#25: No One to Change But Self

No One to Change but Self

A Lecture in the Voice & Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have struggled long enough against the seeming stubbornness of people and the hardness of circumstances. You have labored to bend the world to your will, to force others into line, to rearrange the outer scene so that it might please you. And all the while the truth has been waiting, simple, absolute, unchanging: there is no one to change but self.

The outer world you see, the people who move through your days, the conditions that surround you — these are not independent realities standing against you. They are the faithful outpicturing of your own consciousness. They mirror, with perfect precision, what you are conscious of being. Change that inner awareness, and the mirror must change. Alter nothing in the outer and you labor in vain, for the world is only the shadow cast by your own conception of self.

This is the great secret revealed in every page of the eternal drama: consciousness is the only reality. What you are aware of being, that you out-picture. The world rearranges itself around the new self you assume. There is no other law. There is no other way.

You who feel trapped by the behavior of another, hear it clearly: that other is not the cause. You are the cause. The seeming resistance you meet in him or her is the outpicturing of some state you have accepted within yourself. Release that state, assume the new one, and the outer figure will move in perfect harmony with your changed awareness. You need not plead with him, argue with him, or manipulate him. You need only change your own conception of self, and he will reflect it as surely as light follows the rising sun.

This is not theory. This is the operation of the law itself. Life molds the outer world to reflect the inner arrangement of your mind. Those who appear to help or hinder you are merely the servants of that law, unconsciously fulfilling the pattern you have set within. They know it not, yet they serve. When you transform the inner self, the servants rearrange themselves without your interference. The hills to which you once lifted your eyes for help are revealed as the inner range of your own consciousness. Turn there, and there alone.

To attempt to change the world before you change your concept of yourself is to struggle against the very nature of things. It is futile. Everything you do, unaccompanied by a change of consciousness, is but a futile readjustment of surfaces. You may rearrange the furniture of your life a thousand times, yet if the consciousness that projects it remains the same, the pattern will reassert itself. The circumstances of your life are too closely related to your conception of yourself not to have been formed by your own spirit. Look within for the cause. You are moved here and there, placed amid these conditions, made to live in a world in harmony with what you have accepted yourself to be.

But the good news is this: the power to change is entirely within you. Nothing is lost in the divine economy. You cannot lose anything save by descent from the sphere where it has its natural life. And you need not descend. You need only ascend in consciousness. You need only assume the state you desire to occupy, and the world will dissolve and reshape itself in harmony with that assumption.

How do you do it? You do it by feeling yourself to be the man or woman you wish to be. Not by wishing. Not by hoping. Not by struggling. You do it by becoming, in the secret place of your own awareness, that which you long to see reflected outwardly. You dwell in the feeling of the wish fulfilled. You live and move and have your being in the new state as though it were already true. And because consciousness is the only reality, the outer must follow.

See it clearly. Your present world is the outpicturing of your present self. If you would have a different world, you must first have a different self. There is no other door. The ideal you serve and strive to attain could never be evolved from you were it not already potentially involved in your nature. It waits only for your acceptance. It waits only for you to claim it as your own by becoming it in consciousness.

Tonight, right now, you can begin. Turn your attention inward. Withdraw it from the seeming troubles and resistances of the outer scene. Let them fade. They have no reality save that which you have given them. Now, in this quiet moment, assume the consciousness of the desired state. Feel yourself to be the one who is already free of the limitation. Feel yourself to be the one who is already living in the harmonious relationship, already enjoying the abundant supply, already moving in the perfect health, already occupying the exalted position. Do not merely think about it. Enter into it. Become it. Let the feeling swallow you up until there is nothing left in your awareness but the new self.

This is the transformation. This is the sanctifying of self that the outer may be sanctified through the truth. As within, so without. The world you see is the world you are. Change the “are” and you change the “see.”

You may ask, how can this be when the evidence of the senses contradicts it so strongly? The answer is simple: the evidence of the senses is the outpicturing of your former state. It has no power to hold you once you withdraw your attention from it. It is dead. It is past. It exists only as long as you remain conscious of it. Turn your back upon it in consciousness, and it must dissolve. The new state you assume will solidify into fact because consciousness is the only substance out of which all things are made.

Do not be anxious about the how. Do not concern yourself with the mechanics of its appearance. That is not your concern. Your concern is the assumption. Your concern is the change of self. The law is perfect. It knows its way. It will bring about the outer change in ways you could not possibly devise. It will move people, rearrange events, open doors that seemed forever closed — all without your interference. Your only task is to change self. The rest is automatic.

See how gentle and yet how absolute this truth is. You do not have to force anyone. You do not have to plead or persuade. You do not have to battle conditions. You simply cease to be the old self and become the new. And in that becoming, the whole world of shadows must shift to conform. This is the rulership you were given from the beginning. This is the dominion you have always possessed but have not claimed.

Many will tell you otherwise. Many will urge you to fight the outer, to change others, to manipulate events. But that is the way of struggle and failure. That is the way that leads only to further entanglement in the very conditions you would escape. The true way is the way of the inner change. It is the way of assumption. It is the way of “no one to change but self.”

Dwell upon this until it becomes your natural conviction. Repeat it to yourself in the silence of your own being: there is no one to change but self. Let the words sink deep. Let them dissolve every lingering belief that the cause lies outside. The cause is always within. The power is always within. The solution is always within.

When you have truly changed your concept of self, you will no longer see the old patterns. They will have lost their hold because you are no longer the one who sustained them. You will walk in a new world because you are a new being. The people around you will act differently because you are different. The circumstances will conform because your consciousness conforms to the new state. This is not magic. This is the simple, majestic operation of the law: as you are, so the world appears.

Tonight, make this your practice. Before you sleep, withdraw into the secret place. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Feel it so completely that the outer world fades and only the new self remains. Sleep in that assumption. Wake in that assumption. Carry it with you through the day, not as a hope, but as a present reality. Do this persistently, and you will discover the truth for yourself: the outer world changes only as self changes.

There is no other work to be done. There is no other battle to fight. The hills to which you once looked for help are revealed as the inner range of your own awareness. Turn there. Dwell there. Live there. And the world will follow.

You are the operant power. You are the cause. You are the creator of your own experience. Claim this fully. Live in the consciousness of the desired state, and watch how effortlessly the outer conforms. People will move. Conditions will shift. The impossible will become the inevitable — all because you changed self.

This is the gospel. This is the good news. There is no one to change but self.

And when you have truly grasped this, when it has become the very foundation of your being, you will move through life with a quiet, unshakable certainty. You will no longer be at the mercy of outer appearances. You will no longer seek to alter shadows. You will simply assume the new state, and the shadows will obediently rearrange themselves in perfect harmony with the light you have become.

Tonight, in this very moment, the power is yours. Use it. Change self. And the world must change with you.

There is no one to change but self.