#166: The Feeling of Certainty

The Feeling of Certainty

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have assumed the feeling of your wish fulfilled, yet you wonder whether the assumption has taken root, whether it has been truly accepted. You look for some outward sign or some violent stirring within yourself, and when these do not appear you grow doubtful and begin again with greater effort. But the true sign is not effort and it is not excitement. The true sign is a quiet feeling of certainty, a calm and unshakable knowing that what you have accepted in consciousness is already so. This certainty does not shout. It does not strain. It simply is. And when it comes, you know that the creative act is finished and that the manifestation must follow, for consciousness is the only reality and it ever out-pictures what it is conscious of being.

This certainty is the natural result of a successful assumption. It is not something you add to the assumption by force of will. It arises of itself when you have truly become one with the state desired. You rise in consciousness to the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and you dwell there. You do not visit the state as a stranger who hopes to be admitted. You enter it as one who belongs there, and you remain until the feeling of strangeness disappears. In that moment the certainty appears. It is the feeling that the thing is no longer a possibility but a fact already accomplished in the only place where facts are made—in consciousness. You do not argue with yourself about it. You do not look for proofs. You simply know, and in that knowing there is rest.

Many believe that the stronger the emotion the more powerful the assumption. But emotion without certainty is only the old man expressing his longing. It is the cry of one who still sees the desire as something outside himself. Certainty, on the other hand, is the quiet voice of one who has become the desire. There is no separation between the awareness of being and the thing felt. The two have agreed, and agreement in consciousness is the only agreement that matters. When this agreement is reached, the feeling of certainty fills you. It is not a belief that the thing may come. It is the certain knowledge that the thing is. And this knowledge needs no support from the outer world, for it rests upon the changeless principle that consciousness is reality.

Watch how this certainty grows. At first you assume the feeling and you must return to it again and again, for the old state still claims your attention. But each time you return you bring a little more of yourself into the new feeling. You persist, not with strain, but with quiet repetition of the inner act. You feel yourself to be the one who has received. You give thanks within, not because you are trying to persuade yourself, but because the gratitude arises naturally when you know you have already been given what you desired. This inner thanksgiving is itself a sign that certainty is near. For no man gives thanks for what he has not received, and when the thanks come of themselves you have already accepted the gift in consciousness. The certainty follows as day follows night.

What does this certainty feel like? It feels like peace. It feels like the end of argument within yourself. You may still see the old conditions around you, but they no longer move you as they once did. You look at them and you know they are the out-picturing of what you were conscious of being yesterday. Today you are conscious of being something else, and therefore the old pictures must fade. The certainty does not deny the evidence of the senses. It simply knows that the evidence is not final, for the only final reality is consciousness, and consciousness has changed. So you move through your day with a quiet poise. You do not boast. You do not explain. You simply know, and your knowing is enough.

This certainty is the true Sabbath. In the beginning it is said that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh day He rested. The six days represent the labor of assumption, the work of rising in consciousness and dwelling in the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The seventh day is the day of certainty, the day when the work is finished and you rest. You cease from all anxious effort because you know the thing is done. You do not watch the clock of the outer world. You do not count the hours until your desire appears. You rest in the certainty that what has been accepted in consciousness must objectify, for there is no other cause. The Sabbath is not a day of the week. It is a state of consciousness in which you have finished your labor and you know that the Father works while you rest.

When this certainty is yours, you no longer serve two masters. You cannot be conscious of being the one who lacks and at the same time be certain that you have received. The old state and the new cannot occupy the same place in consciousness. One must give way to the other. Certainty is the sign that the old has given way. It is the sign that you have died to the former conception of yourself and have risen in consciousness to the new. And because you have risen, all things are possible to you. For the one who is certain is no longer the man who hopes. He is the man who has, and the world must conform to what he is conscious of being.

Doubt will come. It is the voice of the old state trying to re-enter. But doubt cannot enter where certainty dwells. When the feeling of certainty is strong, doubt finds no foothold. It may knock at the door of your mind, but it finds the door already closed by your knowing. You do not fight the doubt. You simply return to the certainty. You feel again the naturalness of the state desired. You remember that you have already given thanks within. You rest again in the knowledge that the agreement has been made. And each time you do this, the certainty grows stronger and the doubt grows weaker, until at last the doubt has no power at all. It is not overcome by struggle. It is overcome by the simple fact that you have become too certain to entertain it.

