#168: The End of Waiting

The End of Waiting

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have waited long enough. The very act of waiting declares in feeling that the thing you desire is not yet yours. And what you are conscious of being, that you out-picture in your world. So long as the feeling of waiting persists, the condition of waiting must persist, for consciousness is the only reality and the world is its faithful out-picturing. But waiting can end. It ends the moment you rise in consciousness to the naturalness of already having received what you desire. In that rising the separation disappears, for there is no separation in consciousness between you and that which you assume yourself to be. The end of waiting is the assumption of fulfillment, and this assumption is the creative act itself.

Waiting is not a harmless pause. It is an assumption. It is the quiet, persistent feeling that the desired state lies in the future, that something must still happen, that time must still pass, that conditions must still arrange themselves. This feeling, though unspoken, is a decree. It is a command sent forth into the depths of your own being, and your being, being God, your awareness of being, obeys the command and keeps you in the state of not yet. The senses confirm the decree by showing you an unchanged world, and so the waiting feeds upon itself. But the senses are not the cause. They are the effect of the assumption that waits. Change the assumption and the senses, in time, must change.

To end waiting, therefore, is not to manipulate the outer scene. It is to change what you are conscious of being. It is to assume, deliberately and feelingly, that you are now the one who has received. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Feel the quiet relief that comes when a long desire is realized. Feel the naturalness of it, as though it were an accomplished fact. This feeling is not excitement. It is not a strained effort to believe. It is the simple, dignified sensation of one who knows he has it. When this feeling is attained, even for a little while, the waiting has ended. For in that moment you have ceased to be conscious of separation and have become conscious of oneness with your desire.

You may ask how long this feeling must be held. The answer is simple. It must be held until it becomes natural. Until the assumption of fulfillment feels more natural than the assumption of waiting. For the natural feeling is the proof that the consciousness has been established. While it still feels strange or forced, the old assumption still has power. But the moment it feels natural to think from the fulfilled desire rather than toward it, the waiting is over. The new assumption has taken possession, and the old one has been deposed.

This is why the signs follow and never precede. The sign is the outer evidence. It cannot come before the consciousness that produces it. If you wait for the sign before you will assume the feeling, you have reversed the order. You have made the effect the cause. You have said, in feeling, that the consciousness is not enough; I must see it first. But consciousness is enough. It is the only cause. Get the consciousness of already having received, and the sign is compelled to appear. It has no choice, for there is nothing in the world but the out-picturing of consciousness. When you wait for the sign, you are still in the consciousness of not having. When you assume the feeling of having, you have already ended the waiting, and the sign must come to confirm what you have assumed.

Consider what this means in the quiet of your own life. You desire a change in circumstance, in health, in relationship, in means. You have waited. You have looked for movement. You have hoped for a break. All of this looking and hoping is waiting. It is the feeling that the change is still to come. But tonight you can end it. Tonight you can assume that the change has come. Not that it will come if you are good, or if you persist, or if conditions improve. Assume that it has come. Feel the naturalness of the changed state. Feel the relief, the gratitude, the quiet satisfaction of one in whom the matter is resolved. Do this, and the waiting ends. The psychological separation ends. You and your desire are one in consciousness, and consciousness must objectify itself.

There is no effort in this. The effort was in the waiting. The effort was in the straining to make something happen while feeling that it had not happened. When you assume the end, the effort ceases. You rest. You move through your day as one who has received. You do not deny the outer appearances; you simply cease to give them the power to determine your consciousness. You know that appearances are the out-picturing of former assumptions. You have changed the assumption. Therefore the appearances must, in time, yield. This is not a denial of reality. It is the recognition of the only reality there is — consciousness.

The world you see is always telling you what you are assuming. If it shows you delay, it is because you are assuming delay. If it shows you fulfillment, it is because you have assumed fulfillment. There is no other cause. You cannot be in the consciousness of waiting and expect to see the signs of having. The two are incompatible. One must go. And the one that goes is the assumption of waiting, when you deliberately assume the feeling of already having. This is the only change that is necessary. All other changes follow from it.

You may find, in the beginning, that the old feeling of waiting returns many times a day. The mind, long accustomed to looking outward for its good, will suggest that nothing has changed. It will point to the unchanged circumstances and say, “See, it is not so.” Do not argue with the suggestion. Do not fight it. Simply return to the feeling of already having. Return quietly, without violence, without self-reproach. Each time you return, you weaken the old assumption and strengthen the new. In time the new assumption becomes the dominant one, and the feeling of waiting fades of itself. For consciousness does not argue; it simply is. And what it is, it out-pictures.

This return to the feeling is not a technique. It is the natural act of one who has decided to end the waiting. It is the refusal to live any longer in the interval between desire and fulfillment. In consciousness there is no interval. When you assume the end, the interval collapses. The bridge of incidents that leads from where you were to where you now are in consciousness will appear, but you do not wait upon the bridge. You stand at the end. You live from the fulfilled desire. This is what it means to decree a thing and have it come to pass. The decree is the assumption. The coming to pass is automatic.

