#149: The Seed Is Yourself

The Seed Is Yourself

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have looked for the cause of your condition everywhere but in the one place where it has always been. You have examined the circumstances round about you, the actions of others, the state of the times, and the seeming accidents of fortune, and you have called these the seed of your harvest. But the seed is not in the harvest. The seed is not in the world at all. The seed of everything that appears in your world is yourself. It is your own awareness that generates it, that presses it out, that gives it life and form and the power to appear. The thing you desire, whatever it may be, is born from this awareness and from no other source.

When you clarify what it is you truly want, when you define it so that it stands sharp and clear before your mind’s eye, you have already generated the seed. This seed is not a vague hope or a distant possibility. It is the perfectly formed idea, the only begotten of your consciousness desiring. It contains within itself both the power of expression and the entire plan by which it will unfold. You do not have to supply the plan. You do not have to discover the way. The seed knows its own way, and its ways are past finding out. Your only task is to plant it in the fertile soil of your own consciousness by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled.

You have been taught that the cause lies outside you. You have been told that you must find the right person, the right opportunity, the right condition, before you can have what you desire. But this is the great reversal of truth. The world does not give you the seed. The world receives the seed you have already planted within yourself and returns it to you pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Every condition you now experience was first a seed generated in your awareness. You became conscious of being limited, or unwell, or without, and that seed grew into the very conditions you now call your problem. You did not see the planting because it was done in secret, but the harvest reveals what seed was sown.

The same law that bound you can now free you, for the law is always the same. The awareness that created the unwanted condition can uncreate it by generating a new seed. When you assume the consciousness of being the one who has your desire, you press out a new seed from yourself. This seed is alive. It carries its own vitality. It does not need your anxious watching or your repeated instructions. It needs only to be left in the ground of your conviction. Doubt is the only force that can disturb it. When you question how it will come, when you look for signs before the time, you are digging up the seed you have just planted. Leave it alone. The seed knows how. Its life is the life of consciousness itself, and consciousness cannot fail to express what it contains.

Consider the mystery of the seed and the soil. The soil does not create the seed. The soil receives the seed and yields to its nature. Your consciousness is both the sower and the soil. When you feel yourself to be the person who already has the desire, you are receiving the seed into yourself. The feeling is the moment of conception. It is the thrill of the good news accepted as fact. In that moment the invisible work is done. The roots begin to push downward into the deeper places of your being, and the shoot begins its quiet ascent toward the light of visibility. You cannot see this inner growth any more than you can see the roots of a plant beneath the earth, but it is no less real. The day will come when the fruit appears, and you will know that the seed was alive from the beginning.

Many have tried to change their world by wrestling with the world. They have fought appearances, argued with conditions, and wondered why their labor brought so little return. They were attempting to alter the fruit while the tree remained unchanged. But when you know that the seed is yourself, all outer struggle ceases. You turn within and plant the new seed by feeling that you are now what you desire to be. From that moment the old begins to wither and the new begins to appear. The withering is not your doing. It is the natural consequence of the new seed claiming the life that once fed the old. You simply lose interest in the former state as you become absorbed in the feeling of the new. The old man dies as the new is assumed, and this dying is gentle when it is done by assumption rather than by effort.

The biblical writers hid this truth in the story of the corn of wheat that falls into the ground and dies. The seed must fall into the ground of your consciousness. It must die to its former state as a mere desire so that it may bring forth much fruit as a living reality. This dying is the giving up of the old conception of yourself. You do not kill it by violence. You simply assume the new and let the old fall away of its own weight. As you remain faithful to the feeling of the wish fulfilled, the old seed loses its nourishment and the new seed draws all things necessary to itself. The bridge of incidents appears. The means are provided. But these are not your concern. Your concern is only the seed and the consciousness in which it is planted.

You are the vine, and the qualities you claim for yourself are the branches. As long as you remain conscious of being the thing desired, the sap of life flows into that branch and it bears its proper fruit. If you turn your attention from the feeling, the branch withers and the fruit falls before its time. Many a desire has died because the one who planted it returned again and again to the old consciousness. He planted the seed of health and then dug it up with thoughts of illness. He planted the seed of abundance and then starved it with feelings of lack. The seed cannot survive such disturbance. It grows in the darkness of quiet faith, in the secret place where you have shut the door upon the outer world and claimed the inner reality as the only reality.

