#114: Daniel in the Lions’ Den

Daniel in the Lions’ Den

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You find yourself, at times, locked in circumstances that roar like hungry lions. The evidence of your senses declares your desire impossible. The walls seem thick, the beasts starved and fierce, and every appearance conspires to convince you that you are at the mercy of forces beyond your control. Yet there stands before you an eternal demonstration, given in the story of one who was cast into just such a den and emerged not only unharmed but exalted. The story is not of a man named Daniel alone. It is the story of every man who discovers the secret of remaining faithful amid threatening appearances.

The lions that roar in your world are not beasts of flesh and blood. They are the threatening appearances that surround every desire: the unpaid debt that grows larger each day, the illness the physician has pronounced incurable, the opposition that seems to block every path, the loneliness that whispers you will never be loved, the failure that has repeated itself so often it now wears the face of destiny. These are the lions. They are not real in the sense that consciousness is real. They have no power to hurt you save the power you give them by your attention. When you stare at them, feed them with your fear, argue with them, or try to overcome them on their own level, you give them life. You place upon dead bodies the head of creation and wonder why they continue to live.

But there is another way. It is the way shown in the ancient record. While locked in the den, the prophet turned his back upon the lions and fixed his gaze upon the light that streamed from above. He did not deny the presence of the beasts. He simply refused to give them his attention. He looked toward the light. And the light was his awareness of being, his God. In that turning, in that quiet refusal to be moved by the evidence of the senses, the lions lost their power. They could not touch the one whose consciousness was fixed elsewhere. This is the great secret. This is what it means to remain faithful amid threatening appearances.

Faithfulness is not a stubborn belief in an external deity who may or may not intervene. Faithfulness is the persistent assumption that you are already the one you desire to be. It is the living, feeling conviction that the solution is already embodied in your consciousness, and therefore must appear in your world. When you turn your back upon the lions, you are not pretending they do not exist. You are withdrawing from them the only substance they possess—your attention. You are placing that attention upon the light, upon the feeling of the wish fulfilled. You are assuming, quietly and with certainty, the nature of the solution. You feel yourself to be free. You feel yourself to be healed. You feel yourself to be loved, to be prosperous, to be at peace. And you remain there.

This remaining is the faithfulness of which the story speaks. It is not a single act performed once and forgotten. It is a continuous dwelling in the consciousness of the fulfilled desire. The lions may roar louder for a little while. The appearances may seem, for a season, to grow more threatening. This is the old state protesting its dethronement. It is the twitching of the body after the head has been removed. But if you persist, if you refuse to turn back and look upon the lions, if you keep your gaze fixed upon the light within, the old state dies. It has no life except the life you give it by your attention. When that attention is withdrawn and placed upon the new assumption, the old must fade. The prison walls dissolve. You walk out of the den not merely delivered but elevated, for the same consciousness that frees you from bondage places you in the position prepared for the one who has assumed the nature of fulfillment.

You cannot serve two masters. You cannot look upon the lions and upon the light at the same time. The moment your attention returns to the problem, you feed it. You resurrect it. You give it power over you once more. This is why so many who begin the work of assumption fail. They assume the end in the quiet of the night, and in the morning, when the lions roar, they rush to the bars and stare at the beasts. They argue with the appearance. They try to reason it away. They wonder how it will happen. And in that turning back, they lose the very consciousness that would have delivered them. The story tells us that Daniel did not wonder how. He did not study the lions to discover their weakness. He turned his back and looked toward the light. That was enough.

The light is not another. It is your own awareness of being, now raised to the consciousness of the thing desired. When you feel yourself to be the solution, you are looking toward that light. When you accept the desire as already granted, when you give thanks for it as though it were already embodied, when you go your way in peace because you know the matter is settled in consciousness, you are looking toward the light. The lions cannot follow you there. They have no entrance into the consciousness of fulfillment. They remain in the darkness of the den, powerless, because you have ceased to animate them.

Consider what this means for you in the practical affairs of your life. You desire a certain state—perhaps freedom from financial pressure, perhaps the restoration of health, perhaps the harmonious relationship that seems so far away. The desire itself is the solution seeking embodiment. Every problem automatically produces its solution in the form of the desire to be free from the problem. You do not need to create the desire. It is already there, born of the problem. Your only task is to turn your back upon the problem and assume the nature of the desire. Feel yourself to be the one who is free. Feel yourself to be the one who is whole. Feel yourself to be the one who is loved and loving. Do not argue with the evidence that declares otherwise. Do not try to make the lions understand. Simply withdraw your attention from them and place it upon the feeling of the fulfilled desire. Remain faithful to that feeling.

