#123: The Water and the Blood

The Water and the Blood

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have come to know a great truth. You have accepted it in your mind. You have said to yourself that consciousness is the only reality, that your world is forever out-picturing what you are conscious of being, that imagining creates reality. This knowing is the water. It is clear. It is necessary. Without it you would still be lost in the confusion of a world that seems to happen to you. But I tell you tonight that this water, precious as it is, will not of itself bring your desire to pass. The salvation of a man, the realization of his desire, is not by water only, but by water and blood.

What is this blood of which I speak? It is the life you give to what you know. It is the feeling of the wish fulfilled. It is not enough that you understand the principle. You must live it. You must assume the very state of consciousness that corresponds to your desire and dwell in that assumption until it becomes your blood, your actual life. The man who has the water only can speak beautifully of the law. He can explain it to others. He can see clearly why his world is as it is. Yet his world does not change, because he has not yet shed his blood for the new state. He has seen the truth but has not become it.

This is the meaning of the ancient statement that he came not by water only, but by water and blood. The water is the recognition, the clear vision, the understanding that your consciousness is God, that your state of consciousness is your only demand upon life. The blood is the giving of yourself to that recognition. It is the moment when knowing becomes feeling, when the idea descends from the mind into the heart and becomes the very atmosphere in which you live. Without this shedding of blood there is no remission of the old state. The old man remains alive in you, and the old conditions continue to out-picture him.

You see, your desire, whatever it may be, is already furnished and prepared. It waits only for you to enter the consciousness of it. The man bearing the pitcher of water is the idea itself, the understanding that leads you to the place where fulfillment is possible. But you must follow him all the way into the upper room. You must not stop at the threshold of knowing. You must go in and make ready. To make ready is to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. It is to let the water become blood. It is to take the truth you have accepted and live from it as though it were already so.

When you do this, something profound occurs within you. The side of the old self is pierced. From that piercing flows the water and the blood. The water is the understanding you brought with you. The blood is the life you poured into it. And in that union the new state is born. The manifestation appears in your outer world because you have already given it life in your inner world. Signs follow. They do not precede. The embodiment comes after the assumption has become natural to you.

Many walk with the water and wonder why the promise is delayed. They say within themselves, “I know this is true. I know I should feel myself into the state of my desire.” Yet they remain in the old state. They think about the new state. They hope for it. They even pray for it. But they do not assume it. They do not shed their blood for it. And so the old man, the old feeling, the old demand, continues to go forth and the old supply answers it. Life is no respecter of persons. It gives to every man according to his state, not according to his knowledge of what his state should be.

Your state of consciousness is the spring of action. It is the directing force. It is that which creates the supply. If your state remains the state of one who knows but does not yet feel himself to be the fulfilled one, then the conditions of your life will remain unchanged. Knowledge alone does not change the demand. Only the feeling of the wish fulfilled changes the demand. Only when the water becomes blood does the supply correspond to the new state.

Think of it this way. The water is the vision of what you desire to be. It is the clear recognition that you could be that one, that it is possible, that the law supports it. But the vision alone is not the life. The life is in the blood you give to the vision. When you assume the feeling of already being that one, you are shedding your blood. You are saying in the depth of yourself, “This is no longer something I hope for. This is what I am.” And as you continue in that feeling, it becomes your blood. It circulates through your entire consciousness. It becomes natural. And when it is natural, it is embodied.

This is why the promise is always conditional. The turning spoken of in the ancient words is the changing of your state. You must turn from the feeling of the old man to the feeling of the new man. You must turn in consciousness. And that turning is not accomplished by water only. It is accomplished when the water of understanding is joined to the blood of assumption. Then life repents of the old and brings forth the new, for life simply responds to the demand you are now making upon it.

You cannot remain in the wilderness and expect to eat the fruits of Canaan. The wilderness is the place of knowing without living. Canaan is the place of living what you know. To cross over, you must shed the blood of the old feeling. You must give up the feeling of being the man who knows the law and enter the feeling of being the man who is the fulfilled desire. This crossing is not a future event. It is something you do in consciousness tonight. It is something you do by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled and continuing therein until it becomes your only reality.

