#117: A Formula for Victory

A Formula for Victory

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have been contending with walls that seem to rise higher with every effort you make to scale them. You have reasoned, you have struggled, you have asked how the thing you desire could ever come to pass, and the more you have asked the more the walls have appeared to thicken. Yet there is a formula for victory that requires no battle with these walls, no measuring of their height, no calculating of the strength needed to bring them down. It is a formula so simple that the wisdom of the world calls it foolishness, yet it is the only formula that has ever brought victory to any man under any circumstance. It is the formula of choosing the end, feeling it real, and persisting until fact.

To choose the end is to fix your attention upon the state you desire to experience and to fix it there without regard to the means by which it will appear. The end is not a future event; it is a present state of consciousness. When you choose the end you are declaring what you are now conscious of being. You are not asking that something be added to you; you are claiming that the state is already yours. This choice is made in the quiet of your own awareness. You do not announce it to the world. You do not argue its possibility with the evidence of your senses. You simply decide what it is you would have and you place the sole of your understanding upon that state as the place where you now stand.

Many choose an end and then immediately begin to qualify it. They choose health but add the condition that it must come in a certain way. They choose abundance but insist that it come through channels they can presently see. They choose freedom but continue to look at the chains. In so doing they have not truly chosen the end; they have chosen the end plus the old state. The formula requires that you choose the end pure and simple. You define it clearly in your mind. You see yourself as the one who already possesses it. You do not see the road that leads to it; you see only the city itself. For the city is given to you the moment you tread upon it in consciousness, and you tread upon it the moment you assume that you are already there.

To feel it real is the very heart of the formula. Choosing the end without feeling it real is like declaring a destination while remaining seated in the old place. Feeling it real means that you close your eyes to the world that denies your desire and you live, for a time, in the world of your assumption. You do not look at the state; you live in it. You feel the solidity of its ground beneath your feet. You feel the naturalness of its atmosphere around you. You feel the satisfaction of one who has already attained. This feeling is not a feverish effort to believe something you doubt. It is a quiet acceptance of the state as your present reality. You assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and you abide in that feeling until it becomes the dominant mood of your consciousness.

You remain in this feeling until you experience a conscious reaction of complete satisfaction. This reaction is the sign that the psychological state has been captured. It may come as a deep inner peace, as a sudden release of tension, as a quiet joy that fills the breast, or simply as the certain knowledge that it is done. When this reaction comes you have trodden upon the city. You have placed the sole of your foot upon the state you desire. The walls may still stand in the outer world, but in consciousness they have already fallen. For consciousness is the only reality, and what is established in consciousness must objectify itself in the world of form. The reaction of satisfaction is the evidence that the assumption has been accepted by the deeper levels of your being. It is the amen to your choice.

Now you persist. Persistence in this formula is not the persistence of strain or of anxious repetition. It is the persistence of standing still in the state you have assumed. After you have felt the satisfaction, you open your eyes and return to the tasks of the day, but you do not return to the old state of consciousness. You carry the inner certainty with you. You stand still in the knowledge that the end has already been chosen and felt real. This stillness is the Sabbath rest, the interval between the subjective and the objective, the period in which the assumed state matures into fact. In this stillness you do not question the how. You do not look back at the walls. You do not measure the distance between where you seem to be and where you desire to be. You simply rest in the conviction that what you have assumed is already so.

The world will present its contradictions. The senses will report that nothing has changed. Old doubts will rise and suggest that the formula is too simple, that you have not done enough, that something more is required. But you persist by refusing to be moved from the state you have assumed. You do not fight the doubts; you ignore them by returning, again and again, to the feeling of the end. Each time you return to the feeling you strengthen the assumption. Each time you stand still in the satisfaction already felt you weaken the power of the old state. Persistence is not a fight; it is a refusal to leave the place where you have placed the sole of your foot. It is the quiet knowledge that the law is at work and that no power in the universe can prevent the embodiment of a state that has been chosen, felt real, and persisted in.

