#144: The Mirror of Assumption

The Mirror of Assumption

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have looked upon your world and asked why it refuses to give you what you prefer. You have wished for health while sickness remained. You have wished for abundance while lack persisted. You have wished for love while loneliness stood before you. The reason is not hidden in some outer power. The reason is simple and direct. Life is the mirror of assumption. It reflects with perfect fidelity not what you prefer, not what you wish, not what you hope for, but what you have assumed to be true of yourself in consciousness.

The mirror does not argue. It does not choose. It does not withhold. It simply reflects the image placed before it. That image is your assumption. When you assume a state, you accept it as true. You feel it as your own. You no longer stand outside the state looking at it with desire. You occupy it. You live in it inwardly. And the moment this inner occupation is established, the mirror begins its faithful work. It out-pictures the assumption in the events, the conditions, the people, and the circumstances of your daily life.

You are ever out-picturing that which you are conscious of being. This is not a pleasant theory to be believed or disbelieved. This is the law of your own being in action every moment. Your world in its every detail is your consciousness out-pictured. There is no other cause. The mirror of life does not create. It reveals. It reveals the state you have accepted as real within yourself. If the reflection is unwanted, the fault is not in the mirror. The fault is in the assumption that stands before it.

Many prefer a different reflection. They prefer health to sickness, wealth to poverty, freedom to bondage, love to rejection. Yet they continue to see the unwanted image. They have preferred, but they have not assumed. Preference is the desire standing apart from the state. It is the longing that remains outside. Assumption is the desire embodied. It is the feeling of the state as already true. The mirror cannot reflect what stands outside it. It can only reflect what has been accepted inside consciousness.

Consciousness is the only reality. Whatever you assume this consciousness to be, that is what appears. You assume yourself to be poor, and though you prefer riches, the mirror shows poverty. You assume yourself to be sick, and though you prefer health, the mirror shows illness. You assume yourself to be alone, and though you prefer companionship, the mirror shows solitude. The assumption is the command. Consciousness obeys by solidifying the assumption into form. The outer world is not the cause of your experience. It is the effect. It is the mirror faithfully returning to you the image of your own inner act.

To change the reflection you do not rub the glass. You do not plead with the mirror. You do not demand that conditions change while you remain in the old assumption. You change what stands before the mirror. You rise in consciousness to a new assumption. You feel yourself to be the healthy one. You feel yourself to be the wealthy one. You feel yourself to be the loved one. You feel yourself to be free. This feeling is not a mood that comes and goes. It is the quiet, steady acceptance of the state as true. When this acceptance becomes natural, the mirror must change. It has no choice in the matter. It can only reflect what is placed before it.

The feeling of the wish fulfilled is the assumption made visible to yourself. It is not something you do in order to get the thing. It is the thing itself accepted in consciousness. When you feel yourself to be what you formerly only preferred, you have performed the inner act that sets the mirror in motion. The mirror then arranges everything necessary to make the assumption visible in your world. It brings the means, the events, the opportunities, the people. But you do not concern yourself with the how. The how is the mirror’s work. Your work is the assumption.

You cannot serve two masters. You cannot assume the new state and at the same time continue to assume the old by reacting to the old reflection as though it were still real. Every time you look at the unwanted image and feel it as true, you feed the old assumption. The mirror simply continues to show what you continue to assume. To break the old reflection you must turn your attention from the mirror and dwell in the feeling of the new state. You must assume it until it becomes more natural than the old. Then the old image fades, and the new appears in its place.

This turning from the old to the new is the meaning of being born again. The old man is the old assumption. The new man is the new assumption. When you assume the new state and feel it as true, the old man dies in consciousness and the new man is born. The mirror then reflects the new man. Your world does not change for you. You change in consciousness, and because your world is the mirror of that consciousness, your world changes with you. This is the great freedom hidden in the simple truth. You are not the victim of life. You are the author of the assumption that life mirrors.

The assumption feels strange at first because the old assumption has become natural through long habit. The mirror will continue to show the old image for a time, and this is the moment when many turn back. They see no change in the reflection and conclude that the assumption has failed. But the mirror is only showing what was assumed before the new assumption was established. As you persist in feeling the new state as true, the interval between assumption and reflection grows shorter. The old image loses its power because you no longer feed it with your attention. The new image appears because you have given it life in consciousness.

Do not condition the assumption. Do not say you will assume health provided the doctor agrees. Do not say you will assume wealth provided the way appears reasonable. Do not say you will assume love provided the other changes first. The assumption is unconditional. It is the feeling of the state as already true, without regard to the present evidence of the senses. The mirror does not require your permission or your understanding of the means. It requires only the assumption. When the assumption is pure, the reflection follows in its own way and in its own time.

