#73: The Bridge of Incidents

The Bridge of Incidents

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have assumed the feeling of your wish fulfilled. You have entered into the state of the one who has what he desires. You have felt the naturalness of it. You have accepted it as true. And yet the world around you remains the same. The conditions that were there before you assumed are still there. Your senses report no change. The evidence of your outer world denies the reality of your inner act. In this moment many turn back. They say the assumption did not work. They say the feeling was not enough. They return to their old state and to their old efforts to make things happen by force or by planning. But this is not the way.

An assumption, when it is truly felt and accepted, builds a bridge of incidents that leads inevitably to the fulfillment of itself. This is the law. It is not a law that you must make work. It is a law that works when you work it by assumption and persistence. The bridge is not of your conscious construction. You do not sit down and plan the events that will lead to your goal. You do not manipulate people or circumstances to fit your desire. The bridge is built by the assumption itself. It is the automatic outworking of the state you have occupied in consciousness.

Your assumption places you psychologically where you are not yet physically. You feel yourself to be in the state desired. This feeling is a movement in consciousness. It is a forward motion. You have left the old state and entered the new. But the senses, which are always faithful to the physical, pull you back. They show you the old conditions. They insist that you are still where you were. If you yield to the senses, you return to the old state and the forward motion is lost. But if you persist in the feeling of the new state, you maintain the forward motion. And this forward motion in consciousness must produce a corresponding forward motion in the physical world. The incidents that arise are the visible form of that motion. They are the bridge across which you move from the psychological realization to the physical realization.

These incidents are ordinary. They are the events of your everyday life. They do not come with signs and wonders. They do not announce themselves as the means to your end. A conversation takes a certain turn. A letter contains an unexpected word. A door opens or closes. An opportunity appears or disappears. At the moment they occur, they may seem to have nothing to do with your assumption. They may even seem to move you away from it. But they are the bridge. Each one is a necessary step. The law uses the ordinary materials of your life to construct the path to the fulfillment. It does not need to create new and strange events. It rearranges the existing ones to match the assumption.

This is why you are warned not to judge after appearances. The appearance of an incident is not its meaning. Its meaning is its place in the bridge. Only when the fulfillment stands before you can you look back and see how perfectly each incident served. The man who was rude to you may have been the one who caused you to seek elsewhere and find the better. The delay that frustrated you may have been the timing that allowed all things to come together. The loss that grieved you may have been the clearing that made room for the gain. But while you are in the midst of the crossing, you do not see this. You see only the incident. And so you must not judge it. You must accept it and return to the assumption. The assumption knows the end. The incidents are its servants.

The common error is to try to build the bridge yourself. You assume, and then you begin to plan how it will come. You look for the incidents. You try to make them happen. You push and pull at circumstances. But this is to deny the law. The law says the assumption builds the bridge. Your planning is an attempt to build it by conscious effort, and conscious effort alone cannot do what only the assumption can do. When you plan, you are still in the state of the one who does not have it. You are trying to get to the end from the old state. But you can only reach the end from the new state. The assumption is the new state. From there the bridge is built automatically. Your planning is interference. It weakens the structure. It introduces doubt. For if you truly believed the assumption, you would not need to plan. You would know that the way is already prepared.

So release the planning. Release the how. Release the anxiety about when. These are not your concern. Your concern is the assumption and the persistence in the assumption. Feel the wish fulfilled. Feel it throughout the day. Feel it when the senses deny it. Feel it when incidents arise that seem contrary. Feel it when you are tempted to plan or to push. And as you feel, the bridge is strengthened. The incidents continue to arise in their proper order. And you move across them without effort, without strain, without the need to know.

There is a great release in this. You are released from the burden of being the maker of your own way. You are released from the fear that you will miss the right turn or take the wrong one. You are released from the watching and the waiting in anxiety. You assume, and then you live. You live your life in the outer world as the one who has assumed the inner state. And because you live from that state, the incidents that arise in your living are the incidents of the bridge. They are not the incidents of the old chain of cause and effect. The old chain is broken. The new chain, the bridge, has taken its place.

