#18: Mental Diet

Mental Diet

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You are what you feed upon in the silent chambers of your own mind. Most men walk through life convinced that the outer world shapes them, that circumstances dictate their thoughts, that reactions arise unbidden and must be endured. But I tell you tonight with the quiet certainty of one who has tested this law in the furnace of experience: the world you see is but the outpicturing of the diet you have been feeding your consciousness. Change that diet, and the world must change. Fail to change it, and you will go on reproducing the same barren scenes, the same limitations, the same frustrations, no matter how earnestly you may pray or wish otherwise.

Consciousness is God. Your awareness of being is the only reality. And within that awareness, your inner conversations and your habitual reactions are the very food upon which this God feeds. You do not escape this law. You cannot. Every thought you consent to, every silent argument you carry on with yourself, every emotional reaction you indulge when the senses report something unwanted — these are the morsels that build the body of your world. If you would be free, you must become discriminating. You must adopt a mental diet as strict and as deliberate as any physical regimen ever devised by man. You must refuse to feed upon the thoughts that belong to the old state. You must starve the old man and nourish the new.

Look within right now. What are you saying to yourself in this moment? What feelings are you consenting to? Are you inwardly rehearsing grievances, rehearsing lack, rehearsing the evidence of the senses that seems so solid and so final? If you are, you are dining upon the very substance that keeps the old state alive. You are giving it power. You are confirming it. And because consciousness is the only reality, that confirmation must appear in your world as fact. But the moment you withdraw your consent, the moment you refuse to feed those thoughts, that old state begins to wither. It has no life of its own. It lives only by your attention. Withdraw the food, and it dies.

This is the great secret. Inner speech is the creative word. It is the “Let there be” that brings form out of the formless. Your inner conversations are not idle. They are not private. They are the very substance out of which tomorrow is woven. Every time you catch yourself slipping back into the mechanical, negative, habitual talking that belongs to the man you no longer wish to be, you are feeding the old state. You are strengthening the chains. But when you deliberately construct a new conversation — a conversation that would be natural to you if your desire were already fulfilled — and you persist in it until it becomes habitual, you are changing your mental diet. You are nourishing the new state. And the new state must objectify itself.

You do not have to force outer circumstances. You do not have to struggle with people or conditions. The only place you ever work is in your own consciousness. The only discipline required is the discipline of your inner speech and your reactions. When something in the outer world seems to challenge you, when the senses report limitation or delay or opposition, that is the moment of choice. Will you react from the old state, feeding the thought “This is hopeless,” “I can’t,” “It always happens this way”? Or will you refuse that food? Will you turn instead to the inner conversation that belongs to the new man — the conversation of fulfillment, of gratitude, of quiet certainty that it is done?

This refusal is not repression. It is not pretense. It is the most practical, the most scientific act you can perform. For you are not denying reality; you are selecting the only reality there is — your own awareness. You are choosing which state you will serve. All states are lifeless until imagination fuses with them. Your mental diet is the act of fusion. Feed the new state faithfully, and it lives. Feed the old state, and it continues to walk the earth in the form of your experience.

Let no one deceive you. The world will not change until your mental diet changes. You may read books, you may attend lectures, you may affirm beautiful truths with your lips, but unless your inner conversations and your instant reactions are brought into harmony with the new conception of yourself, you will find the world unchanged. It is a sure sign that you have been wanting in fidelity to the new mental diet. You have neglected it in order to condemn your environment, to justify your feelings, to rehearse the old story. Nothing is more important to you than the ideas upon which you feed. And you feed upon the ideas from which you think.

Therefore, become a discriminating eater of thought. Become a drinker and an eater of the ideals you wish to realize. Have a set, definite aim, or your mind will wander, and wandering it will eat every negative suggestion that crosses its path. Live right mentally, and everything else will be right. By a change of mental diet you can alter the course of observed events. This is not theory. This is law.

Now, how do you begin tonight? You begin by uncritical self-observation. Watch your inner speech as though you were a witness standing apart. Listen to the conversations you carry on with yourself when no one is present. Notice the feelings that arise automatically in response to the news of the day, to the behavior of others, to the reports of your senses. Do not judge them harshly. Simply observe. And the moment you catch the old conversation beginning — the moment the old reaction starts to stir — stop. Refuse it. Do not feed it. Turn instead to the new conversation. Construct the sentence that would be natural to you if you were already the man you want to be. Repeat it silently, feelingly, until you are inwardly affected by it. Let it become the dominant voice within you.

Do this persistently. Do it every time the old thought knocks at the door of your mind. Do not argue with it. Do not fight it. Simply do not feed it. Starve it by withdrawing your attention. Give your attention wholly to the new speech, the speech of fulfilled desire. Make your inner conversation match what you would say audibly had you already achieved your goal. “I am that.” Let that be your watchword. Not “I will be,” not “I hope to be,” but “I am.” Speak it inwardly. Live in it. Dwell in it until it feels natural.

You will be tempted. The old mechanical talking will try to resume its throne. The senses will continue to report the old conditions for a time. This is inevitable. The outer world is slow to catch up because it is the solidified form of your former diet. But do not be dismayed. Do not look back. Do not measure progress by the evidence of the senses. Measure it only by your fidelity to the new mental diet. If you find the world unchanged, it is not because the law failed. It is because you have slipped back into the old feeding habits. Return at once. Renew your diet. Be more interested in what you are inwardly saying now than in what you have said in the past.