The doubts will arise. The old assumption will speak through the mirror and say that nothing has changed. These doubts are not enemies to be fought. They are simply the echo of the old state. They have no life of their own. They live only as long as you assume them. When doubt appears, you return quietly to the feeling of the new assumption. You feel again that you are the healthy one, the wealthy one, the loved one, the free one. You do not argue with the doubt. You simply assume the new state more firmly. In the presence of the living assumption the doubt dissolves.

You are the sole cause of the image you see. There is no one to change but self. The mirror does not show you what others have done to you. It shows you what you have assumed about yourself and about them. When you change the assumption, the mirror changes the reflection, and others must conform to the new image. For the world is yourself pushed out. Every person, every condition, every event is the mirror’s way of showing you the assumption you hold. When this is seen, blame ceases. Struggle ceases. You no longer fight the reflection. You go within and assume the state you desire to see reflected.

The assumption is not pretending. It is not imagining something that is not. It is the recognition that consciousness is the only reality and that whatever is assumed in consciousness must appear. When you assume a state, you are not lying to yourself. You are declaring the truth of consciousness. You are saying, “I AM this,” and consciousness, being God, brings forth the image of that declaration. The mirror is only the outer confirmation of the inner declaration.

Persist in the assumption until it becomes natural. Naturalness is the key. When the state feels natural to you, the mirror responds quickly. When the state still feels like something you are trying to reach, the response is delayed. The feeling of naturalness comes through repetition of the inner act. You assume the state in the morning. You assume it during the day whenever the old reflection draws your attention. You assume it as you fall asleep at night. Each assumption strengthens the new state until it becomes the dominant feeling of your consciousness.

In this naturalness you find rest. You rest from the effort to make something happen. You rest in the knowledge that the assumption has already set the mirror in motion. You go about your daily affairs in the feeling of the wish fulfilled. You speak, you act, you meet others, all from the place of the new assumption. And because you rest in it, the assumption solidifies. The mirror, having no other material to reflect, brings forth the image of your rest.

The mirror of assumption reveals the great secret of causation. There is no fiction in your world. Everything that appears has been assumed. The things you call chance or accident or the work of others are only the mirror’s faithful reflection of assumptions you may not have recognized. When you begin to recognize every reflection as the image of some assumption, you cease to be surprised by the mirror. You look instead to the assumption and change it if the reflection is not what you desire.

You have preferred many states. Now you may assume them. Assume the state of health so completely that the feeling of health is more real to you than the feeling of sickness. Assume the state of wealth so completely that the feeling of abundance is more natural than the feeling of lack. Assume the state of love so completely that the feeling of being loved and loving is your constant inner companion. Assume the state of freedom so completely that limitation feels foreign. In each case the assumption is the same inner act: the feeling of the state as true.

This feeling does not deny the present reflection. It simply refuses to accept the present reflection as the truth of consciousness. The reflection is the past assumption made visible. The new assumption is the present feeling that will become the future reflection. You live between the two. You live in the new assumption while the old reflection still lingers. But as you remain faithful to the new, the old fades and the new appears.

The mirror asks nothing of you but the assumption. It does not require that you understand how the reflection will change. It does not require that you see the way before the way appears. It requires only that you feel the end as true. When you do this, the mirror becomes your servant rather than your master. It brings you the evidence of your assumption. It confirms in form what you have already accepted in consciousness.

Tonight you can begin. As you close your eyes, assume the state you have preferred. Feel yourself to be it. Do not strain. Do not effort. Simply accept it as true. Let the feeling fill your consciousness. Let it be the last feeling before sleep. And in that feeling know that the mirror has already received its command. The assumption has been given. The reflection must follow. For life has never done otherwise than mirror what you assume yourself to be.

You are free to assume any state. There is no state too noble, too healthy, too abundant, too loving for you to assume. The mirror places no limit upon you. It only waits for you to choose what you will place before it. Choose wisely. Choose the state that fulfills your desire. Assume it with feeling. Persist in it until it becomes natural. And the mirror of life will reflect the glory of your assumption in every detail of your world.

This is the truth that sets you free. You are not bound by the reflection. You are bound only by the assumption that creates the reflection. Change the assumption and you change the reflection. Assume the best of yourself and the mirror will show you the best of life. Assume it now. Feel it now. And in the quiet certainty of your assumption, know that the mirror has already begun its work. For you have discovered the secret. Life reflects what you assume to be true of yourself. And you are the one who assumes.