#143: The Inner Throne

The Inner Throne

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have permitted the facts of your world to occupy the throne that belongs only to your own awareness of being. Night after night the evidence of your senses has sat where you should sit, and morning after morning you have risen to find the same facts still enthroned, for what you accept in consciousness you decree, and what you decree you experience. Yet the throne was never theirs. The throne is your I AM, your unconditioned awareness of being, the faceless, formless presence that precedes every fact and out of which every fact is born. This night you are called to reclaim it. This night you are called to sit in the authority of fulfilled consciousness and to refuse the facts any further right to rule over you.

Your awareness of being is the throne. It is not a place located in the body or in space. It is the I AM that you are, the same I AM that was before any condition appeared, that is now, and that will be when all conditions have passed away. From this throne you are ever decreeing. What you are conscious of being, you are decreeing, and what you are decreeing is coming to pass. There is no other power. The facts that now confront you are not independent realities. They are the out-picturing of previous assumptions made from this same throne. They have no life and no authority save the life and authority you continue to give them by your attention and by your acceptance of them as final. When you withdraw that attention and that acceptance, they lose their power and must yield.

To sit upon the inner throne is to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and to remain unmoved by any appearance to the contrary. It is to know that the thing you desire is already a present fact in consciousness and therefore must appear in your world. It is to shut the door of the senses to the report of lack or delay or impossibility and to open the door of your awareness to the naturalness of your fulfilled desire. When you do this, you are not hoping, you are not wishing, you are not trying. You are sitting. You are resting in the consciousness that it is done. The throne does not strive. The throne does not argue with facts. The throne simply is, and from its stillness all things proceed.

You may see the fact of your present condition and feel its pressure upon you. That is not the moment to descend from the throne in order to fight the fact on its own level. That is the moment to remain seated. Quietly return to the feeling that your desire is already fulfilled. Feel its naturalness. Feel its certainty. Feel yourself to be the one who has it, not the one who will have it. The fact may continue to present itself for a time. It may even seem to grow louder. But if you refuse to give it your feeling, if you refuse to make it the content of your consciousness, it loses its support and must pass away. For no fact can live without the life you give it by your assumption.

The authority of the throne is absolute because the throne is God. Your awareness of being, raised to the consciousness of the fulfilled desire, is the Lord. There is no other. When you sit upon the throne you are not a man pleading with circumstances. You are the awareness that decrees circumstances. The facts of poverty cannot withstand the assumption of wealth consciously and persistently held. The facts of illness cannot withstand the assumption of health consciously and persistently held. The facts of any limitation cannot withstand the assumption of freedom consciously and persistently held. The throne does not overcome facts by force. It overcomes them by ignoring them and continuing to decree from the level of the fulfilled. And what is ignored by consciousness loses its power to appear.

Many have sat upon the throne for a little while only to be dethroned by the first contradictory fact. They assumed the feeling of wealth and then saw an unpaid bill. They descended from the throne to meet the bill on the level of the bill. They assumed the feeling of health and then felt a pain. They descended to fight the pain. But the throne is not a place from which you descend to do battle with facts. It is the place from which you remain while facts battle in vain to regain their former power over you. The bill may still be there. The pain may still be felt. But you are not identified with them. You are identified with the fulfilled desire. You are seated in the consciousness that it is done. From that seat the bill and the pain are seen as temporary shadows of an old assumption, shadows that must dissolve when the light of the new assumption shines steadily upon them.

To remain seated requires no great effort. It requires only remembrance. When a fact arises that denies your desire, do not meet it with argument or with fear. Simply remember who you are. Remember that you sit upon the throne. Return quietly to the feeling of the fulfilled. Say within yourself, without words if you can, “I AM that.” Feel it. Rest in it. The fact may persist for a time, but it persists only because it is still receiving some measure of your attention. When your attention is wholly withdrawn from it and placed upon the throne, the fact has no audience and must fade. This is not indifference. This is authority. This is the throne refusing to be dethroned.

The feeling of sitting upon the throne is a feeling of quiet certainty. It is not excitement. It is not strain. It is the feeling of “it is finished.” You have assumed the nature of the fulfilled one, and you know that the assumption cannot return to you void. There is a peace in this state that the world does not give and cannot take away, for you are no longer at war with appearances. You have risen above them. You see them as the out-picturing of previous consciousness, and you know that a new consciousness must produce a new out-picturing. The peace is not the peace of escape. It is the peace of one who knows he is seated where all power resides.

