#198: The Law of Inner Confirmation

The Law of Inner Confirmation

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You are forever looking without for confirmation that your desire has been heard, that your assumption has taken root, that the thing you have felt yourself to be is on its way to you. Yet the only confirmation that can ever come, the only confirmation that has power to bring your desire into visible expression, is the confirmation that takes place within your own consciousness. Before the world can bear witness to what you have assumed, your consciousness must bear witness to itself. This is the law. It is not a law that can be broken or evaded. It is the changeless principle by which all things come into being.

Man seeks signs. He waits for some outer movement, some word from another, some circumstance that will tell him his prayer has been answered. He looks to the world to confirm what he has not yet confirmed in himself. And because he looks without, he remains without. The world can only reflect what has already been established within. It cannot initiate. It cannot create. It can only out-picture the state that consciousness has already confirmed as true.

When you truly understand this, you cease to run from one teacher to another, from one method to another, from one hope to another. You turn within and you do the one thing that matters. You confirm the state you desire to express. You rise in consciousness to the point where the desire is no longer a desire but a fact already accepted. You feel it as done. You give thanks for it as received. And in that inner act of confirmation, the law is fulfilled.

This confirmation is not a loud declaration. It is not the repetition of words. It is the quiet, unshakable knowing that arises when you have accepted the state as your own. It is the feeling that the thing is so. It is the gratitude that fills you when you know, not hope, but know, that what you have assumed is already yours. This knowing is the confirmation. And this confirmation is the father within you bearing witness to the son, the state you have assumed.

You have been told that when you pray, you must believe that you receive. That belief is not a mental assent. It is the inner confirmation. It is the moment when consciousness says yes to itself. It is the moment when the awareness of being accepts the new state as its present reality. When that yes is given inwardly, when that confirmation is felt, the outer world has no choice but to rearrange itself in harmony with what has been confirmed.

Many of you have assumed. You have felt yourself into the state of the fulfilled desire. Yet you have not confirmed it. You have felt it for a moment and then returned to the old state, looking for signs that the assumption is working. But the assumption cannot work until it is confirmed. The feeling must be accepted as the fact. The inner gratitude must arise. The thank you must be felt, not spoken as a formula, but felt as the natural response of one who has received.

When you come into the joy of thanksgiving for that which is not yet apparent to the senses, you have confirmed it. You have established it in consciousness. And what is established in consciousness must appear. There is no power in the world that can prevent it. For the world is not the cause. Consciousness is the cause, and the world is the effect.

Consider what it means to confirm a state within yourself. It means that you no longer argue with the evidence of your senses. It means that you no longer ask how or when or through whom. It means that you have ceased to be the seeker and have become the one who has. The confirmation is the shift from hoping to knowing, from trying to being, from waiting to resting. In that rest, in that confirmed state, the Sabbath is kept. And in the keeping of that inner Sabbath, the outer world is compelled to give you rest from your labor.

You ask why some assumptions come quickly into visibility while others seem to linger. The answer is always the same. The assumption that is quickly realized is the one that was confirmed within. The assumption that lingers is the one that was felt but not confirmed, the one that was visited but not accepted as the permanent state of consciousness. You cannot confirm a state and then return to the old state and expect the new to appear. The confirmation must be lived. It must be the state from which you now operate.

This does not mean that you ignore the outer world. It means that you no longer look to the outer world for your confirmation. You have your confirmation within, and because you have it, you can move through the world in peace. You can see the old conditions without being disturbed by them, for you know that they are not the cause. They are the out-picturing of a former state, a state that you have now confirmed as no longer true of you.

The law of inner confirmation frees you from the anxiety of waiting. When you have confirmed the state within, you are no longer anxious about results. You know that the results must come. You know that the bridge of incidents is already being built. You know that the world is rearranging itself to bear witness to what you have confirmed. This knowing is not presumption. It is the natural consequence of having accepted the state as your own.

You may say that you have tried to confirm and nothing happened. But did you truly confirm, or did you merely think about confirming while still looking without for proof? True confirmation leaves no room for doubt. It is not a matter of degree. Either you have accepted the state or you have not. Either you have felt the gratitude of one who has received or you have not. There is no halfway. The consciousness that confirms is single. It does not look back. It does not question. It rests in the confirmed state and lets the world do what it must.

This inner confirmation is the true meaning of faith. Faith is not belief in something outside yourself. Faith is the confirmation within yourself that the state you have assumed is true. It is the substance of the thing hoped for because it is the evidence of the thing not yet seen. When faith is understood as inner confirmation, it ceases to be something you try to have and becomes something you simply are. You are the one who has confirmed. You are the one who knows.

The world will test this confirmation. It will present the old evidence. It will seem to deny what you have confirmed within. But these tests are not against you. They are the old state seeking to re-establish itself. They are the former consciousness trying to reclaim you. When you meet these tests with the quiet certainty of your inner confirmation, they dissolve. They have no power over the one who has confirmed a higher state. They can only persist as long as you give them your attention. When you withdraw your attention from them and rest in the confirmed state, they lose their substance and fade.

