#55: Do Not Ask How

Do Not Ask How

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard
You who listen tonight, weary of the endless circling of your thought around the walls that seem to separate you from your desire, hear this now with the whole of your being: do not ask how. The how belongs to consciousness, not to the reasoning mind. Man has always believed that he must first see the road, map the steps, calculate the means, before the thing desired can appear. Yet the eternal truth stands unshaken: no man knows the way. Consciousness itself is the way, and its ways are past finding out.

You are not called to understand the mechanism. You are called only to become the consciousness of the thing desired. When you rise in awareness to the naturalness of being that which you would be, the embodiment follows of its own accord. Do not question the how of these things appearing, for no manifestation knows how the things desired will appear. That which you now are conscious of being is already drawing its likeness into your world. Get first the consciousness of the things you are seeking and leave the things alone. This is the great simplicity that frees you.

See how gently this truth dissolves every burden you have carried. You have asked, “But how shall it come to pass?” and in that very asking you have held yourself in the state of one who waits, who watches, who doubts. Release it. The how is not your concern. Your concern is to feel yourself to be the one you desire to be, to dwell in that feeling until it clothes itself with all the tones of reality. Consciousness, being God, has ways that ye know not of. Its ways are past finding out. You need not speculate; speculation itself is proof that you have not yet reached the naturalness of the new state. When the feeling is natural, the question of how never arises. It is already done.

Think upon this deeply. Every desire that stirs within you is already a word spoken in the depth of your being. That word, fixed in consciousness, nailed to the form of your new assumption, resurrects itself without your aid. Two shall agree as touching anything and it shall be established. The agreement is never between you and another person. It is between your awareness of being and the thing desired. You are already conscious of being. Now become conscious of being the fulfilled one. In that instant the two agree, and the child of that agreement—the thing itself—is born. You do not need to know how the birth shall occur. You need only know that it shall.

The Bible reveals this with crystalline clarity. “I AM the way,” it declares—not I, as man, but I AM, the awareness of being. The awareness of being is the door through which every manifestation passes into the world of form. Consciousness is the resurrecting power. Man is ever out-picturing that which he is conscious of being. Therefore, do not ask how the picture shall form. Get the consciousness first and the thing is compelled to appear. Signs follow; they never precede. Things have no reality other than in consciousness. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven—the consciousness of the thing—and all these things shall be added unto you.

You who feel the pressure of circumstance pressing upon you tonight, who ask silently, “How can this condition change?” hear the answer rising within you: it changes by your refusal to ask how. Turn your attention from the problem entirely. Become indifferent to the seeming reality of the limitation. Rise in consciousness to that which would be the solution, and feel yourself to be it. Do not plan the manner of its coming. Do not outline the steps. Consciousness has ways past finding out. Your only task is to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and to remain in that assumption until it becomes natural. Then, without your interference, without your anxious watching, the outer world rearranges itself in harmony with the inner conviction.

This is the secret Mary knew. Mary, the awareness of being that remains virgin no matter how many desires it brings forth. She did not ask how the child would be conceived. She simply accepted the annunciation, magnified the Lord within her, and the birth followed. You are that Mary. Right now, look upon yourself as this virgin awareness. Be impregnated by your desire through the medium of feeling. Become one with it to the point of giving birth. Do not ask how the manifestation shall appear. Secrecy is the first law—tell no man—and the second is to magnify the Lord, to revalue yourself until the new conception feels natural. When that naturalness is attained, you give birth by becoming that which you are one with in consciousness.

Consider how perfectly this liberates you. The intellect would have you search for causes, weigh probabilities, devise plans. Yet every such effort is but confirmation of the opposite. It keeps you conscious of the lack. Instead, claim the thing desired in the silence of your own being. Feel it to the point of conviction. Then rest. The very moment your claim is established to the point of conviction, you begin to draw unto yourself the evidence of that claim. Do not question the how. No man knows that way. That is, no manifestation knows how the things desired will appear. Consciousness is the way or door through which things appear. He said, “I AM the way.” Not I, John Smith, am the way, but I AM, the awareness of being, is the way through which the thing shall come.

You are at this very moment drawing into your world that which you are now conscious of being. Now you can see what is meant by “You must be born again.” If you are dissatisfied with your present expression, take your attention away from that which seems so real and rise in consciousness to that which you desire to be. You cannot serve two masters. To take your attention from one state and place it upon another is to die to one and live to the other. Do not ask how the transition shall be made. The father within draws all things unto himself. Your awareness of being is the father that draws the manifestations of life unto you.