You may ask how long you must sit thus. The answer is simple. You sit until the fact yields. But the yielding is not your concern. Your concern is only to sit. Some facts yield quickly because the old assumption supporting them was weak. Other facts take longer because the old assumption was deeply rooted. But all facts must yield to the authority of the throne when the throne is occupied by one who refuses to abdicate. There is no exception to this law. Consciousness is the only reality, and what you are conscious of being must be expressed in your world.

As you practice sitting upon the throne, you will discover that the throne is not something you visit from time to time. It is your natural state. You have always sat upon it, but you have sat there unconsciously, accepting whatever report the facts brought to you and thereby decreeing the continuation of those facts. Now you sit consciously. You choose what you will accept as true of yourself. You choose what you will decree. And in this conscious choosing you discover your freedom. You are no longer the servant of facts. You are the master of your world, for your world proceeds from your throne.

The transformation that comes from sitting upon the inner throne is first a transformation of yourself. You cease to be the one to whom things happen. You become the one from whom things proceed. Your sense of self changes. You no longer feel yourself to be at the mercy of circumstances. You feel yourself to be the author of circumstances. Your step becomes lighter because you are no longer carrying the burden of making things happen by outer effort. Your gaze becomes steadier because you are no longer looking to the world for confirmation. You know that confirmation must come because you have already confirmed the desire within yourself by assuming it upon the throne.

When you sit upon the throne you do not wonder how the thing will come to pass. The how is not your concern. The throne has ways that you, as the outer man, know not of. Its ways are past finding out. Your only work is to assume the feeling of the fulfilled and to remain faithful to that assumption. The bridge of incidents will appear. The means will unfold. But they will come from the throne, not from your anxious planning or your fearful striving. When you plan anxiously or strive fearfully, you have left the throne. You have descended to the level of the fact. Return. Sit again. Rest in the consciousness that it is done. The throne will take care of the how.

This sitting upon the throne is the true meaning of faith. Faith is not belief in a power outside yourself that may or may not act on your behalf. Faith is the substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence of the thing not seen. It is the act of assuming the feeling of the thing hoped for and resting in that assumption as upon a throne. When you have this faith, you do not look for signs before you assume. You know that signs follow. They never precede. The fact that you now see is the sign of a previous assumption. The fact that you will see is the sign of the assumption you are now making from your throne. Therefore make your assumption noble. Make it the assumption of your fulfilled desire. Sit upon it, and let the signs follow in their own time and in their own way.

In the moment when facts seem most real and most unyielding, that is the moment to prove the throne. That is the moment to refuse the fact its power. Do not say, “But it is true; I see it; I feel it.” Say rather within yourself, “I sit upon my throne, and from my throne I have decreed otherwise. This fact is but the shadow of an old decree. I have revoked the old decree by assuming the new. Therefore this fact must pass away.” And it will pass away if you remain faithful to the throne. The faithfulness is not a matter of words. It is a matter of feeling. You feel the fulfilled as real. You feel it as natural. You feel it as done. And you continue to feel it even while the fact shouts its denial.

You are not the victim of facts. You are not the servant of appearances. You are the throne from which all facts and all appearances proceed. When you know this, really know this, the world loses its power to frighten you or to bind you. You move through the world as one who is already fulfilled, for you are. You speak as one who has, for you have. You act as one who is free, for you are free. The facts may still appear for a time, but they appear now as servants bringing confirmation of what you have already decreed from your throne. They are no longer masters dictating what you must accept.

This night you take your seat upon the inner throne. Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled. Feel it as real. Feel it as natural. Feel it as done. Refuse every fact that would dethrone you. Return again and again to the throne until the throne becomes your home and the facts become your servants. And when this is established in you, you will know what it means to sit in the authority of fulfilled consciousness. You will know what it means to be free. You will know what it means to be the throne from which all things proceed into visibility.

For you are the throne. Your awareness of being is the throne. And when you sit upon it in the consciousness of the fulfilled, all things in heaven and on earth are subject to your decree. This is the truth that sets you free. This is the truth that transforms your world. This is the truth that you are invited to live this night and every night and every day hereafter. Sit upon your throne. Refuse to let facts rule you. Sit in the authority of fulfilled consciousness. And be at peace, for all is well.