#172: The State Behind the Desire

The State Behind the Desire

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You chase the things you desire and wonder why they remain at a distance, yet the distance is not in the things. The distance is in the state from which you regard them. Every desire that stirs within you is but a faithful messenger pointing to a deeper state of consciousness which you are called to occupy. The desire for wealth is never a desire for paper and metal; it is the desire to be in the state of freedom. The desire for love is never a desire for another person’s presence alone; it is the desire to be in the state of being chosen, of being the beloved. The desire for success is never a desire for titles or applause; it is the desire to be in the state of recognition, of knowing yourself as the one whose work is seen and valued. Behind every longing stands a state, and it is the state, not the symbol, that must be claimed.

Consciousness is the only reality, and every state is a particular arrangement of consciousness, a particular feeling of being. When you say “I am poor,” you are not describing a bank balance; you are describing a state. When you say “I am unloved,” you are describing a state. When you say “I am unrecognized,” you are describing a state. The outer facts are but the shadow of the inner state. Change the state and the facts must change, for the facts have no power to persist once the state that sustains them has been abandoned. This is not a hopeful thought; it is the law of expression. What you are conscious of being, you express. What you are not conscious of being cannot appear.

The desire arises because the state you now occupy does not contain the thing desired. The desire is the evidence that you have not yet assumed the opposite state. Do not fight the desire. Do not call it wrong or selfish. It is the voice of the deeper self urging you to move from one state to another. The mistake lies in stopping at the desire and trying to fulfill it from the very state that gave it birth. You cannot satisfy hunger by remaining in the state of the hungry man. You satisfy hunger by rising into the state of the nourished man. So with every desire. The thing is the food. The state is the eating. Until you eat, that is, until you assume the state, the hunger continues.

Let us take the desire for wealth. To the man in the state of lack, wealth appears as the solution. Yet if he receives wealth while still in the state of lack, the wealth will not remain, for the state, not the money, determines the continuance of the condition. But if he rises into the state of freedom, the state in which he feels himself unburdened, secure, able to move and choose without anxiety about tomorrow, then wealth, or its equivalent, must appear. It appears because freedom, once assumed, compels the world to organize itself around that feeling. The money is not the cause; it is the effect. The state is the cause. When the state is natural, the effect is inevitable.

The same law holds for love. Many desire to be loved and remain in the state of the one who is not loved. They long for another to choose them while they continue to feel themselves unchosen. The state of being chosen is a feeling, a quiet inner conviction that one is seen, valued, and wanted for oneself. When this feeling becomes the dominant tone of consciousness, the person who can express that feeling in the outer world is drawn as irresistibly as iron to a magnet. The person is not the cause; the state is the cause. The person is but the instrument through which the state finds its corresponding expression.

Success follows the same pattern. The desire for success is the desire to be recognized, to have one’s gifts acknowledged, to stand in the world as the one whose contribution matters. Yet many remain in the state of the unrecognized while they strive for recognition. They work from the feeling of being overlooked and wonder why their work is overlooked. Recognition is a state. It is the feeling of being known, of being appreciated, of having one’s true worth seen without the need to prove it. Assume that state and the world begins to see what you have assumed. The outer recognition is the echo of the inner recognition.

You may ask how one finds the precise state behind a particular desire. You find it by asking feeling, not intellect. In the quiet, turn from the thing desired and ask, “What would I feel if this were already so? What quality of being would be mine?” The answer that rises is the state. It may come as a single word—freedom, peace, love, power, fulfillment—or it may come as a subtle sense of expansion, of rightness, of naturalness. That feeling is the state. You do not create it; you discover it. It was always within you as a possibility of consciousness. The desire merely brought it to your attention.

To occupy the state is to feel it as present fact. Feeling is the secret. Not the feeling of wanting, but the feeling of having. Not the feeling of hoping, but the feeling of being. If the state is freedom, you feel free now. You feel the absence of burden, the ease of movement, the quiet certainty that all is well and will remain well. You do not pretend; you feel. Feeling is the assumption made living. When the feeling is natural, when you no longer have to labor to produce it, you are in the state. And being in the state, you are the state. The outer world, which is but the out-picturing of states, must rearrange itself to match the new arrangement of consciousness.

This rearrangement does not require your planning. The how is not your concern. The state, once assumed with conviction, contains within itself the plan of its own expression. Incidents will appear, people will be moved, opportunities will open, all in perfect sequence, all without your conscious direction. This is the bridge of incidents. It is not magic; it is law. Just as a seed contains the plan of the tree it will become, so a state contains the plan of the world it will produce. Your only work is to assume the state and to persist in the assumption until it becomes the dominant feeling of your life.