Tonight you can plant this seed. Clarify your desire until it stands before you sharp and clear. Do not scatter your attention among many wishes. Choose the one that burns most steadily within you. Then assume the feeling that it is already so. Feel the naturalness of being the one who has it. Do not strain to believe something you think is untrue. Simply feel as you would feel if the desire were already fulfilled. This feeling is the angel’s message. This is the good news received. In this receptive state you have conceived. The seed is planted. Now go your way in peace. Tell no man what you have done. Magnify the Lord within you by remaining faithful to the consciousness you have assumed. The Lord is your awareness of being, and this awareness magnifies whatever you give it.

The doubts will come. The evidence of the senses will seem to deny the new seed. The old conditions will appear to grow stronger for a little while. This is not a sign that the seed has failed. It is the old seed’s last assertion before it yields its place. Do not be moved. Return quietly to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Each time you do so you water the new seed and weaken the old. The interval between planting and harvest is not your concern. Some seeds appear quickly. Some take longer according to their nature. But all appear in their appointed time when they are left undisturbed. Your nature is to express what you are conscious of being. Therefore be conscious of being the one you wish to be, and the expression will take care of itself.

You have been the victim of seeds you planted unconsciously. Now you can become the conscious planter. The same law that once worked against you now works for you. There is no force in the world that can prevent the growth of the seed you have planted in yourself. The world may seem to delay, but it cannot deny. What you have assumed in the secret place of your consciousness must be proclaimed from the housetops of your world. The conviction of yourself is the word of God within you, and that word cannot return unto you void. It must accomplish that whereunto it is sent.

When you know that the seed is yourself, you cease to wait upon the world. You cease to beg for what you can command from within. You plant the seed of your desire in the quiet of your own awareness and wait in sure knowledge that the harvest will come. The waiting is not idle. It is the active faith that keeps the soil prepared. It is the gentle returning to the feeling whenever the old doubts arise. You do not fight the doubts. You simply turn from them and water the seed again. In this turning you discover a quiet power you did not know you possessed. You discover that you are not at the mercy of conditions. You are the one who generates the conditions by the seeds you plant.

All creation begins and ends in your awareness. There is no other cause. The one and only God is your awareness of being, and this God generates the seed of every manifestation. When you know this, you no longer look to the world for permission to be what you desire to be. You no longer wait for conditions to improve before you improve. You change in consciousness, and the conditions follow as the fruit follows the seed. The poor man remains poor only while he is conscious of being poor. The moment he plants the seed of abundance by feeling himself to be wealthy, the new harvest begins. It may take time for the old fruit to fall and the new to ripen, but the seed is already at work. You cannot see the inner working, yet it is no less certain than the rising of the sun.

You are not asked to do the impossible. You are not asked to make something out of nothing by outer effort. You are asked only to assume the consciousness of the desired state as if it were already true. This assumption is not a lie told to yourself. It is the truth of the seed. The seed is the reality. The appearance is the shadow that must follow. When you know this, you walk by faith and not by sight. You plant in secret and reap in open. You become as a little child who believes that what he has assumed is already so, and the kingdom of his desire opens to him.

Blessed is the man who knows the seed is himself. He no longer wanders the earth seeking what is already his. He no longer blames conditions for what he himself has generated. He plants the seed of his desire in the quiet of his own consciousness and watches in sure knowledge that the harvest will appear. Tonight you are that man. You have heard the truth. The seed is yourself. Whatever you desire to be, you already are in the seed of your consciousness. Bring it to birth by feeling it done. Let the old conception fall away as the new grows. The world will bear witness in its own time, but you have already witnessed it in the secret place. You have conceived, and that which is conceived of the spirit must be born.

Go now in this consciousness. Carry it with you into the night. Let it be the last feeling as you close your eyes. For in sleep the seed sinks deep into the ground of your being, and there it does its perfect work. When you rise in the morning you will know that the seed is growing. You will walk in the certainty that what you have planted must appear. And one day you will look upon your world and see the fruit of the seed that was yourself. This is the great secret made plain. The thing desired is born from your own awareness. There is no other source. There is no other power. There is only you, planting the seed, nourishing it with feeling, and reaping the harvest in due season.