This discipline is not burdensome once you understand it. It is the most liberating act you will ever perform. For as you control your inner talking, you control the only creative power there is. You are no longer the victim of circumstance. You become the master of circumstance. You are not at the mercy of other people’s opinions or actions. You are not enslaved by past mistakes or present appearances. You are feeding a new state, and that state is becoming flesh. It is objectifying itself in your world in ways you cannot now predict, but which you will one day recognize as perfect.

Inner speech is perpetually written all around you in happenings. Learn to relate every happening to your inner speech and you will become self-taught. The whole manifested world goes to show you what use you have made of the Word — your inner speech. Change the word, and the world changes. It is as simple and as profound as that.

Put off the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new man. This is not a command for some distant future. This is the instruction for tonight. Stop all of the old mechanical negative inner talking and start a new positive and constructive inner speech from the premises of fulfilled desire. Inner talking is the beginning, the sowing of the seeds of future action. To determine the action, you must consciously initiate and control your inner talking.

Construct the sentence that implies the fulfillment of your aim. Repeat it over and over until you are inwardly affected by it. Let it become the natural flow of your mind. Our inner speech represents in various ways the world we live in. Let your inner speech represent the world you want to live in — the world in which your desire is already realized.

You attract what you are. The art of life is to sustain the feeling of the wish fulfilled and let things come to you, not to go after them or think they flee away. Observe your inner talking and remember your aim. Do they match? Does your inner talking match what you would say audibly had you achieved your goal? The individual’s inner speech and actions attract the conditions of his life.

Through uncritical self-observation of your inner talking you find where you are in the inner world, and where you are in the inner world is what you are in the outer world. You put on the new man whenever ideals and inner speech match. In this way alone can the new man be born.

Inner talking matures in the dark. From the dark it issues into the light. The right inner speech is the speech that would be yours were you to realize your ideal. In other words, it is the speech of fulfilled desire. The circumstances and conditions of life are outpictured inner talking, solidified sound. Inner speech calls events into existence. In every event is the creative sound that is its life and being.

All that a man believes and consents to as true reveals itself in his inner speech. It is his word, his life. Try to notice what you are saying in yourself at this very moment, to what thoughts and feelings you are consenting. They will be perfectly woven into your tapestry of life. To change your life, you must change your inner talking.

When imagination matches your inner speech to fulfilled desire, there will then be a straight path in yourself from within out, and the without will instantly reflect the within for you. Through controlled inner talking from premises of fulfilled desire, seeming miracles are performed. The future becomes the present and reveals itself in our inner speech. To be held by the inner speech of fulfilled desire is to be safely anchored in life.

Our lives may seem to be broken by events, but they are never broken so long as we retain the inner speech of fulfilled desire. All happiness depends on the active voluntary use of imagination to construct and inwardly affirm that we are what we want to be. It is the frequency, the habitual occupancy, that is the secret of success. The oftener we do it, the more natural it is.

It is possible to resolve every situation by the proper use of imagination. Our task is to get the right sentence, the one which implies that our desire is realized, and fire the imagination with it. Right inner speech is essential. It is the greatest of the arts. It is the way out of limitation into freedom.

You choose life and good and blessings by being that which you choose. Make your inner speech bless and give good reports. Alter your inner speech, and your perceptual world changes. Whenever inner speech and desire are in conflict, inner speech invariably wins. Because inner speech objectifies itself, it is easy to see that if it matches desire, desire will be objectively realized.

This is the mental diet. This is the discipline. This is the one thing needful. Do not look outside yourself for the cause of your world. Look within. The cause is your mental diet. Change it tonight. Refuse to feed any longer upon the thoughts that belong to the old state. Starve them completely. Give them no attention whatsoever. Turn resolutely to the new conversation, the conversation of the wish fulfilled, and persist in it until it becomes your natural, habitual inner speech.

You can be anything you please if you will make the conception habitual, for any idea which excludes all others from the field of your attention must be expressed. Nothing can take your ideal from you but your own imagination. Don’t think of your ideal; think from it. It is only the ideals from which you think that are ever realized.

Man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And the mouth of God is the mind of man. Become a drinker and an eater of the ideals you wish to realize. Have a set, definite aim, or your mind will wander, and wandering it eats every negative suggestion. If you live right mentally, everything else will be right. By a change of mental diet, you can alter the course of observed events.

You illuminate or darken your life by the ideas to which you consent. Nothing is more important to you than the ideas on which you feed. And you feed on the ideas from which you think. If you find the world unchanged, it is a sure sign that you are wanting in fidelity to the new mental diet. You are in need of a new and sustained attitude.

Tonight, my friend, make that attitude your own. Tonight, begin the strict mental diet that will transform your world. Watch every inner conversation. Guard every reaction. Refuse to consent to anything that does not belong to the new man. Speak the word of fulfillment silently, constantly, lovingly, until it becomes the very atmosphere of your being. You are the light of the world by which those ideas to which you have consented are made manifest. Hold fast to your ideal. Nothing can take it from you but your imagination.

You are not the victim. You are the creator. And the only instrument of creation you will ever need is the disciplined inner speech and the controlled reaction that constitute your mental diet. Use it wisely. Use it faithfully. Use it tonight. And you will discover, as all who have walked this way have discovered, that the word you speak within becomes the world you see without.

This is the truth. This is the law. This is the way. Accept it. Live it. And your world will never be the same again.

You are already that which you want to be. Now, see to it that your inner conversations and your every reaction bear witness to that fact. This is the mental diet that sets you free. This is the discipline that brings heaven to earth. This is the secret of the ages.

Go, and feed only upon the good, the true, the lovely, the fulfilled. And all things shall be added unto you.