You are not asked to deny the evidence of your senses in some foolish way. You are asked to confirm a new state in consciousness and to live from that confirmation. The senses will eventually bear witness to what consciousness has confirmed. But they will do so in their own time and in their own way. Your part is to confirm and to remain faithful to that confirmation.

This faithfulness is not a grim holding on. It is a quiet resting in the confirmed state. It is the naturalness of one who knows. When you have confirmed a state within yourself, you do not have to remind yourself of it constantly. It becomes the atmosphere in which you live. It colors your reactions. It shapes your responses. It becomes the I AM from which you now speak and act. And because it has become natural to you, the world must make it natural in expression.

The confirmation of which I speak is not limited to what the world calls great desires. It applies to every state you wish to express. Whether it be health, or abundance, or harmonious relationships, or any other good, the law is the same. Before the world can confirm it, you must confirm it within. You must rise to the feeling of it. You must accept it as done. You must give thanks for it as received. And you must rest in that confirmation until the world catches up with what you have already established.

Many have read these words and have felt a momentary lift, only to return to the old state because they did not confirm. The reading is not the confirmation. The momentary feeling is not the confirmation. The confirmation is the deliberate, conscious acceptance of the state as your present reality. It is the inner act that no one sees but you. It is the secret marriage between your awareness and the state you desire. And that marriage, once consummated in consciousness, cannot be annulled by outer circumstances.

You may wonder how long you must persist in the confirmed state before the world reflects it. The answer is that you persist until it is reflected. But the persistence is not effort. It is the natural living in the state you have confirmed. When you have truly confirmed a state, you do not count the days. You do not watch the clock. You live from the confirmation, and the days take care of themselves. The confirmation carries its own power of fulfillment.

This is why those who have truly confirmed within seem to move through life with a quiet certainty that others cannot understand. They are not hoping. They are not trying. They are living from a confirmed state, and the world arranges itself around them. They do not seek confirmation from others because they have already confirmed within. And because they do not seek it, it comes to them freely.

The law of inner confirmation reveals the true meaning of the statement that the kingdom of heaven is within you. The kingdom is the confirmed state. It is the state of consciousness in which you rest. And when you rest in that confirmed state, all things are added unto you. The adding is not something you do. It is something that happens because you have confirmed the state from which all good flows.

Tonight, as you prepare for sleep, take the desire that has been with you, whatever it may be, and confirm it within. Do not ask how it will come. Do not wonder when. Simply rise in consciousness to the feeling of it as already yours. Let that feeling fill you. Let the gratitude arise. Let the quiet thank you be felt. And then rest in that confirmation. Let sleep come from that state. In that sleep, the confirmation deepens. And in the days that follow, you will see the world begin to bear witness to what you have confirmed.

Do not be disturbed if the old conditions linger for a time. They are the out-picturing of the old state, and they will fade as the new state is confirmed. The confirmation is the important thing. Once it is done, the law operates. The world must conform.

You are not at the mercy of conditions. You are not the victim of circumstances. You are the one who confirms in consciousness, and what you confirm must appear. This is the law of inner confirmation. It is the law by which you were meant to live. It is the law that sets you free from the endless search for signs and proofs. For the only proof you will ever need is the confirmation you give to yourself.

When you have confirmed a state within, you have done all that is required of you. The rest is not your concern. The father within, which is your own awareness of being, will bring it to pass. You have only to remain faithful to the confirmation you have made. And faithfulness, in this sense, is simply living from the confirmed state as your natural atmosphere.

The world will try to pull you back into the old confirmation of lack or illness or discord. But you have the power to confirm anew each day. Each morning you can rise in consciousness and confirm the state you have chosen. Each night you can confirm it again as you fall asleep. And in that repeated confirmation, the state becomes fixed, and the world has no choice but to reflect it.

This is not a burden. It is a joy. It is the joy of knowing that you are the operant power. It is the joy of knowing that your consciousness is the only reality. It is the joy of knowing that what you confirm within must be confirmed without. There is no greater freedom than this.

So tonight, confirm. Confirm the state you desire. Confirm it with the feeling of it. Confirm it with the gratitude for it. Confirm it with the quiet certainty that it is so. And having confirmed it, rest. Rest in the knowledge that the law has been fulfilled. The inner confirmation has been given. The outer confirmation must follow.

You are confirmed in your own being. You are the one who has said yes to the state. And in that yes, in that inner confirmation, all things are possible to you. For consciousness confirmed is consciousness expressed, and consciousness expressed is the world made new.

This is the law of inner confirmation. It is the law that has always been. It is the law by which you create your world. Accept it. Live it. Confirm it within, and watch the world confirm it to you. For you are the awareness that confirms, and what you confirm is what you become.