When you have only the water, there is a certain dryness in your experience. You understand, yet you do not possess. You see the truth, yet you do not live from it. There is a gap between what you know and what you feel yourself to be. That gap is closed only when you shed your blood. Only when you take the truth into your feeling and let it become your life. Then the dryness is replaced by the living waters that flow from within. Then the promise is no longer something you look forward to. It is something you walk in.

The man who has the water only is still in the position of one who observes the law from without. He sees that it works for others. He sees that it must work for him. But he has not yet entered into the law as his own being. The man who has the water and the blood has entered in. He no longer observes the law. He is the law in expression. He does not hope that his assumption will harden into fact. He knows that his assumption is already fact in consciousness, and therefore must appear in his world. This knowing is not of the mind only. It is of the blood. It is the quiet certainty of one who has given his life to the state he desires.

You see, the desire you hold is not something you must create. It is something you must enter. It is already prepared. The upper room is already furnished. Your imagination has shown you the way when it presented you with the man bearing the pitcher of water. But you must follow that man into the place of embodiment. You must not be content to stand outside and admire the idea. You must go in and assume the feeling of the one who is already in possession. That assumption is the shedding of blood. That is the act that releases you from the old state and ushers you into the new.

Without this shedding there is no remission. The old state is not forgiven. It is not released. It continues to project itself into your world because you continue to live from it. But when you shed your blood for the new state, the old is remitted. It falls away of its own accord. You do not have to fight it. You do not have to deny it. You simply live from the new feeling, and the old feeling dies for lack of sustenance. This is the beautiful simplicity of the mystery.

Tonight you can prove this to yourself. You do not need more water. You already have the understanding. What you need is to let that understanding become your blood. Take the desire that is most alive in you. Do not merely think about it. Do not merely affirm it. Assume the feeling of it being already fulfilled. Feel the joy of it. Feel the relief of it. Feel the naturalness of being the one who has it. And continue in that feeling. Return to it whenever you remember. Let it become so much a part of you that you no longer have to reach for it. It is simply there. It is your blood. It is your life.

When this happens, you will discover that the thing you desired was never absent. It was only your consciousness of it that was absent. You were absent from the state. You were present with the knowledge of the state but absent from the feeling of it. Now you are present with both. The water and the blood are united in you. And in that union your world must change, for your world is forever the out-picturing of your state of consciousness.

This is the great secret. It is not a secret of accumulation. It is not a secret of more and more knowledge. It is a secret of embodiment. It is a secret of letting what you know become what you are. The man who stops at the water remains a student of the law. The man who adds the blood becomes the law in living expression. He does not merely know that he is the operant power. He lives as the operant power. He does not merely know that his assumption will harden into fact. He assumes, and the fact appears.

You are not asked to do anything difficult. You are not asked to struggle or to strain. You are asked only to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and to continue in that assumption until it becomes natural. That is the shedding of blood. That is the giving of your life to the new state. And that is all that is required of you. The rest is automatic. Life responds to the demand you are now making. And your demand is no longer the demand of one who knows but does not yet feel. It is the demand of one who feels himself to be, and therefore is.

So do not be content with the water alone. It has brought you this far. It has shown you the way. But the way must be walked in feeling. The idea must become flesh. The vision must become blood. Only then does the promise fulfill itself. Only then does your world bear witness to the truth you have accepted. Only then do you move from the man who knows about the creative power of consciousness to the man who is that creative power in expression.

This night, as you close your eyes, let the water you have received become blood. Let the understanding you carry become the feeling from which you live. Let the truth you have accepted in your mind descend into your heart and become your very life. For in that union of water and blood you are saved. Your desire is realized. Your world is transformed. And you stand revealed as the one you were always meant to be — not the knower only, but the living embodiment of the truth that sets man free.