#194: The Secret of Assumed Victory

The Secret of Assumed Victory

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have been taught that victory must be fought for, that it is the reward of struggle, the prize that comes only after the battle has been won. This teaching has bound you to the very experience you seek to escape. For the battle you fight is not imposed upon you from without; it is the out-picturing of an assumption you have made within. Victory is not something you earn by striving. It is something you assume before the battle begins. You assume the consciousness of one who has already triumphed, and in that assumption the victory is established and the battle is already over.

Can you assume victory and have it appear in your world? Most decidedly you can. Man has always decreed that which has appeared in his world by the simple act of assuming it to be so. He is today assuming that which is appearing, and he shall continue to do so as long as he remains conscious of being man. Not one thing has ever appeared in your world but what you assumed it should. This you may deny, but try as you will you cannot disprove it, for this assuming is based upon a changeless principle. Consciousness is the only reality, and what you are conscious of being you must out-picture.

You do not command victory to appear by your words or by loud affirmations of success. Such vain repetition is more often than not confirmation of the opposite. Assuming is ever done in consciousness. That is, you are conscious of being victorious when you have assumed yourself to be the victor. The one who feels himself defeated is assuming defeat and therefore experiences defeat. The one who assumes victory is conscious of being victorious and therefore victory must appear. There is no other way.

When you read the great truths of life in this light you will find them to be the greatest scientific statements ever recorded. Instead of looking upon them as records of ancient events or the lives of unusual men, see them as great psychological dramas taking place in the consciousness of man. Claim this truth as your own and you will suddenly transform your world from the barren deserts of endless battle to the promised land of victory already won.

Every one will agree that all things were made by consciousness and without consciousness there is nothing made that is made, but what man does not agree upon is the identity of this power. Yet the truth proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the awareness of being is the only power. This awareness is your own wonderful consciousness. It is not something apart from you. It is you. And this consciousness is God. The awareness of being as God is the central truth of all revelation. It is stated in every great teaching, though often hidden behind the veil of literal interpretation. When you claim your awareness of being as the only reality, you stand where the great ones stood. You discover that you and your father are one.

Consciousness, being God, is the father. The thing you are conscious of being is the son bearing witness of his father. It is like the conceiver and its conceptions. The conceiver is ever greater than his conceptions, yet ever remains one with his conception. Before you are conscious of being victorious you are first conscious of being. Then you become conscious of being victorious. Yet you remain as conceiver, greater than your conception, yet one with it. This is the glorious truth that sets you free.

In the awareness of being all things are possible. You shall assume a state and it shall come to pass. This is your assuming, rising in consciousness to the naturalness of being the victor. If you be lifted up in consciousness to the naturalness of victory, you will draw the manifestation of that victory unto you. Consciousness is the father that draws all things unto you. You are at this very moment drawing into your world that which you are now conscious of being. If you are conscious of victory, the evidence of victory must appear. If you are conscious of battle, the evidence of battle must appear. There is no other law.

The secret of assumed victory is simply this: you live from the end. The end is victory. You do not strive toward victory; you assume it is already so and you live in that state. The feeling of victory is the feeling of peace, of completion, of rest. It is the feeling that the battle is finished, the struggle is over, the victory is won. When you feel this, you have assumed victory. And this assumption, when persisted in, compels the outer world to conform to it.

Your world is your consciousness out-pictured. If you are conscious of being one who must fight for victory, your world will present battles to be fought. If you are conscious of being victorious, your world will present the confirmation of that victory. There is no other way. You cannot change your world by fighting the battle on the level of the battle. You can only transcend the battle by assuming the state of victory. The battle is the shadow cast by the assumption of struggle. When the assumption of victory is made, the shadow has nothing to fall upon and it fades.

You are at this very moment drawing into your world that which you are now conscious of being. Now you can see what is meant by assuming the victory before the battle begins. If you are dissatisfied with your present expression of battle, the only way to change it is to take your attention away from that which seems so real to you and rise in consciousness to that which you desire to be. You cannot serve two masters. Therefore to take your attention from one state of consciousness and place it upon another is to die to one and live to the other. The battle dies when the assumption of victory lives.

The question, "Whom do you say that you are?" is the eternal question addressed to one's self by one's true being. In other words, "Whom do you say that you are in this situation?" For your conviction of yourself, your assumption of yourself, will determine your expression in life. Do you say that you are one who must fight for victory, or one who has assumed victory? Your answer determines everything.