This formula transforms your sense of self. You cease to be the one who is seeking victory and you become the one who has already won. The seeker is forever at a distance from his desire. The victor is already in possession. When you choose the end and feel it real you step out of the consciousness of the seeker and into the consciousness of the victor. This change of consciousness is the true victory, for the outer circumstances must conform to the inner state. You do not become victorious by overcoming the world; you overcome the world by becoming victorious in consciousness. The formula therefore does not ask you to change your circumstances first. It asks you to change your state first, and the circumstances follow as a matter of course.

The one who applies this formula discovers that effort of the old kind is no longer necessary. The struggle to make something happen gives way to the quiet assumption that it has already happened. The anxiety about the future gives way to the peace of the present state assumed. The constant questioning of how gives way to the simple living from the end. You go about your daily life, not as one who is trying to bring about a change, but as one who is living in the consciousness of the change already accomplished. And because you live from this consciousness the world you encounter begins to reflect it. Opportunities appear that were not visible before. People respond differently. Events arrange themselves in ways that confirm the state you have assumed. You do not force these things; you watch them unfold. You stand still and see the salvation of the law at work.

To live this formula tonight you need no elaborate preparation. In the quiet of your room, or even in a moment stolen from the busy day, you can choose your end. Define it clearly. See yourself as the one who already possesses it. Then close the door of the senses and enter the state. Feel its reality. Abide in its satisfaction until the reaction comes. Then rest. Carry that rest with you into sleep or into activity. Whenever the old state asserts itself, whenever the walls seem to rise again, you simply return to the feeling. You do not argue. You do not despair. You assume again the state of the victor and you stand still in it. For the formula is not a single act performed once; it is a way of living from the end until the end has objectified itself completely.

The majesty of this formula lies in its universality. It applies to every desire, every problem, every condition that seems to stand between you and the realization of your ideal. There is no circumstance so entrenched, no wall so high, no opposition so great that it can withstand the assumption persisted in. For the assumption is not a weak hope; it is the placing of your consciousness upon a new state. And consciousness, being the only reality, must express what it contains. The formula therefore does not depend upon favorable conditions. It creates favorable conditions out of itself. It does not wait for the world to change; it changes the world by changing the state from which the world is viewed.

You will find, as you live this formula, that the interval between assumption and realization varies with the depth of the old state and the naturalness of the new. Some assumptions objectify quickly because the old state offers little resistance. Others require longer persistence because the old state has been deeply accepted. But the law remains the same. Choose the end. Feel it real until the reaction of satisfaction is yours. Stand still in that satisfaction and watch it come to pass. Do not measure the time. Do not compare your progress with another. Simply persist in the assumption until the fact appears. For the fact must appear when the assumption is persisted in. There is no power that can stop it.

The formula for victory is therefore not a secret reserved for the few. It is the open secret of consciousness itself. Every man is applying some formula every moment of his life. He is either assuming the state of his desire or he is assuming the state of his problem. He is either treading upon the city of his ideal or he is standing before its walls. The formula revealed here simply makes conscious what has always been done unconsciously. It shows you how to assume deliberately the state you desire rather than the state you fear. It shows you how to persist in the assumption until it hardens into fact. And when you have learned this you have learned the only art there is: the art of living from the end.

As this truth sinks deeper into your consciousness you will feel a quiet authority rising within you. You will no longer be at the mercy of appearances. You will know that appearances are but the out-picturing of states, and that states can be changed by assumption. You will walk through your days as one who has already chosen, already felt, already received the inner reaction of victory. And because you walk in this consciousness the world will rearrange itself around you. Not because you have forced it, but because you have assumed the state that compels the rearrangement. This is the formula for victory. It is simple. It is certain. It is yours to use now.

Tonight, before you sleep, choose your end. Feel it real. Rest in the satisfaction. Stand still in the knowledge that the city is already yours. And tomorrow, and the days that follow, persist in that knowledge. For the walls are not your concern. The city is. And the city is given to every man who places the sole of his foot upon it in consciousness and refuses to remove it until the fact appears. You are that man. You have chosen. You have felt. You are persisting. Victory is already yours. Stand still and see it come to pass.