#120: The Scale of Being

The Scale of Being

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You are not fixed forever in the condition you now call your life. The circumstances that seem so solid, the limitations that appear so real, the feelings of lack or struggle that press upon you — these are not permanent walls. They are the natural out-picturing of the state of consciousness in which you are now dwelling. There is a scale of being, an infinite ladder of states rising within you, and you possess the power to leave any lower rung and ascend to one above it. This night I speak to you of that ascent, not as a future hope but as a present possibility, for the scale is not outside you in some distant heaven; it is the very structure of your own awareness.

You have been taught by the world to believe that your state is caused by what happens to you. You point to the evidence of your senses and say, “See how poor I am, how limited, how unwell, how unloved.” But the evidence is not the cause. The evidence is the shadow cast by the state you have assumed. Change the state and the shadow must change. Remain in the state and the shadow remains, no matter how desperately you struggle with the outer picture. The scale exists whether you know it or not. Every man, every woman, is always standing somewhere upon it. The only question is whether you will remain where you are or rise.

To rise is not to exert greater effort upon the things round about you. It is not to manipulate persons or to force circumstances. To rise is to assume, quietly and feelingly, the consciousness of a higher level. You do not climb by thinking about the higher state; you climb by feeling yourself to be in it. The feeling is the elevator. When you can feel the naturalness of being wealthy while you still see the appearance of poverty, you have already left the lower rung. When you can feel the naturalness of being loved while the world still shows you indifference, you have already ascended. The outer world may not yet have caught up with your new position, but it is already beginning to rearrange itself, for consciousness is the only reality and the world is its faithful reproduction.

Consider what it means to be on a lower rung of this scale. There the “I” feels small, helpless before events, dependent upon the goodwill of others, subject to the whims of fortune. In that state every effort seems to meet resistance. Every desire seems to require a battle. The body feels the weight of limitation. Relationships feel strained or absent. But this is not the truth of the “I”; it is only the truth of the state. The “I” itself is forever free to move. It is the same “I” that can, in the twinkling of an eye, assume the feeling of the opposite. The moment it does so, the ascent has begun, even though the senses deny it and the old state protests.

You may say that you have tried to feel differently and nothing changed. But feeling is not a single effort; it is a persistent dwelling. You do not visit the higher state for a moment and then return to the lower as your home. You make the higher state your home. You return to it whenever you become aware that you have slipped. Each return weakens the old state and strengthens the new. In time the new state becomes the one to which you naturally return, and then the world must reflect it. There is no other way. The scale yields only to assumption.

The Bible is filled with this mystery, though it is seldom read in this light. Men are told to “go up into the mountain,” for the mountain is the symbol of a higher state of consciousness. They are told that those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength and mount up with wings as eagles. Waiting upon the Lord is not passive waiting for something outside; it is active dwelling in the feeling of the desired state until that state becomes your Lord, your awareness of being. Then you mount up. The wings are not given to the lower state; they are the natural expression of the higher state itself.

You do not need to know how the ascent will manifest. The how is not your responsibility. Consciousness, when it is placed in a higher state and left there, knows its own ways and means. It prepares the bridge of incidents. It moves people and events without your conscious devising. Your only task is to keep the feeling alive within you. Do not argue with the evidence of the senses. Do not try to make the lower state agree with the higher. Simply withdraw your attention from the lower and give it wholly to the higher. Attention is the life of any state. What you attend to you keep alive. What you ignore withers.

Many remain on the lower rungs because they believe the scale is fixed by birth, by circumstance, by the opinion of others, or by some mysterious fate. But the scale is not fixed by anything outside your own assumption. You can be born into the most limited of states and yet rise above it, for the “I” is not the state. The “I” is the awareness that can assume any state. The man who discovers this is no longer a victim of his world; he is the operant power within it. He knows that whatever he assumes with feeling must be expressed, for there is no fiction in consciousness. Every state is real while it is occupied, and the only question is which state you choose to occupy.

