#173: The Law of Inner Continuity

The Law of Inner Continuity

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have perhaps assumed the feeling of your wish fulfilled for a little while. You have closed your eyes or turned your attention inward and felt yourself to be the one you long to be. You have known, in that interval, a quiet joy, a sense of rightness, a conviction that all is well. And then you have returned to your usual consciousness, to the feeling that has been yours for years, and you have found your world unchanged. This is not because the assumption lacked power. It is because the assumption lacked continuity. The brief moment was real, but the long hours that followed were real also, and the continuous state always proves itself stronger than the interrupted one.

Consciousness does not appear in flashes. It is a steady stream that flows from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until you close them at night, and even when the eyes are closed the stream continues. What you are conscious of being throughout this unbroken stream is what appears in your world without ceasing. There is no other creator. Your world is the continuous out-picturing of your continuous consciousness. The state that occupies the greater portion of your day is the state that solidifies itself in the things round about you. The state that is visited only for a moment has no power to displace it.

You are always conscious of being something. Even when you believe you are conscious of nothing in particular, you are still conscious of being the one who is conscious of nothing. There is never a time when the stream stops. The only question is which assumption flows through the greater length of the stream. The man who remains poor is not poor because he sometimes thinks of lack. He is poor because the consciousness of lack is the continuous tone in which he lives and moves and has his being. He may have moments when he feels wealthy, but those moments are brief interruptions in a long continuity of poverty. The continuity, not the interruption, determines what is out-pictured.

The same law holds for every condition. The one who is sick may have moments when he feels well, yet if the consciousness of illness occupies the greater part of his day, that consciousness continues to out-picture itself as the body’s condition. The one who feels himself unloved may have moments when he assumes the feeling of being cherished, but if the old feeling returns and remains for the rest of the day, the old feeling continues to shape his relationships. The brief assumption is not denied; it is simply overpowered by the longer occupation of the opposite state.

This is the law of inner continuity. It is not a law that can be broken. It is the very nature of consciousness itself. Consciousness is continuous, and therefore its expression must be continuous. You cannot expect the world to conform to a state that is present only at intervals. The world conforms to the state that is present without intervals. When you understand this, you cease to wonder why your occasional assumptions have produced no lasting change. You see that the change you seek requires a change in the continuous background of your consciousness, not merely in its occasional foreground.

To assume the wish fulfilled is not to perform an act at certain hours and then return to your former self. It is to adopt a new continuous state of being. The feeling of the wish fulfilled must become the natural, ongoing sense of yourself. It must be there when you are not thinking of your desire at all. It must be the tone in which you meet the events of the day, the light in which you see your circumstances, the substance of which your thoughts are made. When this has happened, the assumption is no longer something you do; it is something you are. And what you are continuously, your world must continuously express.

Many attempt to hold the feeling by constant repetition or by constant watching of their thoughts. This effort is evidence that the new state has not yet become continuous. When the state is truly continuous it requires no effort to maintain, any more than you make an effort to maintain the feeling of being yourself. You do not strain to remember that you are the one you have always been. You simply are that one. In the same way, when the new assumption has become your continuous consciousness, you do not strain to feel yourself as the one you desire to be. You simply are that one, and all your seeing and reacting proceed from that simple fact.

The old state loses its power only as the new state gains continuity. Every time you return to the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you are adding to the length of the new continuity. Every time you catch yourself in the old feeling and gently release it without condemnation, you are shortening the old continuity. There is no struggle required, only the quiet persistence of returning to the new state until it becomes the one to which you naturally and effortlessly return. In time the old state appears less and less frequently, until at last it ceases to appear at all. Then you discover that you are no longer assuming the wish fulfilled; you have become the embodiment of the assumption, and the world has no choice but to reflect the continuous fact you have established within yourself.

You do not have to force your attention upon your desire throughout the day. Such forcing is a sign that you still regard the new state as something separate from yourself. When the state is continuous, your attention moves freely among the things of the day, yet it moves within the new consciousness. You see the same events that others see, but you see them from a different center. You hear the same words, but you hear them as one who is already the embodiment of his desire. The outer circumstances may remain the same for a little while, but they cannot remain the same indefinitely, because the continuous inner state is constantly at work reshaping them.

