#76: The Potter and the Clay

The Potter and the Clay

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have long believed yourself to be the clay, helplessly taking the shape that circumstances force upon you. You have felt the pressure of events, the weight of conditions, the seeming stubbornness of the world around you, and you have accepted the form they gave. Yet the truth is otherwise, and it is a truth that sets you free the moment you accept it. You are not the clay. You are the potter. And the substance of all your experience — every condition, every event, every relationship, every state of the body — is the clay upon which you work, whether you know it or not.

The ancient voice declared, “O Lord, Thou art our father, we are the clay, and Thou art our potter; we are all the work of Thy hand.” These words were never meant to describe a distant creator molding a passive creature. The Lord of whom the prophet spoke is your own imagination. The word translated as potter means imagination, and it is your imagination that forever stands at the wheel, shaping the clay of experience into the forms you sustain in consciousness. Divine imagination has descended to the level of human imagination that human imagination may ascend to divine imagination. There is no separation. The potter is not another. The potter is you, when you assume the consciousness of the thing you desire to embody.

The clay itself has no will of its own. It does not choose its form. It does not resist the hand that presses upon it. It simply yields. The substance of experience is infinitely plastic to the activity of consciousness. What you feel yourself to be, the clay becomes. What you assume as true of yourself, the clay takes as its shape. There is no power in the formed vessel to maintain itself against a change in the potter’s activity. The vessel changes only when the potter changes. And you are that potter.

When you feel yourself to be poor, the clay takes the form of lack. When you feel yourself to be unwell, the clay takes the form of illness. When you feel yourself to be bound by circumstance, the clay hardens into the very walls you seem to fight. Yet the moment you rise in consciousness and assume the feeling of the opposite state, the potter begins again. The same clay is taken up, and a new vessel is formed. The old form does not have to be destroyed by outer effort. It simply yields to the new assumption, for the clay has no memory except the memory you give it by your sustained feeling.

To live as the potter is to understand that you do not argue with the clay. You do not plead with conditions. You do not try to force the world to change while you remain in the consciousness that produced the unwanted form. You simply change the activity within yourself. You assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and you dwell in that feeling until it becomes natural. In that naturalness the potter works without strain, and the clay obeys without resistance. The how of the reshaping is never your concern. The potter does not explain his method to the clay. The ways of imagination are past finding out, yet they are always faithful to the assumption that is truly felt.

Many speak of the hardness of life, of the resistance of circumstances, of the impossibility of change. These are only the words of one who still believes himself to be the clay. The one who knows himself as the potter sees no hardness in the clay, for he knows the clay has no power to remain hard against his hand. He does not wait for the world to soften. He softens the world by the softness of his own assumption. He does not demand that the vessel break. He simply forms a new one, and the old one loses its power to bind him.

The activity of the potter is continuous. There is no moment when imagination ceases to shape. When your feeling is scattered, when your attention rests upon what you do not desire, the potter is still at work, forming vessels you will later call problems. When you catch yourself in such feeling and deliberately turn to the feeling of the desired end, you have taken up the work again with conscious intent. The turning is not a violent act. It is a quiet assumption. It is the feeling, “It is done.” It is the inner knowing that the vessel is even now taking the form you have chosen.

This is why the emphasis is always upon feeling rather than upon words. Words may be spoken without conviction, and the clay remains unchanged. But when the feeling of the end is truly touched, when you live from the assumption that the thing is already so, the potter presses surely upon the wheel and the clay yields. You do not have to see the change at once. You do not have to understand the process. You need only persist in the feeling, for persistence is the potter remaining at his work until the vessel is finished.

The substance of experience includes everything that appears in your world. It includes the body you wear, the financial state you meet, the relationships that surround you, the opportunities that seem open or closed. All of it is clay. None of it has power to dictate its own form. All of it waits upon the activity of the potter. Therefore, to change any part of your experience you do not wrestle with that part. You turn within and assume the consciousness that would naturally produce the desired form. As you do this, the clay rearranges itself. The body responds. The finances change. The relationships adjust. Not because you have forced them, but because you have changed the only power that can give them form — your own consciousness.

There is a great dignity in knowing yourself as the potter. It lifts you above the sense of helplessness that comes from believing you are shaped by forces outside yourself. It restores to you the sense of creative responsibility without burden, for the work is done in feeling, not in outer struggle. The potter does not strain. He assumes the form he desires and holds it in consciousness until the clay conforms. So it is with you. Your responsibility is only to assume and to persist in the assumption. The clay does the rest.

