#141: The Occupied State

The Occupied State

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You visit the state you desire in your imagination. You see yourself as you would be if the wish were fulfilled. You even feel its atmosphere for a little while. Then you return to the old familiar state, the one you have occupied for so long, and the world remains unchanged. This is the experience of many who have touched the truth yet have not realized their desires. They visited the state. They did not occupy it. And you do not manifest what you visit. You manifest only what you occupy in consciousness.

Consciousness is the only reality. There is nothing else from which your world is made. What you are conscious of being, you express. What you occupy as the very ground of your awareness, you bring forth in form. This is not something you must make happen. It is something that happens because you have occupied the state. You cannot occupy a state without expressing it. You cannot express a state you have not occupied. The law is simple, changeless, and ever at work.

To occupy a state is to feel yourself to be the thing desired as a present fact. It is not to think about the state as something you will one day possess. It is not to hope for it or long for it. It is to take it as your identity now. The man who occupies the state of abundance feels himself to be abundant. He does not feel that abundance is coming. He feels that he is already the abundant one. This feeling is not forced. It is natural. It is the way he sees himself and the way he views his world. And because he occupies this state, abundance must appear in his affairs. The means may be unknown to him. The how may be unexpected. But the expression is certain, for he has occupied the state from which abundance must come.

The same principle holds for health. The man who occupies the state of health feels himself to be healthy. He does not dwell upon the evidence of disease. He does not fight symptoms. He feels the naturalness of health as his present condition. He views his body and his world from the state of health. And the body, being the out-picturing of the occupied state, conforms. Symptoms may linger for a time, but they have no root in the state he now occupies. They fade, because he has left the state of disease and taken up residence in another.

Most men visit the desired state much as a traveler visits a foreign city. They enter it in imagination. They enjoy its feeling for a moment. They even tell themselves that it is so. But they do not remain. They do not take up permanent residence. They return to the old state, the state of their present limitations, and that old state continues to produce its likeness in their world. The visit, however pleasant, changes nothing. For the law is not moved by visits. It is moved only by occupation. A thousand visits to the state of wealth will not produce wealth if you continue to occupy the state of poverty. One true occupation of the state of wealth will begin the change, for you have left the old state and taken up the new.

To occupy a state is to change your conception of yourself. It is to rise in consciousness to the level of the fulfilled desire and to dwell there. You no longer think of the desire as something apart from you. You feel it as something you now are. The feeling of the wish fulfilled is the feeling of occupation. It is the feeling of "I am" rather than "I will be." It is the feeling of rest rather than effort. It is the feeling of naturalness rather than strain. When you occupy the state, you do not strain to believe. You simply feel it as so. And this feeling, this simple feeling of is, is the creative act.

You are always occupying some state. There is no moment when you are not conscious of being something. Even now, as these words are heard, you occupy a state. If it is not the state you desire, then you must leave it. You cannot occupy two states at once with equal conviction. One will dominate, and that one will express itself in your world. Therefore, choose wisely the state you will occupy, for it will become your world. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot remain in the state of lack and expect to express abundance. You must leave the one and occupy the other.

The biblical story of the promised land reveals this truth in dramatic form. The land was seen. Its fruits were tasted. It was visited in consciousness. But those who saw it did not occupy it. They saw themselves as grasshoppers in their own sight. They occupied the state of the grasshopper, not the state of the conqueror. And so they wandered for years in the wilderness of their own consciousness. To enter the promised land is to occupy it. It is to feel yourself already in possession of it. It is to cross over in consciousness, to burn the bridges of the old state, and to stand upon the new as your rightful home. Then the walls fall, not by your effort, but because you no longer occupy the state in which those walls exist.

When you occupy a state, you do not ask how it will come to pass. You do not concern yourself with the means. For the means are not your concern. Consciousness, being the way, knows the way. Its ways are past finding out. Your only concern is to occupy the state, to feel its naturalness, to let it become the very tone and color of your consciousness. Then the how takes care of itself. The bridge of incidents appears. The means unfold. But these are secondary. The primary thing is occupation.

You may say that you have tried to occupy the state and nothing happened. But did you truly occupy it, or did you visit it? Did you feel it as your present reality, or did you feel it as a future possibility? Did you return again and again to the old state to check whether the change had occurred? If you did, then you never truly left the old state. You visited the new, but you occupied the old. And the old continued to express itself. To occupy the new state is to burn the bridges behind you. It is to cease to be the man who desired and to become the man who has.

