#127: Enter Into

Enter Into

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have long waited for the evidence of your senses before you would consent to feel your desire as fulfilled. You have said within yourself, if only I could see it, if only some sign would appear, then I would believe. This is the very reversal of the law of creation. The sign does not come to persuade you to enter the state; you must enter the state, and the sign will follow as the inevitable shadow cast by your entrance. The fulfilled state is not something that awaits your proof. It awaits your entrance. And when you enter it, the proof is already on its way, for the state itself is the cause of all that appears.

To enter into the fulfilled state is to cease standing outside the image of your desire and to take up your dwelling within it. Outside the image it remains a mere possibility, shadowy and without substance. Within the image it becomes the only reality you know. You do not persuade yourself that it is real. You simply live from it as from a fact already accomplished. The feeling of it is not a future hope. It is a present possession. You walk in it, you think from it, you speak from it, and all your reactions are those of one in whom the desire is already realized. This is the act called entering in.

The world you see is always the out-picturing of the state you now occupy. Change the state and the world must change, for no world can persist when its sustaining state has been abandoned. You cannot change the outer by fighting the outer. You can only change the outer by entering a new inner state and remaining there until the outer conforms. This is why the command is not to struggle, not to argue with appearances, not to wait for better circumstances. The command is simply to enter. Enter into the consciousness that your desire is already fulfilled, and the circumstances must rearrange themselves around that new center.

Many believe they must first gather proof that their assumption is true before they dare to live in it. This is to put the cart before the horse. The proof is not given to the one who stands outside waiting. The proof is given to the one who has already entered and is living from the fulfilled state as a natural fact. When you enter, you do not feel that you are about to receive. You feel that you have received. The tension of waiting disappears. In its place comes a quiet, unshakable certainty that needs no outer confirmation to sustain it. This certainty is itself the substance that clothes your desire and brings it into visible form.

Consider what it means to enter. It is not a matter of repeating words or making affirmations from a distance. It is the act of assuming the very identity of the one who already possesses what you desire. If your desire is for a certain state of health, you do not remain the sick man affirming health. You enter into the state of the healthy man and live from there. If your desire is for a change in circumstance, you do not remain the man to whom the circumstance has not yet come. You enter into the state of the man for whom it has already come and you think, feel, and react accordingly. The entrance is complete when there is no longer any argument within you. The desire has ceased to be a desire and has become your present consciousness.

This entering is the true meaning of the biblical command to seek first the kingdom. The kingdom is not a place you reach after all things have been added. It is the state of consciousness you must first occupy, and from that occupation all things are added. You cannot occupy two states at once. You cannot remain in the consciousness of lack and expect the consciousness of fulfillment to appear. You must leave the one and enter the other. The leaving is as simple as the turning of your attention. The entering is as simple as the assumption of the feeling that it is already so. When this feeling becomes natural to you, you have truly entered.

The image of your fulfilled desire, when viewed from without, seems vague and uncertain. When you enter it, the same image becomes vivid, substantial, and alive. It is no longer something you hope will happen. It is something that is happening within you, and therefore must happen without. Blake spoke of entering into the image until it englobes itself and becomes a womb. This is not poetic fancy. It is the precise description of what occurs in consciousness. By your entrance you impregnate the state. The state then begins to bring forth in the outer world the forms that correspond to its nature. The child is not born to the one who merely contemplates the womb from afar. The child is born to the one who has entered and become one with it.

You are not asked to deny the evidence of your senses. You are asked to withdraw your attention from that evidence and place it wholly upon the new state. The senses will continue to report the old condition for a time. This is their nature. They are the reporters of what has already been created. They do not create. When you persist in the new state, the senses will eventually be compelled to report the new condition, for the outer world is always obedient to the inner state that sustains it. The interval between your entrance and the visible change is the interval in which your faith is tested. If you leave the state at the first denial of the senses, you have not truly entered. If you remain, the denial loses its power and the new state asserts itself.