You believe in consciousness. Believe also in the assumption. It is the assumption within you that is this power. Assuming, then, is seen to be recognizing yourself to be that which you now desire rather than petitioning or striving for that which you now desire. So you see why the millions of strivings are not successful. Men strive from a consciousness that does not possess the victory. To be conscious of being one who must fight for victory and to strive for victory is to be rewarded with that which you are conscious of being, which is the battle.

Assumptions to be successful must be claiming rather than striving. So if you would assume victory, turn from your picture of battle by denying the very evidence of your senses and assume the nature of being victorious. We are told to go within in secret and shut the door. And that which your father sees in secret, with that will he reward you openly. We have identified the father to be the awareness of being. We have also identified the door to be the awareness of being. So shutting the door is shutting out that which I am now aware of being, the one in battle, and claiming myself to be that which I desire to be, the victor. The very moment my claim is established to the point of conviction, that moment I begin to draw unto myself the evidence of my claim.

Do not question the how of this victory appearing, for no man knows that way. That is, no manifestation knows how the victory will appear. Consciousness is the way or door through which things appear. The signs always follow. They never precede. Things have no reality other than in consciousness. Therefore, get the consciousness of victory first and the victory is compelled to appear.

You are told to seek first the kingdom of Heaven and all things shall be added unto you. Get first the consciousness of the victory that you are seeking and leave the battle alone. This is what is meant by assuming the victory and having it come to pass. Apply this principle and you will know what it is to prove it and see. The story of assumption is the story of every man. Assumption is the awareness of being that ever remains virgin, no matter how many desires it gives birth to. Right now look upon yourself as this virgin awareness, being impregnated by yourself through the medium of the desire for victory, becoming one with your desire to the point of embodying or giving birth to your victory.

It is said that the virgin knew not a man. Yet she conceived. That is, you have no reason to believe that victory is possible in your situation, but having discovered your awareness of being to be the power, you make this awareness your husband and conceive the child of victory. Your ideal of victory is this conception. The first command is go, tell no man. That is, do not discuss your assumption of victory with another, for the other will only echo your present doubts. Secrecy is the first law to be observed in realizing your assumption. The second is to magnify the Lord. We have identified the Lord as your awareness of being. Therefore to magnify the Lord is to revalue or expand one's present conception of one's self to the point where this revaluation becomes natural. When this naturalness is attained you give birth by becoming that which you are one with in consciousness.

The claim is established to the point of conviction, and that moment you begin to draw unto yourself the evidence of your claim. Do not question the how of these things appearing, for no man knows that way. Consciousness is the way through which the victory shall come. The signs always follow. They never precede.

This rising in consciousness is the spiritual marriage where two shall agree upon being one, and their likeness or image is established on earth. For whatsoever you assume in the name of consciousness the same is given unto you. Whatsoever is quite a large measure. It is the unconditional. It does not state if the battle seems too great or the opposition too strong. It rests with you. Do you really want the victory? Do you desire it? That is all that is necessary. Life will give it to you if you assume in its nature. Nature means the feeling of it. So when you assume in the nature of victory, results ever follow.

To assume in the name is to rise in consciousness and become one in nature with the victory desired. Rise in consciousness to the nature of victory, and you will become that in expression. Therefore what things soever you desire, when you assume, believe that you have received them and you shall receive them. Assuming, as we have shown, is recognition. The injunction to believe that you have received is first person, present tense. This means that you must be in the nature of the victory before you can receive it.

To get into the nature easily, general amnesty is necessary. Forgive if you have aught against any. This may seem to be some personal power who is pleased or displeased, but this is not the case. Consciousness being the power, if you hold in consciousness anything against man, you are binding that condition in your world. But to release man from all condemnation is to free yourself so that you may rise to any level necessary. There is therefore no condemnation to those in the assumption of victory. Therefore a very good practice before you enter into your assumption is first to free every man in the world from blame. For law is never violated, and you can rest confidently in the knowledge that every man's conception of himself is going to be his reward.

Do not speculate as to how you shall express this victory, for life has a way that you as man know not of. Its ways are past finding out. But I assure you, the day you claim this victory to the point of conviction, your claim will be honored. There is nothing covered that shall not be uncovered. That which is spoken in secret shall be proclaimed from the housetops. That is, your secret convictions of yourself, these secret assumptions that no man knows of, when really believed, will be shouted from the housetops in your world. For your convictions of yourself are the words of the consciousness within you, which words are spirit and cannot return unto you void but must accomplish where unto they are sent.

You are at this moment calling out of the infinite that which you are now conscious of being. And not one assumption will fail to find you. I AM the vine and ye are the branches. Consciousness is the vine, and those qualities which you are now conscious of being are as branches that you feed and keep alive. Just as a branch has no life except it be rooted in the vine, so likewise victory has no life except you be conscious of it. Just as a branch withers and dies if the sap of the vine ceases to flow towards it, so do victories in your world pass away if you take your attention from the assumption of them.