The feeling of occupation is the feeling of being rather than becoming. It is the feeling of completion rather than longing. When you occupy the state of being loved, you do not visit it by imagining someone loving you for a moment and then returning to the feeling of being unloved. You occupy it by feeling yourself to be beloved now. You feel the warmth, the security, the naturalness of being cherished. You view your world from that state. And because you occupy it, the world must reflect love to you. People, circumstances, events—all must conform to the state you have taken as your own.

The same is true of every state. The state of success, the state of freedom, the state of peace, the state of abundance—each is a state of consciousness that can be occupied. And when occupied, it expresses itself without effort, without struggle, without the need to make anything happen. For what you occupy, you express. What you do not occupy, you do not express. The world you see is the world you occupy in consciousness. It cannot be otherwise.

You do not have to change the world. You do not have to change other people. You do not have to change circumstances. You have only to change the state you occupy. And the world, being the mirror of consciousness, will change to reflect the new state. This is the great freedom. This is the great power. You are not at the mercy of the world. The world is at the mercy of the state you occupy.

When you occupy a state, you do not ask the world to change. You do not beg or plead. You simply rest in the state. You live from the state. You let the state be the ground of your being. And the world, having no choice, conforms. For the world has no life of its own. It lives only as you give it life by occupying the state that produces it.

The doubts will arise. The senses will deny. The old state will seem more real than the new. This is natural. The old state has been occupied for a long time. It has momentum. But momentum is not power. The power is in the state you now occupy. Do not give the old state power by returning to it in consciousness. Do not visit it to see if it has changed. Remain in the new state. Occupy it. And the old state, no longer occupied, loses its power. It fades from your world as it has already faded from your consciousness.

You may think that to occupy a state is difficult. But it is not difficult. It is simple. It is the simplest thing in the world. It is simply to feel yourself to be what you desire to be. It is to let that feeling be natural. It is to let that feeling be you. The difficulty arises only when you try to occupy the state while still occupying the old state. You cannot serve two masters. You must leave the old and take up the new. And when you do, the new expresses itself, and the old disappears.

The occupied state is the state of faith. Not the faith that hopes, but the faith that knows. When you occupy the state, you know that it is so. You do not believe that it will be so. You know that it is so. And this knowing is the substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence of the thing not seen. It is the faith that makes all things possible to the one who occupies it.

Tonight, when you close your eyes, occupy the state of your fulfilled desire. Do not visit it and then fall asleep in the old state. Occupy it. Feel it as natural. Feel it as done. Feel it as you. And in that feeling, sleep. For in sleep, the occupation deepens. The state takes root in your consciousness. And when you wake, you wake with the power to continue the occupation. The day will not claim you as it once did. For you have a new home. You have occupied a new state. And from this new state, your world is made new.

As you go about your affairs, carry the occupied state with you. Do not leave it behind. View every person, every circumstance, every event from the vantage point of the occupied state. See how it must appear to one who occupies the fulfilled desire. And as you do, the old reactions fade. The old fears dissolve. The old limitations lose their grip. For you no longer occupy the state in which they lived.

You are the occupier. You are the one who chooses. And in your choice lies your freedom. Choose the state you desire. Occupy it. And be free. For the occupied state is the fulfilled state. It is the state in which you have become one with your desire. And when you are one with your desire in consciousness, the desire must express itself in form.

You do not manifest what you visit. You manifest what you occupy. Occupy the state of your fulfilled desire, and the manifestation is already on its way. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be delayed beyond the time required for the state to express itself. Rest in this knowledge. Rest in the occupied state. And let the world bear witness to what you have occupied.

This is the truth. It is simple. It is profound. It is eternal. And it is yours to use. Use it. Occupy the state. And know that what you occupy, you express. What you occupy, you become. What you occupy, you manifest. This is the law. And there is no other. The end is already in the beginning when you occupy the state. For the state contains within itself the plan of its own expression. You need not know the plan. You need only occupy the state. And the plan will unfold from within the state itself.

So rest in the occupied state. Rest in the knowledge that what you occupy, you express. Rest in the certainty that the world is already changing because you have changed the state you occupy. And in this rest, you will find the peace that passes understanding, the joy that no man can take from you, and the fulfillment that is the natural fruit of occupation. You are not the victim of your world. You are the occupier of the state that creates your world. And when you change the state you occupy, you change your world. There is no other way. There is no other cause. Consciousness, your awareness of being, is the only reality, and it forever out-pictures the state it occupies. Occupy the state of your desire, and it is done.