#93: Essentials

Essentials

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have sought many ways to change the circumstances of your life. You have read, you have tried, you have hoped, and still the outer world remains much as it was. The reason is not that the way is hidden or difficult. The reason is that you have overlooked the simplicity of the law itself. The law is not a complicated process. It is a simple formula: desire, assume, feel, persist. This is all. And this is everything.

Desire is the beginning of every creative act. It is not something you manufacture by effort. Desire rises in you because the Father within you, your own awareness of being, seeks fuller expression. When you truly desire a state, it is because that state already exists in the infinite as a possibility for you. You cannot desire what is not already yours in consciousness, for consciousness is the only reality and all things exist there first. Do not judge your desire. Do not ask whether it is right or possible or worthy. Desire itself is the proof that the thing is already prepared for you. The urge you feel is the voice of God within you calling you to claim what is already yours.

To assume is the next step in the formula, and it is the act that gives desire form. To assume means to take to yourself as true now what you desire to be. It is not to hope for it in the future. It is not to long for it as something afar off. It is to rise in consciousness and dwell in the state as though it were already your present fact. You do this by claiming quietly within yourself, “I am the one who…” and then you feel the naturalness of that claim. You do not argue with the senses. You do not try to make it happen. You simply assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and let that assumption be your new dwelling place. In the moment you truly assume, you have already left the old state and entered the new. The outer world has not yet changed, but the cause has been set in motion, for consciousness is the potter and your assumption is the mold into which life will pour itself.

The feeling is the secret within the formula. Many assume with the mind only and wonder why nothing happens. The mind can think about a thing, but only feeling gives it life. To feel the wish fulfilled is to experience the inner sensation of it as present and real. It is a quiet, living conviction. It is the sense that it is already so. You do not work yourself into an emotional state. You simply rest in the feeling that the thing you desire is now yours. This feeling is the bridge between the invisible and the visible. It is the substance that clothes your desire and makes it appear in the world of form. When you feel it, you have impregnated consciousness with the new state, and the birth must follow. The feeling is not something you do once and forget. It is the atmosphere in which you live while you persist.

Persistence is the final and essential part of the formula. Without it the assumption fades and the old state returns. Persistence does not mean straining or forcing. It means remaining faithful to the feeling of the wish fulfilled even when the senses deny it. The world will present its evidence against your assumption. Old conditions will seem to grow stronger for a little while. This is the test. It is not a sign that the law has failed. It is the old state dying. You persist by gently returning to the feeling whenever the outer world distracts you. You do not fight the evidence. You simply withdraw your attention from it and rest again in the inner conviction that it is done. In this persistence you are like one who has planted a seed. You do not dig it up every day to see if it is growing. You leave it in the ground, knowing that the law of growth is at work. Your persistence is your faith made visible. It is the proof that you have truly assumed and truly felt.

This formula works because it is in harmony with the nature of consciousness itself. Consciousness is the only reality. Whatever you are conscious of being, you express. You cannot express what you are not conscious of being. Therefore the whole process is simply a change of consciousness. Desire shows you the state you are to enter. Assumption is the act of entering it. Feeling is the living experience of having entered it. Persistence is remaining there until the outer world conforms. There is no other way. All the complications men have added to this simple law have only hidden it from them. When you return to the formula in its purity, you discover that the power was always within you, waiting to be used.

Consider what happens when you truly desire. The desire itself is already the beginning of the change. It means that your present state no longer satisfies the deeper self. You are being called out of the old and into something greater. Do not resist the desire. Do not say it is impossible or too late or not for you. Accept it as the voice of your own being urging you toward fuller expression. The desire is the Father within you saying, “Come up higher.” When you accept the desire without argument, you have already taken the first step in the formula.

Then you assume. In the quiet of your own mind you say to yourself, “I am now the man who has this.” You do not say it as a vain repetition. You say it until the words cease and only the feeling remains. You feel the relief of having it. You feel the naturalness of walking in the state you have assumed. You feel the peace of knowing it is already finished. This is not pretending. It is the most real thing you can do, for the inner act is the creative act. The outer is only the shadow that must follow. When you assume with feeling, you have already become in consciousness the one you desire to be. The world has no choice but to reflect this new consciousness, for your world is always your consciousness out-pictured.

The feeling must be cultivated and protected. In the beginning it may seem faint, like a delicate plant. You strengthen it by returning to it often. You do not wait for some special time or place. In the midst of your daily activities you can quietly remember the feeling and dwell in it for a moment. Each time you do so, you feed the assumption and give it greater reality within you. The feeling is not an emotion that comes and goes. It is a steady, quiet knowing. It is the sense that the thing is so. When this knowing becomes natural to you, you have truly felt the wish fulfilled. And when you have felt it, the law has already begun its work.

