#165: The State That Sees

The State That Sees

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You walk through the same streets as your neighbor, yet you do not see the same city. You sit at the same table and look upon the same faces, yet the meal and the company are not the same to you both. One sees only closed doors and indifference; the other sees open hands and welcome. The streets have not changed. The table has not changed. The faces have not changed. What has changed is the state from which each one looks. There is no common seeing. There is only the seeing that belongs to the state occupied. The state that sees is the secret of all perception, and until this is understood you will continue to believe that the world is fixed and that you are its helpless observer.

Consciousness is the only reality. Everything that appears in your world is the out-picturing of the consciousness you have assumed. The state is the particular form that consciousness wears at any moment. When you enter a state you do not merely think a thought; you live a feeling, and that living feeling becomes the lens through which all things are seen. The lens is not neutral. It is creative. It selects, it magnifies, it ignores, and it interprets until the entire world conforms to its own image. This is why two men can stand before the same event and one is crushed while the other is uplifted. They do not see two different events. They see one event through two different states.

The state of lack has no eyes for abundance. Wherever it looks it finds confirmation of its own claim. A gift is seen as too small, an opportunity as too risky, a kindness as having a hidden price. The state of abundance, on the other hand, finds evidence of plenty in the most ordinary circumstances. The same street that appeared barren to the one is seen as rich with possibility by the other. Nothing outside has altered. The alteration has taken place in the consciousness that looks. You are not seeing the world as it is. You are seeing the world as you are. Your state is forever pushing itself out and returning to you as perception.

This is the meaning of the statement that man’s world in its every detail is his consciousness out-pictured. The out-picturing is not a future event. It is the immediate and continuous activity of the state. The state does not wait for permission from the outer world. It creates the very conditions that will justify its existence. If you are in the state of rejection you will see rejection in the most neutral glance. If you are in the state of being loved you will see love in the most casual word. The glance and the word remain what they are; the state supplies the meaning. And because the state supplies the meaning, it can change the meaning only by changing itself.

You cannot see beyond the state you occupy. This is not a limitation imposed upon you by some outside power. It is the simple law of consciousness. A state is a self-maintaining circle. It feeds upon the evidence it allows itself to see and grows stronger by that feeding. The man in the state of sickness finds his body full of symptoms. The same body, seen from the state of health, reveals vitality and ease. The symptoms have not been argued away. They have ceased to exist for the new state because the new state has no use for them. The old state kept them alive by its attention. Attention is the life-blood of every state. Where attention goes the state lives. When attention is withdrawn from the old seeing the old state begins to wither.

This truth is hidden in the ancient words, “Having eyes, see ye not?” The eyes were open, yet nothing was seen that could awaken faith. The eyes belonged to a state that could not recognize the presence of the thing desired. When the state changed, the same eyes reported a different world. Sight was not added to the man; the man was added to a new state, and in that state seeing was natural. So it is with you. You do not need new eyes. You need a new state. The state you now occupy is the only reason you continue to see what you do not wish to see. Leave the state and the seeing will leave with it.

The state is not a garment you put on over your true self. The state is your self at any given moment. When you say in the quiet of feeling, “I am poor,” you have become the poor man, and the poor man’s eyes look out through yours. When you say in feeling, “I am the beloved,” you have become the beloved, and the beloved’s eyes look out through yours. There is no other “I.” There is only the I AM wearing the garment of the state. Therefore the question is never what the world is doing to you. The question is what state you are wearing. Change the state and you change the I that sees. Change the I that sees and the world seen must change, for the world is the I in expression.

Two people look upon the same difficulty. One remains in the state of the problem and therefore sees only the problem growing larger. The other rises in consciousness to the state of the solution and therefore sees the problem already resolved. The difficulty itself has not yet moved, but the one who sees from the state of solution already feels the relief of resolution. That feeling is not imagination in the idle sense. It is the creative act itself. Feeling is the secret. The state is entered by feeling, and once entered it begins at once to out-picture itself. The out-picturing may take the form of a sudden change in outer circumstances or a gradual rearrangement of events. In either case the cause is the same: a change of state.

