#87: The State of Peace

The State of Peace

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

Can man assume a state and remain troubled? Most decidedly he cannot if the assumption is truly accepted. For the state of peace is the unfailing proof that you have accepted the end. When the end is fixed in consciousness, when you have felt yourself to be the one who has received, peace descends as naturally as night follows day, and that peace is the evidence, the witness, the sure sign that your assumption has been accepted by the only power that can bring it to pass.

You assume a desire. You feel it. You dwell upon it. Yet if anxiety lingers, if the mind still questions the way or watches the outer scene for confirmation, you have not accepted the end. You are still in the six days of labor. You are still impressing, still working, still separated in consciousness from that which you desire. The moment the end is truly accepted, the labor ceases. The mind rests. Peace, the Sabbath, the holy day of rest, is upon you. This is not something you must strive to feel. Peace is what remains when striving has ended because acceptance has taken its place.

Consider what it means to accept the end. It is not the repetition of words. It is not the hopeful glance toward tomorrow. It is the quiet, inner conviction that the thing is already so. You have felt it. You have become it in consciousness. The desire, once a hunger, is now a memory of something already possessed. And when this occurs, the burden lifts of itself. You do not decide to be at peace. Peace is the atmosphere that fills the space left vacant by doubt. The very absence of the old tension is itself the proof. You walk, you speak, you go about your affairs, and something within you knows it is finished. This knowing needs no outer sign to sustain it, yet every outer sign will in time bear witness to it.

The world calls this peace many names. Some call it faith. Others call it detachment. But in the language of consciousness it is simply the Sabbath that follows successful assumption. Six days you labor to fix the state. You imagine. You feel. You persist until the feeling is natural. On the seventh day you rest. That rest is not idleness. It is the mind’s acknowledgment that the work is done. The impression has been made. The seed has been dropped into prepared soil. And because the soil is consciousness itself, the seed must grow. You do not dig it up to examine its roots. You do not water it with worry. You rest. You go your way in peace. And this going your way in peace is the clearest evidence that you have truly accepted the end.

Many believe they have accepted when in truth they have only desired. Desire is the first step. It is the urge. But acceptance is the marriage. It is the moment two have agreed: you and the state. When that agreement is complete, peace follows as surely as day follows the completed night. If peace does not follow, the agreement is not yet sealed. Something within still holds to the old. Some portion of consciousness still believes the end is future rather than present. And so the mind continues its labor, its questioning, its watching. But the moment the whole consciousness agrees, the whole being rests. This rest is peace. And this peace is the proof.

You will find, as you test this, that peace is not dependent upon the absence of problems. The outer scene may remain unchanged for a time. Appearances may even seem to contradict the end you have accepted. Yet if the acceptance is real, peace remains. It is not a peace that denies the senses. It is a peace that transcends them. It is the peace which passeth all understanding because it does not arise from understanding the how. It arises from knowing that the end has already been accepted by the creative power within you. The how is not your concern. The end is your only concern. And when the end is fixed, the how unfolds without your anxious supervision.

This is why you are told to go your way in peace after you have given thanks. Thanksgiving is the natural gesture of one who has accepted. You do not thank for what you still hope to receive. You thank for what you know you have received in consciousness. And having given thanks, you go your way. You do not stand waiting. You do not pace. You move forward in the quiet certainty that the thing is already yours. That movement in peace is the outer expression of an inner fact: the end has been accepted. The interval between acceptance and embodiment is the Sabbath, the period of rest, the time in which the invisible becomes visible without your interference.

If you would know whether you have truly accepted the end, ask yourself one simple question in the quiet of your own mind: Am I at peace? Not a forced calm. Not a surface stillness maintained by effort. But the deep, untroubled rest that comes when the mind has ceased to argue with the end. When you can think of the fulfilled desire and feel no surge of wanting, no tightening of anxiety, no reaching into the future, then you have accepted. The desire has become a fact of consciousness. It no longer stands before you as a goal. It stands with you as a present reality. And in that standing together, peace is born.

This peace changes the man who enters it. He is no longer the one who must make something happen. He is the one in whom something has already happened. His I AM has assumed a new shape, and that shape is the fulfilled desire. The old man, the man of striving and doubt, has been left behind. Not by force. Not by discipline. But by the simple act of acceptance. For consciousness cannot be both the man who lacks and the man who has. When the man who has is assumed and felt as natural, the man who lacks dissolves. What remains is peace. Not the peace of the world, which comes and goes with circumstances, but the peace of the accepted end, which remains regardless of circumstances until the circumstances themselves are compelled to conform.