Tonight, as you prepare for sleep, you may enter. Do not take your problems into sleep with you. Take instead the fulfilled state. Feel the wish as already realized. Do not strain to see how it will come to pass. Simply feel the naturalness of its presence. Let the feeling be as ordinary and as unquestioned as the feeling you have when you know you are in your own home. In this feeling you enter. And in this feeling you remain until sleep overtakes you. The sleep that follows such an entrance is the Sabbath rest of God. In it the creative power does its work without interference from doubt or fear. When you rise in the morning you rise still in the state you entered the night before. Carry it with you through the day. Return to it whenever the old state threatens to reassert itself. Each return strengthens your occupancy until the new state becomes your permanent dwelling place.

The man who has not entered remains the victim of circumstance. He waits for the world to change so that he may feel differently. The man who has entered knows that the world changes because he has changed. He does not wait for better conditions. He occupies the condition he desires and the better conditions appear. There is no other way. All attempts to change the outer while remaining in the old inner state are labor in vain. The labor that bears fruit is the labor of entering and remaining.

You may say that you have tried to assume the feeling and it did not work. But did you truly enter, or did you merely visit the state and then return to the old one? To visit is not to enter. To enter is to take up your abode there, to make it your home, to think from it as your natural ground. When you do this, the old state dies of neglect. It withers because you have withdrawn from it the attention that gave it life. The new state lives and grows because you have given it your life. This is the mystery of creation. You are the potter. The states are the clay. You give life to the state you enter and sustain.

The fulfilled state is not far off. It is not something you must earn or deserve or wait for. It is present now as a possibility in consciousness. Your entrance makes it actual. The moment you feel yourself to be the one who has received, that moment you have entered. All that remains is to persist in the feeling until it hardens into fact. Persistence is not stubborn effort. It is the quiet refusal to leave the state you have chosen. It is the calm dwelling in the end until the end has clothed itself in the garments of the outer world.

When you have truly entered, a strange and beautiful thing occurs. The very desire that once tormented you with its absence now lives within you as a quiet joy. You no longer feel the ache of longing. You feel the peace of possession. This peace is the sign that you have entered. It is the assurance that the creative power has accepted your assumption and is even now at work bringing it to birth. You do not need to tell anyone what you have done. The state itself will announce its presence by the changes it produces in your world. Men will wonder at the sudden good fortune that has come to you, not knowing that you entered a state and the state did all the work.

This is the great secret. You are not here to change the world by direct action upon the world. You are here to change the world by entering new states of consciousness. Every state you enter and sustain becomes a womb from which a new world is born. The old world dies only when you withdraw your sustaining power from it. The new world appears only when you give your sustaining power to it. Your power is your attention, your feeling, your assumption. When these are placed in the fulfilled state, the fulfilled state becomes your reality and all things arrange themselves accordingly.

Do not ask how long it will take. Time is not the measure. Your persistence in the state is the measure. Some enter and remain for only a little while before doubt drives them out again. Others enter and refuse to be moved. To these the fulfillment comes quickly, for there is no interval of wavering to delay the birth. The state that is entered and kept is the state that clothes itself in form. There is no exception to this law. It is as exact as mathematics and as impersonal as the sun that shines upon the just and the unjust alike.

You stand this night at the threshold of the state you desire. The door is not locked. The key is your own willingness to enter. No one can enter for you. No one can keep you out except yourself. The fulfilled state does not demand that you be worthy. It demands only that you enter. Enter, and you will discover that the state itself makes you worthy. Enter, and you will discover that the state itself supplies all that is needed for its own expression. Enter, and you will discover that you are not alone in the state. The creative power of the universe is with you, for you have given it the image into which it may descend and take form.

This is the meaning of entering in. It is the end of waiting. It is the beginning of creation. It is the simple, profound act by which a man ceases to be the victim of his world and becomes the master of it. For the master does not wait for the world to fulfill his desire. He enters the fulfilled state and compels the world to bear witness to what he has already accepted as true. Do this tonight. Enter into the state of your fulfilled desire. Remain there. And see what the entering will bring forth. For the promise is sure: to him that enters, all things are possible, and the things that are not yet seen will surely appear.