To dissolve a battle that now seems so real to you, all that you do is remove your attention from it. In spite of its seeming reality, turn from it in consciousness. Become indifferent, and begin to feel yourself to be the victor. Feel it to the point where it is natural; the very second you do so, the battle begins to dissolve. Apply this same principle to any battle. Your answer to whom do you say that you are ever determines your expression. As long as you are conscious of being one who must battle, so long will you continue to out-picture battle. When man realizes that he is now that which he is seeking, victory, and begins to claim that he is, he will have the proof of his claim.

If you are in battle, your savior is victory. It will not be some outer force that will save you, but the assumption of victory will become your savior. Therefore claim I am victorious. In other words, claim yourself to be the victor. Claim it in consciousness, not in words, and consciousness will reward you with your claim. You are told you shall find me when you feel after me. Well, feel after that quality in consciousness until you feel yourself to be it. When you lose yourself in the feeling of being victorious, the victory will embody itself in your world. You are freed from your battle when you touch the solution of it. The day you touch this being within you, feeling yourself to be victorious, virtues will come out of your very self and solidify themselves in your world as victory.

It is said you believe in consciousness, believe also in the assumption for I am he. Have the faith of consciousness. He made himself one with it and found it not robbery to do the works. Go, you, and do likewise. Yes, begin to believe your awareness, your consciousness of being, to be the power. Claim for yourself the attribute of victory that you have heretofore given to outer effort, and you will begin to express this claim. For I am not a power afar off. I am nearer than your hands and feet, nearer than your very breathing. I AM your awareness of being. I AM that in which all that I shall ever be aware of being shall begin and end. For before the battle was I AM, and when the battle shall cease to be, I AM. This I AM is your awareness.

Except the consciousness build the house they labor in vain that build it. The consciousness being your awareness; except that which you seek, victory, is first established in your consciousness, you will labor in vain to find it. All things must begin and end in consciousness. So blessed indeed is the man that trusteth in himself, for man's faith in victory will ever be measured by his confidence in his assumption. You believe in a power, believe also in the assumption.

Put not your trust in battles for battles but reflect the being that you are and can only bring to you or do unto you that which you have first assumed unto yourself. No man taketh away my victory, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again. No matter what battle happens to man in this world, it is never an accident. It occurs under the guidance of an exact and changeless law. No man, manifestation, comes unto me except the father within me draw him, and I and my father are one. Believe this truth and you will be free. Man has always blamed the battle for that which he is and will continue to do so until he finds himself as cause of all.

The assumption comes not to destroy but to fulfill. The assumption, the awareness within you, destroys nothing but ever fills full the molds or conception one has of one's self. It is impossible for the man in battle to find victory in this world no matter how he is surrounded with opportunities for victory until he first assumes himself to be victorious. For signs follow, they do not precede. To constantly kick and complain against the limitations of battle while remaining in the consciousness of battle is to play the fool's game. Changes cannot take place from that level of consciousness, for life is constantly out-picturing all levels.

Follow the example of the one who assumes the end. Realize that you yourself brought about this condition of battle and lack of victory, and make the decision within yourself to rise to a higher level where the victory awaits your claim. There was no condemnation of the one who had the courage to claim this inheritance as his own. Others will condemn us only as long as we continue in that for which we condemn ourselves. So happy is the man that condemneth himself not in that which he alloweth. For to life nothing is condemned. All is expressed.

Life does not care whether you call yourself victor or defeated, successful or failing. It will eternally reward you with that which you claim as true of yourself. The measurements of right and wrong, of possible and impossible, belong to man alone. To life there is nothing right or wrong, possible or impossible. Stop asking yourself whether you are worthy or unworthy to receive the victory. You, as man, did not create the desire for victory. Your desires are ever fashioned within you because of what you now claim yourself to be.

When a man is in battle, without thinking, he automatically desires victory. Your desires contain within themselves the plan of self-expression. So leave all judgments out of the picture and rise in consciousness to the level of your desire and make yourself one with it by claiming it to be so now. For my grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Have faith in this unseen claim until the conviction is born within you that it is so. Your confidence in this claim will pay great rewards. Just a little while and the victory, the thing desired, will come. But without faith it is impossible to realize anything. Through faith the worlds were framed because faith is the substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence of the thing not yet seen.

Don't be anxious or concerned as to results. They will follow just as surely as day follows night. Look upon your assumption of victory as the spoken word of consciousness, and the assumption a promise. The reason most of us fail to realize our victories is because we are constantly conditioning them. Do not condition your assumption. Just accept it as it comes to you. Give thanks for it to the point that you are grateful for having already received it; then go about your way in peace.