You will discover that this peace is contagious to your world. For the world is yourself pushed out. When you move in the consciousness of the accepted end, others feel the atmosphere of peace that surrounds you. They may not know its source. They may not understand why your presence calms them or why events arrange themselves more harmoniously in your vicinity. But you will know. You will know that peace is the evidence that your assumption has been accepted, and that acceptance is now expressing itself in every direction. The bridge of incidents is being built. The means are assembling themselves. And none of this requires your worried attention. Your only task was to accept the end. Having done so, your task is to remain at peace.

Should the peace be disturbed, do not condemn yourself. The disturbance is simply the old state reasserting itself. It is the proof that acceptance was not yet complete. Return quietly to the end. Feel it again. Not with strain. With the gentle persistence of one who knows that only acceptance brings rest. Dwell there until the feeling of it is natural once more. And when it is natural, peace will return of itself. You cannot force peace. You can only accept the end so completely that peace becomes inevitable. Every time you notice the absence of peace, you are being shown that the end has not yet been fully embraced. Every time peace returns, you are being shown that acceptance has deepened.

This is the practical test of every assumption. You do not judge your assumption by the immediate change in circumstances. You judge it by the presence or absence of peace. For circumstances must follow consciousness, but peace follows acceptance immediately. When you can lie down at night in the feeling of the wish fulfilled and sleep without the old anxiety, you have accepted. When you can rise in the morning and go about your day without the old reaching, you have accepted. When the desire no longer feels like something you must achieve but like something you already are, you have accepted. And in that acceptance, peace is your portion.

The mystics of old spoke of entering into the rest of God. This rest is not a future reward. It is the present consequence of having accepted the end. God, your own wonderful human imagination, rests when you rest in the acceptance of your desire. The creative power within you does not strive. It simply is. And when you become one with that is-ness in regard to your desire, you enter the same rest. You cease to be the worker and become the dweller in the finished work. This is the Sabbath. This is the peace. This is the proof.

You are not asked to understand how your desire will appear. You are asked only to accept that it has appeared in consciousness. The appearance in the outer world is not your responsibility. It is the inevitable consequence of an accepted end. Just as the night follows the day without your assistance, so the embodiment follows the acceptance without your anxious supervision. Your part is to assume, to feel, to accept, and to rest. The rest is peace. And peace is the sign that all has been done that needs to be done on your side.

Tonight, as you prepare for sleep, take your desire and feel it as already fulfilled. Do not ask how. Do not wonder when. Simply feel the naturalness of it. Feel the relief of one who no longer needs to strive. And in that relief, notice the peace that begins to settle. If the peace is complete, you will sleep as one who has finished his labor. If the peace is incomplete, return again to the feeling of the end until the mind grows quiet. Do this not as a technique but as a recognition. You are recognizing that the end is the only reality that matters. All else is the unfolding that follows acceptance.

As the days pass, watch the quality of your inner rest. The man who has accepted the end moves through the world as one already satisfied. He does not deny the senses when they report lack. He simply knows that the senses are reporting an old state that is no longer his. His peace is the evidence that he has changed states. And because he has changed states, the world must in time change around him. This is not hope. This is law. Consciousness is the only reality, and peace is the atmosphere of consciousness when it has accepted its desire as finished.

You will find, as this becomes living truth within you, that you no longer live for the fulfillment. You live from the fulfillment. The desire has been absorbed into your I AM. It is no longer something you want. It is something you are. And the being of it is peace. Not a peace that must be protected. A peace that protects you. For when you walk in the consciousness of the accepted end, nothing can truly disturb you. Appearances may rise. Conditions may seem to threaten. But you remain unmoved, for you have already accepted the end, and the end is stronger than any appearance.

This is the state of peace. It is not something you create. It is something you enter when you have ceased to create the opposite by your doubt. It is the natural result of a successful psychological act. You imagined. You felt. You accepted. And now you rest. The rest is peace. The peace is proof. And the proof is that the creative power within you has received your assumption and is even now bringing it to pass in the only way it knows: by making the outer world conform to the inner acceptance.

So tonight, and in the nights to come, accept the end. Feel it done. And let the peace that follows be your teacher. It will teach you that you have done all that is required of you. It will teach you that the burden is no longer yours. It will teach you that the I AM which is your true self has assumed its desire and now rests in the certainty of fulfillment. And in that rest, in that peace, you will know what it means to have truly accepted the end. For the end, once accepted, has no choice but to appear. And peace is the quiet, unshakable knowledge of this truth while you wait.

You are the one who has accepted. You are the one at peace. And because you are, all things are already well.