#186: The Law of Inner Correspondence

The Law of Inner Correspondence

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You look upon your world and you see conditions that seem fixed and unyielding. You see lack where you desire abundance. You see conflict where you desire peace. You see limitation where you desire freedom. And you have tried, perhaps for years, to rearrange these conditions, to fight them, to overcome them by effort and will. But they persist. They seem to have a life of their own. And so you have come to believe that life is something that happens to you, that the world is stronger than your desires, that circumstances are the masters and you the servant.

But I tell you this night that there is a law, a changeless law, a law as exact as any law of mathematics or physics, and this law is the law of inner correspondence. The world you see without is always and in every detail the exact correspondence to the state of consciousness you occupy within. There is no exception. There never has been an exception. There never will be an exception. Your outer world is the out-picturing of your inner state. It is yourself pushed out. It is the visible form of the invisible state you have assumed as true of yourself.

This is not a theory. This is not a hopeful philosophy. This is the very law by which all things appear. Consciousness is the only reality. All that you see, all that you experience, all that you encounter in the world of men and things is but the projection of that which you are conscious of being. You are ever out-picturing that which you are conscious of being. And because you are conscious of being, you cannot help but out-picture. The only choice you have is the state you will occupy. The correspondence follows without your help and without your hindrance.

Consider for a moment your present circumstances. Whatever they may be, they are not accidents. They are not the result of chance or the malice of others or the cruelty of fate. They are the exact and faithful correspondence to the state you have been occupying, perhaps without knowing it. If you are experiencing lack, it is because you have been occupying the state of one who lacks. If you are experiencing conflict in your relationships, it is because you have been occupying the state of one who is in conflict. If your body is speaking to you in terms of illness or limitation, it is because you have been occupying the state of one who is limited or ill. The outer has no power to initiate. It can only reflect. It can only correspond. It can only mirror what is first in consciousness.

This is why all your efforts to change the outer while remaining in the same inner state have failed. You have been trying to change the reflection while leaving the original unchanged. You have been trying to alter the picture on the screen while the film in the projector remains the same. It cannot be done. The picture will always correspond to the film. The world will always correspond to the state. Until you change the state, the correspondence remains the same.

You may ask, but how can this be? How can my inner state, which seems so private, so invisible, so personal, determine the great outer facts of my life? I tell you, there is no other way it could be. For the state you occupy is not a thought. It is not a mood that comes and goes. The state is the very tone of your consciousness. It is the feeling of being that you have accepted as natural. And from that tone, from that feeling of being, all things flow outward into visibility. The state is the cause. The world is the effect. And effects must correspond to their causes. There is no other law.

When you occupy the state of one who is loved, the world begins to reflect love to you. People treat you differently. Circumstances arrange themselves to confirm your state. When you occupy the state of one who is successful, opportunities appear, doors open, the right persons are drawn to you, not because you have forced them, but because the law of correspondence has brought into your world that which corresponds to your inner state. When you occupy the state of one who is healthy, the body responds, for the body is part of the outer world and must correspond to the state you have assumed.

You see, then, that there is no need to fight the facts. The facts are not the enemy. The facts are only the correspondence. They are the report of the state you have been in. To fight the facts is to fight the report while ignoring the reporter. The reporter is your own consciousness. Change what you are conscious of being, and the report must change. This is the law.

Many have tried to change their world by changing their actions, by working harder, by planning better, by seeking better opportunities. And some have succeeded to a degree, but only to the degree that their actions were the spontaneous expression of a changed state. When the state changes, action changes naturally. When the state remains the same, action, no matter how intense, can only produce more of the same correspondence. You cannot plant the seeds of one state and reap the harvest of another. The harvest must correspond to the seed. The outer world must correspond to the inner state.

This law operates in every moment of your life. You are not sometimes under this law and sometimes not. You are always under it. In the moment you feel yourself to be poor, in that moment the correspondence of poverty is being woven into your world. In the moment you feel yourself to be free, in that moment the correspondence of freedom is being established. There is no lag that you can see, but there is the working out of the correspondence in what appears as time. But the law is instant in consciousness. The moment the state is occupied, the correspondence is set in motion.

This is why the great teachers have always said that the kingdom is within. For the state you occupy is the kingdom from which all things come. Seek first the state, the inner correspondence, and all things shall be added unto you. The things added are not added by effort. They are added by correspondence. They appear because they must appear. They are the inevitable out-picturing of the state.

You may have noticed that when you change your attitude toward a person, that person seems to change toward you. This is not because the person has changed. It is because you have changed the state from which you view him. You have occupied a new state regarding him, and he, being part of your outer world, must correspond to that new state. He may remain the same in his own consciousness, but in your world he changes because your world is your consciousness out-pictured. Everyone is yourself pushed out. Every condition is yourself pushed out. There is only one consciousness, and all that appears is the expression of states within that consciousness.

When you truly see this, a great burden falls from you. You no longer need to blame others for your conditions. You no longer need to fight circumstances as though they had power over you. You see that the only power is the state you occupy, and you are free to occupy any state you choose. The choice is not in the outer. The choice is in the inner. And when the inner choice is made, when the new state is occupied and lived in, the outer correspondence must follow.

Doubts will arise, of course. The old state will whisper that the facts are too strong, that the conditions are too fixed, that too much time has passed, that too many people are involved. But these doubts are only the voice of the old state trying to maintain itself. They are not the voice of truth. Truth is that the state you now occupy is producing its correspondence, and a new state will produce a new correspondence. The facts of yesterday were the correspondence to yesterday's state. The facts of tomorrow will be the correspondence to tomorrow's state. And the state of tomorrow is the state you choose to occupy tonight.