This is the difference between the man who assumes and persists and the man who hopes and plans. The one who hopes and plans is still tied to the past. He sees the future as the development of what has been. He tries to improve upon the old by effort. But the one who assumes sees the future as the development of what he is now in consciousness. He does not improve the old. He leaves the old by assuming the new. And the bridge carries him out of the old into the new without his having to force the passage.

The persistence required is not a grim holding on. It is a gentle returning. When the senses pull, you return to the feeling. When an incident puzzles or disturbs, you return to the feeling. When doubt whispers, you return to the feeling. Each return is a step forward on the bridge. Each return strengthens the structure. The feeling itself is the power that moves you across. It is not that you cross by effort. It is that you are carried by the feeling. The incidents are the ground under your feet, but the feeling is the motion.

In this there is no room for blame or for regret. If an incident seems to have hurt you or to have taken something from you, do not blame it. Do not regret the assumption that led to it. For the incident is part of the bridge to something greater. The law does not punish. It fulfills. What seems like loss is the removal of what stood in the way of the fulfillment. What seems like delay is the perfect timing. What seems like the wrong person or the wrong circumstance is the exact one needed for the bridge to be complete. You do not see it at the time. But you will see it when you stand in the fulfillment. And then you will give thanks for every incident, even those that seemed hardest at the time.

This is why the assumption must be felt as natural. If it is felt as a strain or as something you are trying to make true, the bridge will be weak and crooked. But if it is felt as the most natural thing in the world, the bridge will be straight and strong. The naturalness is the sign that you have truly assumed. You do not feel yourself trying to be the one who has it. You feel yourself to be that one. And from that being, the incidents flow naturally. They do not have to be forced. They do not have to be watched for. They arise as the natural expression of your state.

So tonight, assume. Not with effort. Not with strain. Simply feel the wish fulfilled. Feel the joy of it. Feel the peace of it. Feel the relief of having it. Let that feeling be your companion as you go about your evening. Let it be the last feeling as you fall asleep. And know that as you feel, the bridge is being built. The incidents are already in motion, even if you do not yet see them. Tomorrow or the next day or the day after, they will begin to appear. They will appear in the midst of your ordinary life. They will not disturb your routine. They will fit into it. And as they fit, they will carry you forward.

Do not look for them. Do not wait for them. Live from the assumption, and they will find you. When they come, accept them. Do not question them. Do not try to see how they will lead to the end. Simply accept and return to the feeling. In this way you cross without resistance. The bridge supports you. The law carries you. And the fulfillment awaits you at the other end.

You are not alone in this. The same law that works for you has worked for all who have assumed and persisted. It is not a new law. It is the eternal law of consciousness. Consciousness assumes a state. The state builds its bridge. The bridge leads to the physical expression of the state. This is how all things are made. This is how your world is made. And this is how your new world will be made when you assume and persist.

The bridge of incidents is the answer to the question, "How will it come?" It will come by the bridge. The bridge is the how. And you do not need to know the details of the bridge in advance. You need only to know that it exists and that it is faithful to the assumption. As you know this, you are free. Free to assume any state. Free to persist in any feeling. Free to live in the knowledge that the end is certain and the way is prepared.

Let us dwell upon this movement a little longer. The assumption is instantaneous in consciousness. You feel yourself to be the fulfilled one, and in that instant the psychological placement is complete. The bridge begins to form at that instant. But the physical expression takes the time required for the incidents to unfold in the world of form. That time is not a delay. It is the necessary duration of the crossing. The incidents must have their sequence. They must have their order. And that order is perfect for the assumption that called them forth. You do not shorten the time by anxiety. You do not lengthen it by resistance. You accept the time as part of the bridge and you remain in the feeling. The feeling does not measure time. The feeling simply is. And in that is-ness the bridge is extended step by step.