Such acceptance of your assumption is like dropping seed, fertile seed, into prepared soil. For when you can drop the victory in consciousness, confident that it shall appear, you have done all that is expected of you. But to be worried or concerned about the how of your victory maturing is to hold these fertile seeds in a mental grasp, and therefore never to have dropped them in the soil of confidence.

The reason men condition their assumptions is because they constantly judge after the appearance of being and see the things as real, forgetting that the only reality is the consciousness backing them. To see things as real is to deny that all things are possible to consciousness. The man who is in battle and sees his battle as real is automatically denying the assumption of victory within him.

A question often asked when this statement is made is if one's desire for victory is a gift of consciousness, how can you say that if one desires victory over another that such a desire is good? In answer to this let me say that no man desires victory over another. What he does desire is to be freed from the battle. But because he does not believe that the desire to be free from battle contains within itself the powers of victory, he conditions that desire and sees the only way to express such freedom is through more battle, forgetting that the life wrapped within the desire has ways that he, as man, knows not of. Its ways are past finding out.

Thus man distorts the gifts of consciousness through his lack of faith. Battles are the mountains spoken of that can be removed if one has but the faith of a grain of a mustard seed. Men approach their battle as did the one who on hearing the truth said if you had but the faith of a grain of a mustard seed you would say unto yonder mountain be thou removed and it shall be removed and nothing is impossible to you. That night as she said her prayers she quoted this part and retired to bed in what she thought was faith. On arising in the morning she rushed to the window and exclaimed I knew that old mountain would still be there.

For this is how man approaches his battle. He knows that it is still going to confront him. And because life is no respecter of persons and destroys nothing, it continues to keep alive that which he is conscious of being. Battles will disappear only as man changes in consciousness. Deny it if you will, it still remains a fact that consciousness is the only reality and battles but mirror that which you are in consciousness. So the victorious state you are seeking will be found only in consciousness, for you cannot rise higher than your assumption.

When you assume victory you are not pretending. You are not lying to yourself. You are simply acknowledging the truth that consciousness is the only reality and that what you assume to be true of yourself must be expressed. The battle you see is the expression of your previous assumption. The victory you assume is the expression of your new assumption. One must give way to the other. When you assume victory you are not ignoring the battle. You are not pretending it does not exist. You are simply giving it no power by giving it no attention. Your attention is the sap that keeps the battle alive. When you remove your attention from the battle and place it upon the victory, the battle withers for lack of nourishment. The victory grows for the attention you give it.

This is why the assumption must be felt. Feeling is the secret. The feeling of victory is the nourishment. The feeling of battle is the nourishment of the battle. Choose this day whom you will serve. Choose the feeling you will entertain. Choose the assumption you will live from. And the choice is always before you. In every moment you are assuming something. In every moment you are choosing the state from which you live. Most men choose unconsciously. They assume defeat because they have always assumed it. They assume battle because the world has taught them that life is a battle. But you have heard the truth. You have heard that you can assume victory. And in hearing it you have the power to choose.

Choose victory. Assume it now. Feel it now. Live from it now. And see how the battle you thought was so real begins to fade before the light of your assumption. The transformation is not in the world first; it is in you. You change and the world changes. You assume victory and the world assumes the role of confirming your victory. People who were adversaries become helpers. Circumstances that were obstacles become stepping stones. But none of this is done by you. It is done by the law of consciousness, which is your own wonderful being.

You are not separate from this law. You are the law in action. Your assumption is the law in action. Your feeling is the law in action. Therefore assume wisely. Feel nobly. Live from the victory you desire and the victory will be your experience. This is not a promise for the future. This is a statement of what is. The victory is now. The assumption is now. The expression is now. There is no waiting. There is only the naturalness of being what you have assumed.

When you have assumed victory to the point where it feels natural, you will no longer think about it. You will simply be it. And being it, you will express it. And expressing it, you will see it. And seeing it, you will give thanks. And giving thanks, you will know that the assumption was the cause and the victory was the effect. This is the secret. This is the truth that sets you free from the battle. You are free because you have assumed the freedom of victory. You are victorious because you have assumed the consciousness of victory. There is no other way. There is no other secret.

From this night on you walk as one who has won. You speak as one who has won. You think as one who has won. And the world, which is only yourself pushed out, wins with you. You are not becoming victorious. You are victorious. The battle was the dream of one who had not yet assumed his true identity. Now that you have assumed it, the dream is over. The reality of victory is here. This is the secret of assumed victory.