Persistence is not effort. It is the quiet return to the feeling whenever the old state asserts itself. The old state has momentum. It has been your home. When it returns, as it will at first, you do not fight it. You simply remember the new state and feel it again. Each return strengthens the new state and weakens the old. In time the new state becomes the natural one, and the old state feels foreign. Then the work is done. The desire has served its purpose. It pointed you to the state, and the state has claimed you.

You will notice, as you persist, that the desire itself changes. It loses its feverish urgency. It no longer feels like something you must have or you will be lost. This is not resignation; it is fulfillment in consciousness. When you occupy the state of the nourished, hunger ceases. When you occupy the state of the beloved, the ache of being unchosen ceases. When you occupy the state of the recognized, the hunger for recognition ceases. The desire was the hunger. The state is the food. Once fed, you are free of the hunger, yet the food, the outer expression, continues to come. You eat because you are nourished, not in order to become nourished.

This freedom from the fever of desire is the Sabbath. It is the rest in which the creative power works without hindrance. You have ceased from your own labors, from your own trying to make the thing happen, and have entered the rest of the assumed state. In this rest the father within you, your own wonderful human imagination, does the work. You are not idle; you are active in consciousness. You think from the state, you speak from the state, you meet the day from the state. And because you meet the day from the state, the day meets you with the things that belong to the state.

The world has taught you to work from the outside in. It has told you to change conditions in order to change feeling. But conditions are the expression of feeling. Change the feeling, the state, and the conditions must follow. This is the effortless way, not because no effort is required, but because the effort is of a different order. It is the effort of assumption, the effort of feeling, the effort of remaining faithful to a state even when the outer world has not yet confirmed it. This effort is not struggle; it is loyalty. You are loyal to the new state until the world becomes loyal to it as well.

Do not look for signs before you assume the state. The first and only necessary sign is the feeling itself. When you can feel the state as natural, the sign has already been given. The outer confirmation will come in its own time, but it will come. It cannot help but come. The law is exact. What you are in consciousness, you must express. There is no other outcome possible. The interval between assumption and expression may vary, but the expression is certain. The interval is shortened by the naturalness and persistence of your feeling. The more natural the state feels, the quicker the bridge appears.

You are always in a state. There is no neutral ground. At this moment you are in some state, and that state is producing its corresponding world. If the world you see does not please you, do not curse the world. Do not blame conditions or people. Return to the state. Find the state behind the desire that has not yet been fulfilled and assume it. The assumption is the act of creation. All else follows.

Tonight, before you sleep, take one desire that has lingered in your heart. Do not ask how it will come to pass. Ask only what state it points to. Feel that state. Let it fill your consciousness. Let it be the last feeling you know as you enter sleep. Sleep is the door through which states sink deep into the subconscious and become fixed. In the morning, if the old state returns, return to the new. Do this not as a task but as a returning home. The new state is your true home. The old state was but a temporary dwelling you mistook for the only one available.

As the days pass, you will find yourself living from the state rather than toward it. The things you once desired will appear, but they will appear as natural events, not as rescues. You will not feel that something wonderful has happened to you; you will feel that something natural has expressed itself. This is the mark of the state fully occupied. The miraculous becomes the natural. The longed-for becomes the expected. The desired becomes the possessed.

In this possession there is peace. Not the peace of having acquired a thing, but the peace of having assumed a state. Things can be lost. States, once truly assumed, cannot be lost, for they are what you are. You can forget a state for a time, but it remains within you as a possibility, and the moment you remember and assume it again, it is yours. The desire may return in new forms, pointing to new states still higher, but you will never again be the victim of desire. You will be its master, for you will know that behind every desire stands a state waiting to be claimed.

This is the truth that liberates. Not the truth that tells you desire is wrong, but the truth that tells you desire is the pointer and the state is the prize. Claim the state and the desire is fulfilled. Claim the state and you are free. Claim the state and the world you walk in becomes the outer garment of the inner glory you have assumed. There is no other way. There has never been another way. Consciousness is the only reality, and the state you assume is the reality you express. Assume the state behind your desire, and the desire, having done its work, will gently withdraw, leaving you in the peace of the fulfilled.

You are the operant power. No one can assume the state for you. No one can feel for you. The state is yours to enter or to refuse. If you refuse, you remain in the state that gave birth to the desire. If you enter, you become the state, and the desire is no more a longing but a memory of what once pointed you home. Home is the state. Home is the feeling of being the one you were created to be. Tonight, go home. Feel the state. Sleep in it. Awaken in it. And in the days to come, watch the world conform to the new and greater being you have assumed. For the world has no choice. It can only reflect the state you have made your own.