Many have waited because they believed that to assume the end was to lie to themselves. They have said, “I cannot feel that it is so when my senses deny it.” But the senses are not the test of truth. The senses are the report of what you have formerly assumed. When you change the assumption, the report must change. To wait upon the report before you will change the assumption is to be forever bound to the past. The courageous one assumes the new feeling in spite of the report. He knows that the report is not the cause. He knows that consciousness is the cause, and he changes the cause. The report then follows.

The end of waiting brings a peculiar peace. It is not the peace of having seen the outer change. It is the peace of having changed in consciousness. It is the peace of one who no longer looks to tomorrow for his good. He knows his good is now. He knows that the consciousness he now entertains is the cause of all that will appear. This peace is not resignation. It is quiet certainty. It is the certainty that what is assumed in feeling must objectify itself, for there is no other power in the world.

You will find, as you live from this certainty, that your outer actions become natural and unforced. You do not strain to make something happen. You move as one who has it. If it is a business matter, you handle it as one who knows the outcome is already secure. If it is a health matter, you carry your body as one who knows it is well. If it is a relationship, you meet the person as one who knows the harmony is already established. This naturalness is the hallmark of the assumption that has been accepted. It is the Sabbath rest from all labor to make it so, because you know it is already so in the only place that matters.

The command that brought light into being was short. “Let there be light.” There was no waiting in that command. There was no condition laid down. There was no appeal to time. The consciousness spoke, and the thing was. You, in assuming the consciousness of already having received, are uttering that same creative fiat. You are not pleading. You are not hoping. You are declaring, in the silence of your feeling, “I AM the one who has received.” And this declaration, made in consciousness, is heard and obeyed by the depth of your own being. For your awareness of being is God, and God is not mocked. What you assume yourself to be, you are, and what you are, you out-picture.

There is no need to tell anyone what you have assumed. Secrecy is the first law. To discuss the assumption with another is to invite their present consciousness into the matter, and their present consciousness may be one of waiting. Keep the matter locked in your own feeling. Magnify the Lord within you by expanding your conception of yourself to the point where the fulfilled desire feels natural. When this naturalness is attained, you have given birth to the desire. You have conceived it in consciousness and brought it forth into expression. The waiting is over.

You may wonder what will happen if you assume and nothing seems to change. The answer is that something has changed. Your consciousness has changed. And consciousness is the cause. The outer may take time to reflect the change, but the change has already occurred in the only place that can produce lasting results. Persist in the assumption. Do not return to the feeling of waiting because the outer has not yet caught up. The outer is not the master. It is the servant. It must follow the consciousness that has assumed fulfillment.

This persistence is not stubbornness. It is faith. It is the substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence of the thing not yet seen. When you persist in the assumption of fulfillment, you are giving substance to the invisible. You are clothing the desire with the only substance there is — consciousness. And consciousness, being reality, must clothe itself in form. This is not a hope. It is a law. It is as certain as the rising of the sun, for it is the operation of consciousness itself.

As you dwell upon this truth, you will feel a quiet shift within yourself. The restlessness of waiting will give way to a deeper rest. The anxiety that comes from not knowing how or when will give way to a quiet knowing that the how and the when are not your concern. The consciousness that assumes the end has ways that you, as man, know not of. Its ways are past finding out. But they are sure. When you have ended the waiting in consciousness, you will find yourself moving in a world that is already responding to the new assumption, even before the outer evidence appears.

The end of waiting is the discovery that you were never waiting for something outside yourself. You were waiting for yourself to assume the nature of the one who has it. The desire was never far off. It was waiting for you to cease waiting. It was waiting for you to claim it as your own in the only place where claim is effective — in consciousness. When you make that claim feelingly, the waiting ends. The separation ends. You and your desire are one. And from that oneness all things proceed.

Tonight you can make that claim. Tonight, before you sleep, assume the consciousness of already having received. Feel the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Let the last conscious sensation be one of quiet gratitude. “It is done.” Fall asleep in that feeling. In sleep the assumption sinks into the deep and reproduces itself in your waking world. This is not a technique for some future time. It is the act you perform now. It is the ending of waiting in the only place where waiting can be ended — in your own awareness of being.

You have heard the truth. The waiting can end now. It ends when you assume the feeling of already having received. It ends when you rise in consciousness to the naturalness of the fulfilled desire. It ends when you refuse any longer to live in the feeling of separation. Assume it. Feel it. Persist in it. And you will find that you are not the one who waits. You are the one in whom the desire is already fulfilled. Consciousness has received it. And consciousness, being God, your awareness of being, will not fail to bring it to pass in the world of form.

This is the end of waiting. This is the beginning of living from the fulfilled desire. This is the realization that the kingdom of heaven is within you, and that you need not wait to enter it. You enter it the moment you assume the consciousness of already having received. And having entered it, you find that all things are added unto you. For you have sought first the consciousness of fulfillment, and the promise is kept. The waiting is over. You have assumed the end, and the end is now your beginning.