Persistence is required because the old state does not surrender easily. It has been your dwelling place for a long time. When you assume a new state, the old one will present its claims. It will remind you of past failures. It will show you the present evidence of lack or limitation. This is the moment of testing. If you yield to the old evidence, you return to the old state and the formula is broken. If you persist in the new feeling, the old state loses its power over you. It withers from lack of attention. Persistence is not stubbornness. It is faithfulness to the new. It is the refusal to be moved by appearances. It is the quiet determination to remain in the assumed state until it hardens into fact.

You live this formula in the midst of your ordinary days. You do not withdraw from life. You carry the feeling with you into every activity. When you speak to others, you speak from the new state. When you make decisions, you make them as the one who has already received. When difficulties arise, you meet them from the consciousness of the wish fulfilled. You do not deny the difficulty. You simply refuse to give it the power to change your inner conviction. In this way the formula becomes your way of life. It is not something you do only in meditation. It is the atmosphere in which you move and have your being.

The change begins within. As you persist in the feeling, you discover that you are no longer the same person who began the assumption. Something in you has shifted. The old fears lose their grip. The old doubts grow quiet. You find yourself thinking and acting from a new center. This is the new man being born. You do not become someone else. You become more truly yourself, the self that was always there but hidden by the old assumptions. The formula does not add something foreign to you. It reveals what was already yours and calls it forth into expression.

The outer world begins to rearrange itself in harmony with your new consciousness. Opportunities appear that were not there before. People and conditions change in ways you could not have planned. The how is never your concern. The law has ways you know not of. Your only work is to desire, assume, feel, and persist. The Father within you, your own awareness, does the rest. He draws to you all that is necessary for the fulfillment of the assumption. You will look back one day and see that everything that happened was part of the perfect unfolding. But while it is happening, you do not need to understand it. You only need to remain faithful to the feeling.

Doubts will arise. They are natural. They are the voice of the old state trying to regain its hold. When a doubt appears, you do not fight it. You simply return to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. You remind yourself that you have already assumed and that the feeling is the reality. The doubt has no power over the assumption unless you give it your attention. By gently withdrawing your attention from the doubt and resting again in the feeling, you starve the doubt and strengthen the new state. In time the doubts come less frequently. They lose their urgency. Eventually they cease altogether, for there is no place for them in the consciousness of the fulfilled desire.

You will be tempted to look for signs. You will want to see some evidence in the outer world that the assumption is working. This temptation must be resisted. Signs follow. They do not precede. If you look to the outer for proof before the inner work is finished, you break the feeling and return to the old state. The true proof is the feeling itself. When you can rest in the feeling without needing outer confirmation, the outer confirmation is already on its way. It must come, for the law is exact and cannot fail.

This simple formula is the essence of all true teaching on the subject of changing your world. Every great mystic and teacher has pointed to it in one form or another. Desire the state. Assume that you are already in it. Feel the reality of it. Persist in that feeling until it becomes your dwelling place. There is nothing more to add. All the books and lectures and methods are only attempts to lead you back to this simplicity. When you accept the formula and live by it, you discover that the power to change your life was never outside you. It was always the very consciousness with which you look out upon the world.

Tonight, as you prepare for sleep, you can begin again. Let the desire be clear within you. Then assume the feeling of its fulfillment. Feel it as quietly and as deeply as you can. And as you drift into sleep, persist in that feeling. Let it be the last thing you are aware of and the first thing you remember upon waking. Do this night after night. Do it without anxiety about results. The results are not your responsibility. Your responsibility is only to desire, assume, feel, and persist. The law will do the rest.

In the days that follow, carry the feeling with you. When the old state tries to reassert itself, return gently to the assumption. Do not condemn yourself when you forget. Simply begin again. Each time you return to the feeling, you strengthen it. Each time you persist, you move closer to the moment when the outer world will conform. That moment is certain. It is as certain as the rising of the sun, for consciousness is reality and your assumption is already established there.

You are not the man who is seeking. You are the man who has found. You are not the one who hopes. You are the one who knows. You are not the one who waits. You are the one in whom the thing is already done. This is the great secret. This is the simple formula lived to the point of conviction. Desire it. Assume it. Feel it. Persist in it. And you will discover that your world has no choice but to reflect the new state you have claimed as your own. For you are consciousness, and consciousness is the only reality.