The senses will always report the old. This is their nature. They are the servants of the physical world as it was before the assumption. When you assume, you do not ask the senses to agree at once. You ask only that you yourself agree with the assumption. You feel it done. You feel it real. You feel it natural. And you let the senses report what they will. Their report has no power to stop the forward motion unless you give it that power by believing it. When you believe the report of the senses, you are pulled back. When you ignore the report and return to the feeling, you move forward. The choice is always yours in each moment. The bridge is crossed by the accumulation of these choices. Each time you choose the feeling over the appearance, another step is taken.

There is a quiet dignity in this choosing. You are not fighting the world. You are not arguing with conditions. You are simply being faithful to your own inner act. The world rearranges itself around the one who is faithful. The incidents are the rearrangement made visible. They are not against you. They are for you. They are the law's way of saying that your assumption has been received and is now being expressed. Even the incident that seems most contrary is saying this. It is removing what must be removed or positioning what must be positioned. Accept it in that light and you remain on the bridge. Resist it and you step off the bridge into the old movement.

The old movement is the movement of the past determining the future. The new movement is the movement of the assumption determining the future. These two movements cannot occupy the same space in consciousness. When you assume, you have chosen the new movement. When you persist, you have confirmed the choice. The incidents are the signs that the choice is being honored by the law. They may come slowly at first. They may come in ways you did not imagine. But they come. And as they come, your confidence in the assumption grows. Not because the incidents prove the assumption, but because the assumption has proved itself by producing the incidents. The proof is in the movement, not in any single event.

This movement is continuous as long as the assumption is continuous. It does not stop when you sleep. It does not stop when you are occupied with other things. The assumption is the cause, and the cause does not rest. The bridge continues to be built in the depths of consciousness even while your outer attention is elsewhere. When you return to the feeling, you are not starting again. You are continuing what has never ceased. The incidents that arise after a period of apparent quietness are simply the continuation made visible. There is no gap in the law. There is only the appearance of a gap when you have turned your attention from the assumption.

So you see that the bridge is not something you must anxiously watch for. It is something you trust while you live from the assumption. You go about your affairs. You fulfill your responsibilities. You speak with others. You rest and you work. But all the while you carry the feeling of the wish fulfilled as your inner companion. This carrying is not a burden. It is a joy. It is the joy of knowing that you have already done the creative work and that the outer world is now conforming to that work through the incidents. The conformity may not be immediate in every detail. But it is inevitable in the whole. The whole is the fulfillment. The details are the bridge.

When you truly grasp this, a great stillness comes over the mind. You are no longer striving to bring something to pass. You are no longer calculating the chances of success. You are no longer dependent upon the goodwill of others or the favor of circumstances. You are dependent only upon your own assumption and your own persistence in it. And this dependence is the greatest freedom. For the assumption is within you. The persistence is within you. The law that responds is within you. Nothing outside yourself can prevent the bridge from being built or from being crossed when you remain faithful.

The faithfulness is simple. It is the returning to the feeling whenever you have left it. It is the ignoring of the senses whenever they deny the assumption. It is the acceptance of every incident as part of the path. It is the refusal to plan or to push. It is the quiet knowing that the end is already secured in consciousness and that the incidents are the securing made visible in form. This knowing is not loud. It does not need to convince anyone. It does not need to announce itself. It simply is. And in that is the bridge stands and the crossing is accomplished.

You have assumed. The bridge is built. Persist in the assumption and you will cross it. The ordinary events of your life will become the path. The fulfillment will stand before you as the natural and inevitable result of your inner act. Where you have been in imagination, there you will be in the flesh also. This is the law. This is the promise. This is the bridge of incidents. Assume it tonight. Feel it tonight. Persist in it tonight. And the bridge will carry you to the realization that is already yours.