Sleep itself becomes a powerful ally in this work. When you fall asleep in the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you enter a state in which the continuity is almost perfect. There is no outer world to contradict the inner one. The assumption occupies the consciousness without interruption for the hours of sleep, and this unbroken occupation impresses the state more deeply than any waking effort can do. Therefore, the last feeling you entertain before you sleep should be the feeling of your wish fulfilled. Let it be the continuous tone in which you enter sleep, and you will rise in the morning already established in that tone.

Do not look at your world to see whether the continuity is working. To look at the world as it now appears is to return, even for a moment, to the old consciousness that sees the world as it now appears. Instead, look at your world from the new consciousness. See it as it would appear if your assumption were already the continuous fact. Persist in seeing it so. The world you see from the new continuous state is the world that must eventually appear to your outer eyes. There is no power that can prevent this appearance, for consciousness is the only reality, and the continuous consciousness is the only creator.

You may find, in the beginning, that the old state reasserts itself often. This is not a sign of failure. It is simply the evidence that the old continuity has not yet been displaced. Do not argue with it. Do not condemn yourself for it. Simply return, as often as necessary, to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Each return lengthens the new continuity by that much. Each return weakens the old continuity by that much. In time the balance shifts. The new state occupies more of the stream than the old, and the world begins to conform to the new balance.

This law is not partial. It does not favor one desire above another. It operates with the same impartiality for every assumption that is made continuous. The one who assumes the feeling of health and makes that feeling continuous will find health out-pictured. The one who assumes the feeling of wealth and makes that feeling continuous will find wealth out-pictured. The one who assumes the feeling of being loved and makes that feeling continuous will find love out-pictured. The law is the same in every case. Only the continuity differs, and the continuity determines the result.

You are not a being who occasionally assumes and then returns to his former self. You are the continuous assumption itself. The “I” that is aware is continuous. When you make the new assumption continuous, you are simply giving the continuous “I” a new focal point. And the continuous “I,” being God, must express itself as the thing upon which it is focused without interruption. There is no other way. There has never been another way. The world you live in is the faithful, continuous expression of the state you have chosen to occupy continuously.

Tonight, as these words are with you, feel the simplicity of this truth. You do not need to add anything to yourself. You need only to cease returning to the old continuous state and to remain in the new one. The new state is already within you as a possibility. It is already alive as a feeling. All that is required is that you give it continuity. Let it be the tone in which you move through the hours that remain of this day. Let it be the feeling in which you close your eyes tonight. Let it be the consciousness from which you awaken tomorrow. And know that because it is continuous within you, it must become continuous without you.

The world has no power to resist a continuous assumption. It has no choice but to conform. For the world is not the cause; it is the effect. The continuous consciousness is the cause, and the continuous world is its effect. When you have established the continuity of the wish fulfilled, you have done all that is required of you. The rest is the inevitable working of the law. You are not waiting for something to happen. You are the continuous happening of your own assumption, and your world is the continuous witness of that happening.

This is the law of inner continuity. It is not a law that demands struggle or strain. It is a law that yields to quiet persistence in the new state until that state becomes the unbroken background of your life. When this has occurred, you will look back and wonder why you ever believed that brief moments of assumption could accomplish what only continuity can do. You will see that you were never denied. You were simply occupying, for the greater part of your time, the state that denied your desire. Change the continuous occupation, and you change the world.

You are that consciousness. You are the continuity. And tonight you may begin, if you will, to make the feeling of your wish fulfilled the continuous feeling of your life. There is no other requirement. There is no other secret. There is only the steady, unbroken assumption that consciousness is the only reality and that the state you occupy without interruption must appear without interruption in your world. This is the truth that sets you free. This is the law that cannot be broken. This is the way in which every man, knowingly or unknowingly, creates the conditions of his life. And this is the way in which you, from this moment forward, may create the conditions you desire.