you feel yourself back into lack, you are rebuilding the old substance. Every time you feel yourself into fulfillment, you are building the new substance. The choice is always yours.

The question “Whom seek ye?” is not a question about the future. It is a question about this moment. In this moment, you are conscious of being something. That something is either the state you desire or the state you do not desire. There is no neutral state. You are always in one or the other. To seek is to admit you are not yet in the state. To assume is to enter the state. The moment you assume, the seeking ends. The moment the seeking ends, the thing begins to appear, for the thing was never separate from the state. It was only waiting for you to become conscious of being its possessor.

You who have grown weary of seeking can lay down the weariness tonight. You can say to yourself, “I am he. I am the one who is already what I have sought. I do not need to search any longer. I need only to feel myself into this state and to remain there.” And as you feel it, you will discover that the state was never far away. It was always within you as a possibility of consciousness. You were simply looking in the wrong direction. You were looking toward the thing instead of toward the state of being the one who has the thing. When you look toward the state and feel yourself to be already there, the thing appears as the inevitable consequence.

This is the great secret that frees men from the endless search. There is nothing to get. There is only a state to assume. When the state is assumed and persisted in, everything that belongs to that state comes with it. The money, the health, the love, the freedom — all are contained within the state. They are not added later. They are already there as the natural expression of the state. You do not have to make them happen. You have only to be the one in whom they are already happening.

So tonight, as you prepare to sleep, do not ask yourself how the thing will come. Ask yourself only, “What state am I assuming as I fall asleep?” If you assume the state of the one who has what he desires, you have answered the question “Whom seek ye?” with the only answer that can satisfy. You have said, “I am he.” And in that saying, in that feeling, the search ends and the fulfillment begins. You are not the seeker any longer. You are the one who is already fulfilled. And the world, which is only your consciousness out-pictured, must now bear witness to what you have become conscious of being.