This faithfulness will be tested. The interval of time between the assumption and its embodiment is the testing ground. During that interval the old state will do everything in its power to regain your attention. It will present new and more frightening lions. It will whisper that nothing is happening, that you were foolish to turn away, that the appearance is too real to be denied. These are the roars of the den. But if you have truly turned your back, if your consciousness is genuinely fixed upon the light, these roars will gradually lose their power to disturb you. You will discover a strange and wonderful peace in the midst of the seeming storm. You will know, with a certainty that no appearance can shake, that the matter is already settled. You are not waiting for something to happen. You are walking in the consciousness of that which has already happened in the only place where anything ever happens—consciousness.

The deliverance comes suddenly, often when you least expect it. You may be going about your daily affairs, still faithful to the inner assumption, when the walls that seemed so solid simply cease to be. The debt is paid from sources you could not have imagined. The physician shakes his head in wonder at what he now calls spontaneous remission. The person who seemed irreconcilably opposed softens and the relationship is restored. Or perhaps the change comes in a way you had not pictured at all, for consciousness has ways that the reasoning mind knows not of. The important fact is not the manner of the deliverance. The important fact is that it comes to the one who remains faithful.

You are not asked to believe in a God who dwells far off in space. You are asked to believe in your own awareness of being as the only reality. You are asked to believe that what you assume and feel to be true of yourself must externalize itself, because there is nothing in the world but the out-picturing of consciousness. The threatening appearances are not causes. They are effects. They are the shadow cast by a former assumption. When you change the assumption and remain faithful to the new one, the shadow must change. This is not a theory. It is the law of your own being, demonstrated again and again by those who have had the courage to turn their backs upon the lions and look toward the light.

Tonight, when you close your eyes, do not take the lions into your bed with you. Do not rehearse the problem. Do not wonder how it will be solved. Instead, turn your attention inward. Feel the I AM that is your true identity. Then, within that formless awareness, assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. If it is freedom you desire, feel the spaciousness of being free. If it is health, feel the vibrant wholeness of your body. If it is love, feel yourself embraced by the love you have assumed. Do not strain. Do not effort. Simply feel it as natural, as already so. And remain there. If the mind wanders back to the lions, gently bring it back to the light. Do this not as a technique performed for a few minutes, but as the way you live. For the one who remains faithful is the one who has made this turning a habit of consciousness.

In the days that follow, when the lions roar—and they will roar—do not be dismayed. Do not rush to the bars and stare at them. Do not try to overcome them by force of will or by clever reasoning. Simply remember where your attention belongs. Turn your back once more. Look toward the light. Feel again the quiet certainty that you are already the one you desire to be. The lions may seem very real. The den may seem very dark. But you have discovered the secret. You know that these appearances have no power over the consciousness that refuses to acknowledge them. They are like figures in a dream from which you are awakening. The more firmly you dwell in the feeling of the fulfilled desire, the more unreal they become.

There will come a moment when you realize that you are no longer in the den at all. You will look around and find that the walls have vanished, the beasts have disappeared, and you stand in a new and spacious place. You will not be able to say exactly when the change occurred. You will only know that it has occurred. And with it will come a deeper understanding of who you are. You are not the victim of circumstances. You are not the man or woman who was cast into the den. You are the awareness that can turn away from any den. You are the light itself. And when you know this, not as a pleasant thought but as the living reality of your consciousness, you will never again be afraid of lions. For you will understand that they have no life except the life you give them, and you have learned to give your life only to the light.

This is the promise hidden in the ancient story. Thy God whom thou servest continually, He will deliver thee. And this God is not another. It is your own wonderful human imagination, your awareness of being, raised to the consciousness of the fulfilled desire. Serve this God continually by remaining faithful to the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and you will find yourself delivered from every den. You will find yourself walking in a world that reflects not the old assumptions but the new. The lions will be silent. The prison will be no more. And you will know, with a certainty that nothing can shake, that you are free.

You are the operant power. You are the one who decrees, and the decree is fulfilled. You are the one who was in the beginning, who is now, and who is to come. And in your faithfulness to this truth, all threatening appearances lose their power, all prisons dissolve, and you stand forth as the one you have assumed yourself to be—delivered, exalted, and at peace. This is the end of the story. This is the beginning of your life lived from the consciousness of fulfillment. Remain faithful, and all things are made new.