This certainty changes your relationship to your world. The one who is certain does not beg. He does not plead with circumstances or with people. He knows that circumstances and people are only the out-picturing of states of consciousness, and he has changed his state. Therefore he moves among them as one who is already fulfilled. He does not react to what seems to oppose him, for he knows that opposition is the shadow of his former self and that it must disappear as the new state becomes established. He does not force doors open. He knows that doors open of themselves when the one who approaches is certain that he belongs on the other side. His certainty is the password that every condition recognizes, even though the condition itself may not know why it yields.

Consider what this means for you who have felt stuck. You have tried many things. You have affirmed and you have hoped and you have worked, yet the change has not come. The reason is not that the principle failed. The reason is that you have not yet reached the point of certainty. You have assumed, but you have not remained in the assumption until it became natural. You have visited the state, but you have not taken up your abode there. Certainty is the sign that you have taken up your abode. It is the sign that the state is no longer a place you go to in meditation. It is now the place where you live. And when you live in a state, that state must express itself in your world, for your world is only yourself pushed out.

The development of this certainty is not a matter of time. It is a matter of feeling. You may dwell in the assumption for minutes or for days or for weeks. The measure is not the clock. The measure is the naturalness with which you can think from the end. When you can think of your desire and feel at once that it is so, without any effort to make it so, then certainty is present. The feeling comes quietly. It does not announce itself with trumpets. One moment you are still aware of a slight separation between yourself and the state, and the next moment the separation is gone and you know. You cannot describe exactly how it happened. You only know that something within you has shifted, and the shift is permanent. You have become the thing you formerly desired to be.

This shift is the true circumcision of the heart. It is the cutting away of the belief in separation between I AM and the fulfillment of I AM. You no longer say within yourself, “I will be.” You say, and you feel, “I am.” And the feeling of certainty is the proof that the words are not empty. They are filled with the substance of faith, and faith is the substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence of the thing not seen. Your certainty is that evidence. It is invisible to the outer eye, yet it is more real than anything the outer eye can see, for it is the cause of all seeing. When you are certain, you have the evidence within, and the outer evidence must come to confirm what you already know.

You ask how long you must persist. You persist until the certainty comes. There is no other answer. Some will find it quickly, for they are ready to let go of the old. Others will find it more slowly, for they still cling to the evidence of the senses as though it were final. But the principle is the same for all. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Return to it whenever you remember. Do not argue with the old state. Do not try to overcome it by force. Simply be faithful to the new feeling, and the certainty will appear. When it appears, you will know that the work is finished. You will know that you have entered your Sabbath, and you will rest.

Rest does not mean inactivity in the outer world. It means the cessation of anxious mental labor. You still go about your daily affairs, but you go about them as one who knows. You do not carry the burden of “how” or “when.” You have given that burden to the certainty, and the certainty has accepted it. The how is not your concern, for the ways of consciousness are past finding out. The when is not your concern, for the thing is already so in the only time that matters—the present. You live in the present certainty, and the future manifestation takes care of itself. This is the effortless way, and it is the only way that brings results without strain.

The one who has found this certainty has found the greatest secret. He has discovered that he does not create by effort. He creates by being. He assumes the state, he dwells in it until it feels natural, and when the naturalness is complete the certainty appears. From that moment he is no longer the creator struggling with his creation. He is the one in whom the creation is already finished. He rests, and the world moves to bring forth what he is conscious of being. This is not passivity. It is the highest activity, for it is the activity of consciousness itself, which needs no help from the man who has become conscious of the end.

You who hear these words have within you the capacity for this certainty. It is not given to some and withheld from others. It is the natural result of faithful assumption. Begin tonight. Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled. Do not strain to feel it. Simply feel it as best you can, and return to it whenever the memory of it rises within you. Do not watch for results. Watch only for the coming of the certainty. When it comes, you will recognize it. It will feel like home. It will feel like the end of a long journey. And in that moment you will know that you have done all that is required of you. The rest is not yours to do. The rest belongs to the certainty, and the certainty will not fail.

For consciousness never fails to out-picture what it is conscious of being. And when you are certain of what you are conscious of being, the out-picturing is assured. You do not hope for it. You do not long for it. You know it. And your knowing is the bridge across which the invisible becomes visible. Walk upon that bridge tonight. Assume, dwell, and wait upon the certainty. It will come. And when it comes, your world will begin to change, not because you have forced it, but because you have become certain of the only cause—your own consciousness. And in that certainty you will find a peace that passes all understanding, for you will have found yourself to be the one in whom all things are already so.