The power of awareness

“The answer to this is the most important factor in the successful use of the law of assumption. The time it takes your assumption to become fact, your desire to be fulfilled, is directly proportionate to the naturalness of your feeling of already being what you want to be – of already having what you desire. The fact that it does not feel natural to you to be what you imagine yourself to be is the secret of your failure. Regardless of your desire, regardless of how faithfully and intelligently you follow the law, if you do not feel natural about what you want to be, you will not be it. If it does not feel natural to you to get a better job, you will not get a better job. The whole principle is vividly expressed by the Bible phrase “you die in your sins” — you do not transcend from your present level to the state desired. How can this feeling of naturalness be achieved? The secret lies in one word — imagination. For example, this is a very simple illustration: Assume that you are securely chained to a large heavy iron bench. You could not possibly run; in fact, you could not even walk. In these circum- stances it would not be natural for you to run. You could not even feel that it was natural for you to run. But you could easily imagine yourself running. In that instant, while your consciousness is filled with your imagined running, you have forgotten that you are bound. In imagination your running was completely natural. The essential feeling of naturalness can be achieved by persistently filling your consciousness with imagination- imagining yourself being what you want to be or having what you desire. Progress can spring only from your imagination, from your desire to transcend your present level. What you truly and literally must feel is that with your imagination, all things are possible. You must realize that changes are not caused by caprice, but by a change of consciousness. You may fail to achieve or sustain the state of consciousness necessary to produce the effect you desire. But, once you know that conscious- ness is the only reality and is the sole creator of your world and have burnt this truth into your whole being, then you know that success or failure is entirely in your own hands. Whether or not you are disciplined enough to sustain the required state of consciousness in specific instances has no bearing on the truth of the law itself - that an assumption, if persisted in, will harden into fact. The certainty of the truth of this law must remain despite great disappointment and tragedy - even when you “see the light of life go out and all the world go on as though it were still day.” You must not believe that because your assumption failed to materialise, the truth that assumptions do materialize is a lie. If your assumptions are not fulfilled, it is because of some error or weakness in your conscious- ness. However, these errors and weaknesses can be overcome. Therefore, press on to the attainment of ever higher levels by feeling that you already are the person you want to be. And remember that the time it takes your assumption to become reality is proportionate to the natural- ness of being it. Man surrounds himself with the true image of himself.”

Neville Goddard

The law and the promise

“At the time this wonderful thing happened to me I was out of a job and had no family to fall back upon for support. I needed just about everything. To find a decent job I needed a car to look for it, and though I had a car, it was so worn out it was ready to fall apart. I was behind in my rent; I had no proper clothes to seek a job; and today it’s no fun for a woman of fifty-five to apply for a job of any kind. My bank account was almost depleted and there was no friend to whom I could turn. “But I had been attending your lectures for almost a year and my desperation forced me to put my imagination to the test. Indeed, I had nothing to lose. It was natural for me; I suppose to begin by imagining myself having everything I needed. But I needed so many things and in such short order that I found myself exhausted when I finally got through the list, and by that time I was so nervous I could not sleep. One lecture night I heard you tell of an artist who captured the ‘feeling’, or ‘word’, as you called it, of ‘isn’t it wonderful!’ in his personal experience. “I began to apply this idea to my case. Instead of thinking of and imagining every article I needed, I tried to capture the ‘feeling’ that something wonderful was happening to me – not tomorrow, not next week – but right now. I would say over and over to myself as I fell asleep, ‘Isn’t it wonderful! Something marvellous is happening to me now!’ And as I fell asleep, I would feel the way I would expect to feel under such circumstances. “I repeated that imaginary action and feeling for two months, night after night, and one day in early October I met a casual friend I hadn’t seen for months who informed me he was about to leave on a trip to New York. I had lived in New York many years ago and we talked of the city a few moments and then parted. I completely forgot the incident. One month later, to the day, this man called at my apartment and simply handed me a Certified Check in my name for twenty-five hundred dollars. After I got over the initial shock of seeing my name on a check for so much money, the story that unfolded seemed to me like a dream. It concerned a friend I had not seen nor heard from in more than twenty-five years. This friend of my past, I now learned, had become extremely wealthy in those twenty-five years. Our mutual acquaintance who had brought the check to me had met him quite by accident during the trip to New York last month. During their conversation they spoke of me, and for reasons I was not to know (for to this day I have not heard from him personally and have never attempted to contact him) this old friend decided to share a portion of his great wealth with me. “For the next two years, from the office of his attorney, I received monthly checks so generous in amount they not only covered every necessary requirement of daily living but left much over for all the lovely things of life: a car, clothes, a spacious apartment – and best of all, no need to earn my daily bread.”