In the awareness of being all things are possible. You shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass. This is your decreeing—rising in consciousness to the naturalness of being the thing desired. As it was expressed, “And I, if I be lifted up, I shall draw all men unto me.” If I be lifted up in consciousness to the naturalness of the thing desired, I will draw the manifestation of that desire unto me. For no man comes unto me save the father within me draws him, and I and my father are one. Therefore, consciousness is the father drawing all things. You need not know how. You need only be lifted.

This truth frees you from every anxiety that has ever tormented the human heart. Men pray and their prayers seem unanswered because they pray while remaining conscious of lack. They ask a God outside themselves for that which they are not yet conscious of being. Yet the only God is your awareness of being. To pray successfully is to claim yourself to be that which you desire, rather than petitioning for it. Shut the door—shut out the evidence of the senses—and claim yourself to be the wealthy one, the healthy one, the loved one. The very moment that claim is established in feeling, you begin to draw the evidence. Do not ask how it will come. It will come in ways you know not of.

Life does not care whether you call yourself rich or poor. It eternally rewards you with that which you claim as true of yourself. Your desires contain within themselves the plan of self-expression. Leave all judgments out of the picture and rise in consciousness to the level of your desire. Make yourself one with it by claiming it to be so now. My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Have faith in this unseen claim until the conviction is born within you that it is so. Your confidence in this claim will pay great rewards. Just a little while and he, the thing desired, will come. But without faith it is impossible to realize anything.

Faith is the substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence of the thing not yet seen. Do not be anxious or concerned as to results. They will follow just as surely as day follows night. Look upon your desires as the spoken words of God, and every word a promise. Do not condition your desire. Just accept it as it comes to you. Give thanks for it to the point that you are grateful for having already received it; then go about your way in peace. Such acceptance is like dropping fertile seed into prepared soil. When you can drop the thing desired in consciousness, confident that it shall appear, you have done all that is expected of you. But to be worried or concerned about the how of your desire maturing is to hold those fertile seeds in a mental grasp and never to have dropped them in the soil of confidence.

The reason men condition their desires is because they constantly judge after the appearance of being and see the things as real, forgetting that the only reality is the consciousness backing them. To see things as real is to deny that all things are possible to God. Release the how entirely. Become indifferent to the outer picture. Begin to feel yourself to be that which would be the solution of every problem. The imprisoned one feels freedom. The diseased one feels health. The poor one feels wealth. Feel it to the point where it is natural. The very second you do so, the bars dissolve, the condition vanishes, the supply appears. Do not ask how. No man knows that way. Consciousness knows, and consciousness is you.

You are told to ask in His name. His name is not a word pronounced with the lips. Name means nature. To ask in the name is to rise in consciousness and become one in nature with the thing desired. Rise in consciousness to the nature of the thing, and you will become that thing in expression. Therefore, whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall receive them. Praying is recognition. The injunction to believe that ye receive is first person, present tense. You must be in the nature of the things asked for before you can receive them.

To get into that nature easily, general amnesty is necessary. Forgive every man in the world from blame. For law is never violated, and every man’s conception of himself is going to be his reward. You do not have to bother yourself about whether another receives what you think he should. Life makes no mistakes and always gives man that which man first gives himself. This brings us to tithing. You do tithe with God, but from now on give to the only God by claiming yourself to be the great, the wealthy, the loving, the all-wise. Do not speculate as to how you shall express these qualities or claims, for life has a way that you as man know not of. Its ways are past finding out. But the day you claim these qualities to the point of conviction, your claims will be honored.

There is nothing covered that shall not be uncovered. That which is spoken in secret shall be proclaimed from the housetops. Your secret convictions of yourself—when really believed—will be shouted from the housetops in your world. For your convictions are the words of the God within you, which words are spirit and cannot return unto you void but must accomplish whereunto they are sent. You are at this moment calling out of the infinite that which you are now conscious of being. And not one word or conviction will fail to find you.

I AM the vine and ye are the branches. Consciousness is the vine, and those qualities which you are now conscious of being are the branches that you feed and keep alive. Just as a branch has no life except it be rooted in the vine, so likewise things have no life except you be conscious of them. To dissolve a problem that now seems so real, remove your attention from it. In spite of its seeming reality, turn from it in consciousness. Become indifferent, and begin to feel yourself to be that which would be the solution. Apply this same principle to any seeming difficulty. Your answer to “Whom do you say that I AM?” ever determines your expression. As long as you are conscious of lack, so long will you continue to out-picture lack. When you realize that you are now that which you are seeking and begin to claim that you are, you will have the proof of your claim.