When you lie down at night, you may practice this awareness in the simplest way. Close your eyes and feel yourself to be the potter at the wheel. Do not strain to see the outer change. Simply feel the clay soft and yielding. Feel the form you desire already taking shape beneath your hands. Feel the quiet satisfaction of the finished vessel. Feel the naturalness of the state you have assumed. In that feeling the work is done. The potter has pressed upon the clay, and the substance of experience has received its new shape. You may fall asleep in this feeling, and in the morning you rise as one who knows the work continues even while you sleep, for imagination never ceases.

Doubts will arise. They always arise when the old vessel still appears before the senses. The doubt is itself the activity of the potter forming a vessel of uncertainty. You do not fight the doubt. You simply return to the feeling of the end. You remember that the clay has no power to hold a form against your sustained assumption. You remember that you are the potter, and the potter is not bound by what he has made before. He can take the same clay and make it into something new. The doubt loses its power the moment you withdraw your attention from it and place your attention upon the desired state.

The transformation that occurs when you accept yourself as the potter is not a change in the world first. It is a change in your sense of self. You no longer feel yourself to be at the mercy of the clay. You feel yourself to be the one who determines what the clay shall be. This shift in identity is the beginning of all true change. For as long as you believe yourself to be the clay, you will continue to be molded by whatever feeling you entertain. When you know yourself as the potter, you choose the feeling deliberately, and the clay obeys.

The world you see is not a solid, unyielding fact. It is the clay that has taken form according to your past activity as potter. It can be reshaped because it is still clay. It has not become stone. The only thing that ever hardens is your belief that the form is fixed. Release that belief by assuming the opposite, and the clay softens again. The potter never encounters a vessel that cannot be reworked. He simply takes it up and forms it anew.

This is the practical meaning of the words, “You shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass.” The decree is the assumption. The coming to pass is the clay yielding to the potter. There is no other way. The decree is not spoken to an outside power. It is the inner feeling that the thing is already so. And that feeling is the potter at work.

You need not wait for a special time or a special mood. The wheel is always turning. The clay is always present. The only question is whether you are working consciously or unconsciously. To work consciously is to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and to dwell in that feeling until it becomes the dominant tone of your consciousness. Then the potter shapes surely, and the manifestation appears in its own time and in its own way. The ways are not your concern. The assumption is.

As this truth deepens in you, the old restlessness falls away. You no longer feel the need to force conditions into a pattern that pleases you. You know that the pattern forms itself when you assume the consciousness that naturally expresses that pattern. You walk more quietly. You speak with greater certainty. You act with greater freedom, not because you have struggled to become free, but because you have assumed the feeling of freedom and the clay has conformed.

The body itself is clay. When you assume the feeling of health, the potter is at work upon that clay, and the body responds. When you assume the feeling of youth or vitality or strength, the same clay is reshaped. There is no limit to what the potter can form, for the clay is infinite in its capacity to take form. The only limit is the limit you place upon yourself by believing you are the clay rather than the one who shapes it.

Relationships are clay. When you assume the feeling of harmonious relationship, the potter works upon that area of experience and the people in your world reflect the new form. You do not change them by argument or by outer effort. You change the assumption, and the clay yields. The same is true of every area of life. Finance, opportunity, recognition, creative expression — all are clay in the hands of the potter who is your own consciousness.

The peace that comes with this knowledge is not the peace of resignation. It is the peace of creative power. It is the peace of knowing that nothing is fixed except by your own assumption, and that every assumption can be changed. You do not have to accept the vessel that seems spoiled. You can take it up again and form it into the vessel you desire. The potter has that power, and you are the potter.

Tonight you may begin to live from this identity. In the quiet of your own mind, assume the feeling that you are the one who determines the form of your experience. Feel the clay soft beneath your hands. Feel the form you choose already appearing. Do not argue with what the senses report. The senses report the old vessel. The potter is forming the new one. Persist in the feeling of the new, and the clay must yield. It has no choice, for it is without will of its own.

This is not a technique to be applied occasionally. It is a way of living. It is the recognition that every moment you are shaping something by the feeling you entertain. To shape consciously is to choose the feeling of the end you desire and to dwell in that feeling. To do this is to be the potter in the full sense of the word. And to be the potter is to know that the clay of your world is even now responding to your touch.

You are not the victim of circumstance. You are not the passive recipient of forms you did not choose. You are the potter. And the substance of all experience is the clay that yields to your imagination. Assume the feeling of the fulfilled desire, persist in that feeling, and watch the clay take the shape you have given it. This is the truth that was hidden in the ancient words, and it is the truth that sets you free. You are the potter. The clay is yours. And the work is already under way.