“This story illustrates the successful use of the law by a New York business executive. In the fall of 1950, an executive of one of New York’s prominent banks dis- cussed with me a serious problem with which he was confronted. He told me that the outlook for his personal progress and advancement was very dim. Having reached middle age and feeling that a marked improvement in position and income was justified, he had “talked it out” with his superiors. They frankly told him that any major improvement was impossible and intimated that if he was dissatisfied, he could seek another job. This, of course, only increased his uneasiness. In our talk he explained that he had no great desire for big money but that he had to have a substantial income in order to maintain his home comfortably and to provide for the education of his children in good preparatory schools and colleges. This he found impossible on his present income. The refusal of the bank to assure him of any advancement soon resulted in a feeling of discontent and an intense desire to secure a better position with considerably more money. He confided in me that the kind of job he would like better than anything in the world was one in which he managed the investment funds of a large institution such as a foundation or great university. In explaining the law of assumption, I stated that his present situation was only a manifestation of his concept of himself and declared that if he wanted to change the circumstances in which he found himself, he could do so by changing his concept of himself. In order to bring about this change of consciousness, and thereby a change in his situation, I asked him to follow this procedure every night just before he fell asleep: In imagination he was to feel he was retiring at the end of one of the most important and successful days of his life. He was to imagine that he had closed a deal that very day to join the kind of organization he yearned to be with and in exactly the capacity he wanted. I suggested to him that if he succeeded in completely filling his mind with this feeling, he would experience a definite sense of relief. In this mood his uneasiness and discontent would be a thing of the past. He would feel the contentment that comes with the fulfilment of desire. I wound up by assuring him that if he did this faithfully, he would inevitably get the kind of position he wanted. This was the first week of December. Night after night without exception he followed this procedure. Early in February a director of one of the wealthiest foundations in the world asked this executive if he would be interested in joining the foundation in an executive capacity handling in- vestments. After some brief discussion he accepted. Today, at a substantially higher income and with the assurance of steady progress, this man is in a position far exceeding all that he had hoped for.”

This story illustrates the successful use of the law by a New York business executive. In the fall of 1950 an executive of one of New York’s prominent banks dis- cussed with me a serious problem with which he was confronted. He told me that the outlook for his personal progress and advancement was very dim. Having reached middle age and feeling that a marked improvement in position and income was justified, he had “talked it out” with his superiors. They frankly told him that any major improvement was impossible and intimated that if he was dissatisfied, he could seek another job. This, of course, only increased his uneasiness. In our talk he explained that he had no great desire for really big money but that he had to have a substantial income in order to maintain his home comfortably and to provide for the education of his children in good preparatory schools and colleges. This he found impossible on his present income. The refusal of the bank to assure him of any advancement in the near future resulted in a feeling of discontent and an intense desire to secure a better position with considerably more money. He confided in me that the kind of job he would like better than anything in the world was one in which he managed the investment funds of a large institution such as a foundation or great university. In explaining the law of assumption, I stated that his present situation was only a manifestation of his concept of himself and declared that if he wanted to change the circumstances in which he found himself, he could do so by changing his concept of himself. In order to bring about this change of consciousness, and thereby a change in his situation, I asked him to follow this procedure every night just before he fell asleep: In imagination he was to feel he was retiring at the end of one of the most important and successful days of his life. He was to imagine that he had actually closed a deal that very day to join the kind of organization he yearned to be with and in exactly the capacity he wanted. I suggested to him that if he succeeded in completely filling his mind with this feeling, he would experience a definite sense of relief. In this mood his uneasiness and discontent would be a thing of the past. He would feel the contentment that comes with the fulfillment of desire. I wound up by assuring him that if he did this faithfully, he would inevitably get the kind of position he wanted. This was the first week of December. Night after night without exception he followed this procedure. Early in February a director of one of the wealthiest foundations in the world asked this executive if he would be interested in joining the foundation in an executive capacity handling in- vestments. After some brief discussion he accepted. Today, at a substantially higher income and with the assurance of steady progress, this man is in a position far exceeding all that he had hoped for.

Neville Goddard

CAREER