You believe in God—believe also in me. It is the me within you that is God. Claim I AM he. In other words, claim yourself to be the thing desired. Claim it in consciousness, not in words, and consciousness will reward you with your claim. You shall find me when you feel after me. Feel after that quality in consciousness until you feel yourself to be it. When you lose yourself in the feeling of being it, the quality will embody itself in your world. You are healed from your problem when you touch the solution of it. The day you touch this being within you—feeling yourself to be the fulfilled one—virtues will come out of your very self and solidify themselves in your world.

It is said, “You believe in God. Believe also in me for I am he.” Have the faith of God. Go and do likewise. Begin to believe your awareness—your consciousness of being—to be God. Claim for yourself all the attributes you have heretofore given an external God, and you will begin to express these claims. For I am not a God afar off. I am nearer than your hands and feet—nearer than your very breathing. I AM your awareness of being. I AM that in which all that I shall ever be aware of being shall begin and end. Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it. The Lord being your consciousness; except that which you seek is first established in your consciousness, you will labor in vain to find it. All things must begin and end in consciousness.

Put not your trust in men, for men but reflect the being that you are and can only bring to you or do unto you that which you have first done unto yourself. No man taketh away my life; I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again. No matter what happens, it is never an accident. It occurs under the guidance of an exact and changeless law. No man comes unto me except the father within me draws him, and I and my father are one. Believe this truth and you will be free. I AM comes not to destroy but to fulfill. I AM—the awareness within you—destroys nothing but ever fills full the molds or conception one has of one’s self.

It is impossible for the poor man to find wealth in this world no matter how he is surrounded with it until he first claims himself to be wealthy. For signs follow, they do not precede. To constantly kick and complain against the limitations of poverty while remaining poor in consciousness is to play the fool’s game. Changes cannot take place from that level of consciousness, for life is constantly out-picturing all levels. Realize that you yourself brought about every condition, and make the decision within yourself to rise to a higher level. There was no condemnation when the courage was found to claim the inheritance as your own. Others will condemn you only as long as you continue in that for which you condemn yourself. Happy is the man that condemneth himself not in that which he alloweth. For to life nothing is condemned. All is expressed.

Life does not care whether you call yourself rich or poor, strong or weak. It will eternally reward you with that which you claim as true of yourself. The measurements of right and wrong belong to man alone. To life there is nothing right or wrong. Stop asking yourself whether you are worthy or unworthy to receive that which you desire. Your desires are ever fashioned within you because of what you now claim yourself to be. Your desires contain within themselves the plan of self-expression. So leave all judgments out of the picture and rise in consciousness to the level of your desire and make yourself one with it by claiming it to be so now.

Have faith in this unseen claim until the conviction is born within you that it is so. Your confidence in this claim will pay great rewards. Just a little while and he, the thing desired, will come. Look upon your desires—all of them—as the spoken words of God, and every word or desire a promise. Do not condition your desire. Just accept it as it comes to you. Give thanks for it to the point that you are grateful for having already received it; then go about your way in peace. When you can drop the thing desired in consciousness, confident that it shall appear, you have done all that is expected of you.

To be worried or concerned about the how is to hold the fertile seeds in a mental grasp and therefore never to have dropped them in the soil of confidence. Release the how completely tonight. Become indifferent to every outer appearance. Begin to feel yourself to be the one you desire to be. Dwell in that feeling until it clothes itself with all the tones of reality. Then rest. Do not ask how it will happen. Consciousness has ways past finding out. Its ways are past finding out. You have only to be the consciousness of the fulfilled one, and the fulfillment is compelled to appear.

This is the majestic simplicity that has always been offered to man. Yet man has turned aside to the complexity of his own reasoning. Tonight you turn back. You release every question of how. You rise in the quiet certainty that your awareness of being is God, and that God, being the thing desired, will bring it to pass in perfect and natural ways. You feel it now. You accept it now. You are it now. And because you are it now in consciousness, the outer world must conform.

You who have listened with the inner ear have already begun the great change. The how has been surrendered. The consciousness has been claimed. The embodiment is on its way. Rest in this knowledge. Walk in this knowledge. Live in this knowledge. For you are the I AM that decrees, and the decree is already fulfilled. You shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass, not by your effort to understand the how, but by your serene dwelling in the is. This is the freedom that sets you free indeed. This is the peace that passes all understanding. This is the kingdom of heaven within you, where all things are added when first you seek the consciousness of them.

Go now into your world, but carry this one truth burning within you: do not ask how. The how belongs to consciousness, and consciousness is your own awareness of being. Claim it tonight. Feel it tonight. Be it tonight. And tomorrow and all the tomorrows that follow will bear witness that you have known the truth, and the truth has made you free. For I and my Father are one, and in that oneness every desire is already accomplished. You have heard. You have accepted. It is done.