You are told that all things are possible to him that believes. Belief is not an intellectual assent to a proposition. Belief is the assumption of a state. When you assume the state you believe yourself to be the one who already possesses the thing desired. From that state the thing desired is no longer future. It is present. And what is present in consciousness must appear in the world. The appearance may seem delayed to the outer eye, but to the eye of the state there is no delay. The state sees the end in the beginning. It sees the promise already kept. This is the seeing that the prophets possessed when they spoke of beholding the end from the beginning. They did not predict a future. They occupied a state in which the future was already present.

The same law operates in every area of experience. The state of freedom sees freedom where the state of imprisonment sees only walls. The state of success sees opportunity where the state of failure sees only closed doors. The state of health sees the body as an instrument of joy where the state of sickness sees it as a burden. In each case the outer fact is secondary. The state is primary. The state decides what fact shall be noticed, what fact shall be magnified, and what fact shall be ignored. This is why the effort to change the outer fact while remaining in the same state is always futile. The state will simply reinterpret the new fact until it again conforms to the old image. The only permanent change comes from a change of state.

You cannot serve two masters. You cannot occupy the state of lack and expect to see abundance. The two states are mutually exclusive. One must be left before the other can be entered. Leaving a state is not accomplished by fighting it. It is accomplished by ignoring it. You ignore the old seeing by withdrawing attention from it and giving attention wholly to the feeling of the new state. At first the old seeing will clamor for attention. It will present its evidence more vividly than before. This is the resistance of the dying state. If you remain faithful to the feeling of the new state the clamor fades. The eyes of the old state close. The eyes of the new state open. Then you see what you formerly could not see, and what you see confirms the new state and strengthens it.

This is the spiritual meaning of revision. You revise not by changing the past event but by changing the state from which you remember the past event. When you remember from the state of the fulfilled wish the past itself is seen differently. It no longer condemns you. It no longer limits you. It becomes part of the story that led to the fulfillment you now feel. The state has rewritten the meaning of the past because the state is the only meaning there is.

The world you see tomorrow will be the world your state sees tonight. There is no other world. As you prepare for sleep you are preparing the state that will look out upon tomorrow. If you fall asleep in the feeling of the old state you will wake to the same seeing. If you fall asleep in the feeling of the new state you will wake to a new seeing. The night is not empty. It is the time when the state you have assumed sinks into the deep and begins its work of out-picturing. Guard the state as you would guard the only treasure you possess, for it is the only treasure you possess. All else is the out-picturing of the state.

You are not asked to believe in a God outside yourself who will change your world for you. You are asked to believe in the God who is your own awareness of being when that awareness wears the garment of the desired state. “I AM the Lord and there is none else.” The I AM is your consciousness. The state is the particular name you give to that consciousness at any moment. When you assume the state of the wish fulfilled you are saying in feeling, “I AM the one who is already fulfilled.” That is the Lord. There is no other. From that Lord proceeds all seeing. From that Lord proceeds all creation. And that Lord is forever within you as your own wonderful human imagination.

The state that sees is therefore not a distant goal. It is the immediate possibility of this moment. You can assume it now. You can feel yourself to be the one who already sees the end as present. You can let that feeling fill the present moment until it crowds out every other feeling. When the feeling is natural the state is natural. When the state is natural the seeing is natural. And when the seeing is natural the world conforms without effort. This is the effortless way. It is effortless because it does not fight the old seeing. It simply replaces the old state with a new one, and the new one does its own work of revelation.

You have been seeing your world through the eyes of the state you have most consistently assumed. That is why your world has seemed fixed. But the state was never fixed. It was only assumed. What has been assumed can be un-assumed. What has been seen from one state can be seen differently from another. The power to change your seeing is the power to change your state. And the power to change your state is the power to change your world. There is no other power. Consciousness is the only reality, and the state is consciousness in a particular form. Assume the form you desire and the reality follows.

Tonight, before you close your eyes, ask yourself what state you have been wearing. Do not argue with it. Simply notice it. Then choose another. Choose the state that sees your desire as already accomplished. Feel its naturalness. Feel its relief. Feel its certainty. Let that feeling be the last feeling of the day. Let it be the state in which you sleep. When you wake the eyes of that state will open with you. You will see what you have assumed, and what you see will be good. For the state that sees the good is the state in which all things are possible, and all things are already so.

You are the state that sees. There is no other.