To ascend the scale is to die to the old man and to put on the new. The old man is not your body; the old man is the old assumption, the old feeling of limitation, the old conviction that “this is the way I am.” When you assume a higher state and persist in it, the old man dies of neglect. He is not slain by violence; he simply loses his vitality because you no longer feed him with your attention. The new man lives because you give him your feeling. This is the true meaning of being born again. It is not a future event reserved for the righteous; it is a present act available to anyone who will assume a higher state and dwell in it.

You may wonder what state to choose. Choose the one that seems most natural to the life you would live. If you feel poor, choose the state of financial freedom. Do not try to imagine the specific sum or the specific channel through which it will come. Simply feel the freedom, the ease, the natural abundance. If you feel unloved, choose the state of being cherished. Feel the warmth of being wanted, the quiet certainty of being valued. If you feel weak or ill, choose the state of radiant health. Feel the vitality, the lightness, the effortless strength. The particular form the state takes is not your concern. Your concern is only to feel the state itself as present and natural.

As you persist, you will notice a subtle but profound change in your reactions. Things that once disturbed you will lose their power. People who once seemed to oppose you will seem less important or will even become helpful. Opportunities that seemed closed will open without effort on your part. This is not because the world has suddenly become kind; it is because you are no longer in the state that made a hostile world necessary. The world is always the reproduction of the state. Change the state and the reproduction changes.

There will be moments when the old state reasserts itself. You will catch yourself feeling poor again, or unloved, or limited. Do not condemn yourself. Simply notice that you have descended and quietly return to the higher feeling. Each return is easier than the last. Each return shortens the time you spend on the lower rung. In time the higher state becomes your permanent dwelling place, and the old state becomes a memory that no longer has the power to pull you back.

The scale is infinite. There is always a higher rung. Even when you have risen far above your present level, there remains a still higher state in which the things you now consider great appear small. Do not be concerned about reaching the top, for there is no top. Be concerned only with rising from where you are. Each step upward reveals new possibilities, new freedoms, new joys. The higher you stand, the more natural it becomes to assume even greater things, until at last you realize that the only limit was the limit of your willingness to feel yourself greater than you had formerly believed.

You are not asked to believe in a God who is other than yourself. You are asked to believe in your own awareness of being as the only God, and to know that this awareness can be placed at any point upon the scale. When it is placed in a higher state and left there, it draws to itself everything necessary for the expression of that state. It does not beg; it assumes. It does not struggle; it rests in the feeling of already being. This is the Sabbath of which the mystics speak — the inner rest that follows the successful assumption. You have done all that is required of you when you have assumed the feeling of the wish fulfilled and have remained faithful to it.

Tonight, before you sleep, test this law for yourself. Choose one state higher than the one you now occupy. It need not be spectacular. It need only be higher. Feel yourself in it. Do not imagine the future; feel the present. Feel the naturalness of it. If doubts arise, do not fight them. Simply return to the feeling. Let the feeling be the last thing you are aware of as sleep comes. Then sleep in the conviction that you have already risen. When you wake, you may find the world unchanged, but you will not be unchanged. Something subtle yet real will have shifted within you. Persist night after night, and the shift will become a transformation. The world will catch up with the state you have assumed, for it has no choice.

You are not a grasshopper in the presence of giants. You are awareness itself, and the giants are but the shadows cast by lower states. When you rise, the giants shrink. When you assume the feeling of the giant, the former giants become as grasshoppers to you. This is not arrogance; it is the simple recognition that consciousness is the only reality and that you determine the level at which you stand.

The scale of being is not a doctrine to be believed; it is a law to be tested. Test it tonight. Assume the higher state. Dwell in it. Persist in it. And discover for yourself that you are not bound by the conditions you see. You are bound only by the state you assume. Rise, and the world rises with you. This is the eternal promise, and it is kept the moment you keep faith with the higher feeling within you.

You are the scale. You are the awareness that can stand at any level it chooses. Tonight you stand higher than you stood when this lecture began, for you have heard the possibility and have felt, if only for a moment, the naturalness of a greater state. Carry that feeling with you. Return to it whenever the old state calls. And know that every time you return, you ascend. The ladder is infinite, and your capacity to rise is without limit. This night you have begun to move. Continue, and all that belongs to the higher state must appear, for consciousness never fails to express what it assumes with feeling. You are already rising. Feel it, and it is so.