#94: Failure

Failure

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You speak of failure as though it were a mysterious power that defeats your best efforts and stands between you and the realization of your desire. But I tell you there is no such power. Failure is only the abandonment of the assumed state. What you assume in consciousness, if you remain faithful to it, must take form in your world. There is no other creator, no other law, and no other way. The assumption itself is complete. It needs nothing added to it and nothing taken from it. When you assume a state you feel yourself to be the one in whom the desire is already fulfilled. You accept it without argument and without condition. This feeling of acceptance is the creative act. It is the moment in which you become one with your desire. And this oneness, if it is not broken, must objectify itself. It must appear as the natural and inevitable expression of your consciousness.

But the moment you turn from that feeling, the moment you allow your attention to return to the evidence of the senses or to the memory of the old state, you have abandoned the assumption. And the world, being the faithful mirror of consciousness, continues to reflect the state you are now in. This you call failure. Yet it is not the assumption that failed. It is not life that denied you. It is simply that you left the state in which the desire was already a fact and returned to the state in which it was not. The world can do nothing else but confirm the state that is now yours.

Consciousness is the only reality. Everything you see, everything you touch, everything you experience is the out-picturing of some state of consciousness. You are always in a state. There is no neutral ground, no moment in which you are not assuming something about yourself. Even now you are assuming. You are assuming either the state of the one who has realized his desire or the state of the one who has not. The choice is continuous and it is always yours. Most men, however, assume the state of not having by default. They do it by continuing to feel themselves to be the one who still lacks, the one who still waits, the one who still hopes. And because they remain in that feeling, the world faithfully out-pictures it.

To assume is to feel the reality of the thing desired as an accomplished fact. It is not to wish for it or to long for it or to hope that one day it may be. It is to give to the desired state the same quiet sense of naturalness that you now give to your present state. When you can feel natural in the state of your desire, you have truly assumed it. The feeling of naturalness is the sign that the assumption has been accepted by your consciousness. And as long as that feeling remains undisturbed, the state is yours. The moment the feeling of naturalness is replaced by a feeling of strain or doubt or anxiety, you have abandoned the state. You have taken off the new garment and put on the old one again.

The abandonment is rarely dramatic. It happens in small, almost unnoticed ways. You assume the state in a quiet moment. You feel the relief and the certainty of it. Then the day presses upon you. Something appears that seems to contradict the assumption. You react to it. You feel the old feeling rise again. Without realizing what you have done, you have consented to the old state. You have fed it with your attention and your feeling. And the moment you do this, the assumption is abandoned. The world then has no choice but to continue showing you the image of the state you have chosen to re-enter.

You cannot serve two states at the same time. You cannot feel yourself to be the one who has his desire fulfilled and at the same time feel yourself to be the one who has not. One or the other must be abandoned. And the one to which you most readily return your feeling is the one that will be expressed. This is why men seem to fail even after they have known moments of clear vision or of deep conviction. They knew the state. They felt it. They tasted its reality. But they did not remain there. They allowed the old state to reclaim them at the first sign of resistance. And the resistance was nothing more than the lingering out-picturing of the state they had left behind.

The old state does not disappear from your world the instant you assume a new one. It lingers. It presents itself to your senses. It invites you to feel it again. This lingering is not a denial of your assumption. It is the natural interval between the change of consciousness and the change of expression. If you remain faithful to the new state during this interval, the old expression must pass away. But if you react to the old expression with the old feeling, you have abandoned the new state and the interval is prolonged. What you call delay or failure is simply the prolongation of this interval caused by your own return to the former consciousness.

The evidence of the senses is never the cause. It is always the effect. It is the out-picturing of the state you were in yesterday or last week or last year. When you assume a new state, you are beginning to sow a new harvest. The old harvest must still be reaped until it is exhausted. But if you keep your feeling in the new state, no new seeds of the old harvest are being sown. The old crop comes to an end. If, however, you abandon the new state and return to the old feeling, you are sowing fresh seeds of the old crop even while the old crop is still being reaped. This is why men seem to go from one failure to another. They never allow the old harvest to come to an end because they keep sowing it anew by their continual return to the old state.