You do not have to wait for the outer to change before you change the inner. That is the old way, the way of the slave. You change the inner, and you let the outer correspond. This is the way of the free. This is the way of one who knows the law of inner correspondence.

As you sit here tonight, you are occupying a state. Whatever that state is, it is producing its world. If you are dissatisfied with the world you are producing, do not look to the world to change. Look to the state. What state would produce the world I desire? What would it feel like to be the one for whom this condition is already resolved, this desire already fulfilled, this relationship already harmonious? Then occupy that state. Not as a future possibility, but as a present reality. Feel the naturalness of it. Dwell in it. Let it become the tone of your consciousness. And as you do, the law of correspondence will begin its work. The outer world will begin to rearrange itself. New events will appear. Old conditions will dissolve. Not because you have forced them, but because they no longer correspond to the state you now occupy.

This is not something you do once and forget. This is the continuous living of the law. Every moment you are choosing a state, consciously or unconsciously. Every moment the correspondence is being established. To live consciously is to choose the state whose correspondence you desire and to abide in it until it becomes your natural dwelling place. Then the world you see will be the world you have chosen, not the world that chose you.

There is no limit to the states you may occupy. There is no state too high, no state too wonderful, no state too free for you to assume. For you are not the limited self you have believed yourself to be. You are the awareness that can assume any state. And the state you assume determines the world you inhabit. This is the law of inner correspondence. It is eternal. It is just. It is the very mechanism by which imagination creates reality, for imagination is the faculty by which you enter and occupy states.

When you know this law, you will never again be tempted to wrestle with effects. You will go directly to cause. You will change yourself, and in changing yourself you will change your world. For your world is yourself. Your world is the correspondence to the state you have made your home.

Consider how this law reveals itself in the smallest details of your day. You awaken in the morning and the first feeling that occupies you sets the tone for all that follows. If that feeling is one of pressure and burden, the day corresponds with obstacles and irritations. If that feeling is one of quiet certainty and quiet gratitude, the day corresponds with solutions and unexpected kindnesses. The events themselves are not the cause. They are the correspondence. The state you occupied upon awakening was the cause, and the day simply reported it back to you in the language of circumstance.

You meet a stranger and something in his manner either warms you or repels you. You think the stranger has brought this feeling to you. But the stranger is yourself pushed out. He is the embodiment of a state you already occupy. Your reaction to him is the correspondence revealing itself. Change the state from which you meet all strangers, and every stranger becomes a different correspondence. The world does not change its people. You change your state, and the people in your world change their relation to you.

In your finances the same law holds. You look at your accounts and you see numbers that correspond exactly to the state of consciousness you have maintained concerning supply. You have believed that the numbers determine your state. But the numbers are only the faithful report of the state. When you rise in consciousness to the state of one for whom supply is no longer a question, the numbers must rearrange themselves to correspond. They have no choice. They are not independent realities. They are the outer form of an inner decision.

Your body, too, is part of this correspondence. Every condition of the flesh is the outer expression of an inner state. You have believed the body to be the master and consciousness the servant. But the body is the servant. It has no life except the life you give it by the state you occupy. When you occupy the state of wholeness, the body corresponds with health. When you occupy the state of limitation, the body corresponds with restriction. The body is not the cause. It is the correspondence. Change the state and the body follows, for it must follow.

You see now why the world has seemed so stubborn. You have been asking the correspondence to change while you remained in the state that produced it. You have been asking the mirror to show a different face while you continued to stand before it with the same expression. The mirror can only reflect what is before it. The world can only correspond to the state you occupy. This is not limitation. This is perfect justice. This is the law that gives every man exactly what he has first given himself in consciousness.

The peace that comes when you accept this law is unlike any peace the world can give. You no longer strive to make the outer obey you. You no longer wrestle with conditions as though they had power. You turn within, you occupy the state whose correspondence you desire, and you rest. You rest in the knowledge that the law is at work. You rest in the certainty that what you have assumed in consciousness must appear in form. You rest because you know that the outer has no power to resist the inner.

Doubts will come. They always come when a new state is first occupied. The old state does not surrender easily. It will point to the present facts and say, “See, nothing has changed.” But the facts you see today are the correspondence to the state you occupied yesterday. They are not the correspondence to the state you are now occupying. Give the new state time to produce its correspondence. The law does not fail. It only seems to delay when you waver between two states. Occupy one state completely and the correspondence follows without delay.

You are not asked to believe something that is not true. You are asked to see what is already true. The world you now see is the exact correspondence to the state you now occupy. This is not something you must make happen. It is something that is already happening. Your only task is to choose the state you will occupy and to abide in it until the correspondence is complete. The law does the rest.

There is no state you cannot occupy. There is no condition so fixed that it cannot be dissolved by a change of state. There is no relationship so broken that it cannot be mended by a change of state. There is no lack so great that it cannot be replaced by abundance through a change of state. The law of inner correspondence knows no impossibility. It knows only correspondence. Whatever you can occupy in consciousness, the world must reflect.

This is the freedom that was promised. Not freedom from the law, but freedom through the law. Not freedom to do as you please with effects, but freedom to choose the cause. When you choose the cause, the effects must follow. When you occupy the state, the correspondence must appear. This is not hope. This is law.

Tonight you have heard the law stated plainly. You cannot plead ignorance again. From this moment forward, every condition you encounter will be seen by you as correspondence. You will no longer ask why this has happened to you. You will ask only what state within you has produced this correspondence. And when you have found the state, you will know what to do. You will rise out of that state into the state whose correspondence you desire. You will occupy it. You will live in it. And the world will follow.

You are not at the mercy of your circumstances. Your circumstances are at the mercy of your state. Change the state, and the circumstances must change. This is the law of inner correspondence. It is eternal. It is just. It is the truth that sets you free.