When you truly see that failure is only the abandonment of the assumed state, a great burden falls from you. You cease to blame circumstances. You cease to blame other people. You cease to blame yourself in the old way. You see that what you have called failure is simply your own act of leaving the state in which your desire was already fulfilled. And since it is your own act, it is an act you can cease to perform. You can remain where you have assumed. You can refuse to be moved from the new feeling by any appearance to the contrary.

This refusal is not a struggle. It is not a violent effort to hold on to something that wants to escape. It is the quiet, calm knowledge that the state you have assumed is the only reality and that all contrary appearances are but the shadows of a state that is passing away. When this knowledge becomes natural to you, you do not have to fight the appearances. You simply remain unmoved by them. You live from the feeling of the wish fulfilled as from a settled and permanent address. And from this address the world arranges itself to confirm what you have assumed.

The inner feeling of the assumed state is one of rest. It is the feeling that something is already finished. It is the peace that comes when you cease to desire and begin to possess in consciousness. This peace is not the peace of indifference. It is the peace of certainty. It is the peace of one who knows that what he has assumed is already so and that the world has no choice but to bear witness to it. When you abandon the state, this peace is replaced by the old unrest. The unrest is the signal that you have left your new home and returned to the old one. And the moment you feel this unrest you can, if you will, return at once to the peace of the assumption. You need not argue with the unrest or try to overcome it by force. You need only return to the feeling that it is already done.

This returning is the whole of persistence. It is not the repetition of words or the performance of rituals. It is the simple act of resuming the feeling of the assumption the moment you notice that you have left it. And you will notice. The contrast between the peace of the assumption and the unrest of the old state is too great to be missed. The moment the unrest appears, you know you have abandoned the state. And in that very moment you can choose again. You can assume the state once more and remain in it.

You are the operant power. You are the one who assumes and the one who abandons. No one else can assume for you and no one else can abandon for you. The state is your own feeling, your own consciousness, your own "I am." And because it is your own, it is always within your power to remain in it or to leave it. When you know this, really know it, you will no longer speak of failure as something that happens to you. You will speak of it, if you speak of it at all, as something you once chose and have now ceased to choose. You will know that as long as you remain in the assumed state, failure cannot enter your world. For failure has no entrance except through the door of abandonment.

The world you see is always the world of your present assumption. It cannot be otherwise. Change the assumption and remain faithful to the change, and the world must change. There is no other way to transform your experience. There is no other secret. There is only the state you assume and the faithfulness with which you remain in it. All the desires of your heart are already yours the moment you assume the state in which they are fulfilled. Your only task is to remain there. And to remain there is the simplest thing in the world when you see that the alternative is only the old state and the old experience which you have already known and found wanting.

So tonight, as you close your eyes, assume the state of your desire. Feel yourself to be the one in whom it is already accomplished. Do not ask how it will come to pass. Do not look for signs. Simply feel the naturalness of it. And if, in the hours that follow, the old feeling returns, do not condemn yourself. Simply notice that you have abandoned the state and return to it. Return quietly, without struggle, without argument. Feel again the peace of the assumption. Rest in it. And you will find that the old feeling loses its power over you the more frequently you refuse to entertain it.

This is the whole of the matter. Failure is only the abandonment of the assumed state. Success is the persistent living in the assumption that the desire is already fulfilled. There is no other difference between the man who realizes his desire and the man who does not. Both assume. Both feel. But one remains and the other abandons. And the one who remains discovers that the world has no choice but to confirm his assumption. He discovers that he is indeed the operant power, that consciousness is the only reality, and that what he assumes and sustains must appear. This discovery is not a theory. It is not a hope. It is the quiet, certain knowledge that comes when you have seen, even once, that failure has no other cause than the abandonment of the state you yourself have assumed.

You cannot fail unless you abandon. And you need not abandon. The state is yours. The feeling is yours. The power to remain is yours. Use it. Remain in the assumption of your desire fulfilled, and the world will bear witness that you have not abandoned it. This is the truth. This is the law. This is the way.