Power of Awareness (1952) Chpt. XI - XX by Neville Goddard

Chapter XI

Interference

You ARE free to choose the concept you will accept of yourself.
Therefore, you possess the power of intervention, the power which enables you to alter the course of your future. The process of rising from your present concept to a higher concept of yourself is the means of all true progress.

The higher concept is waiting for you to incarnate it in the world of experience.

"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory." Ephesians 3:20

Him, that is able to do more than you can ask or think, is your imagination, and the power that worketh in us is your attention. Understanding imagination to be HIM that is able to do all that you ask, and attention to be the power by which you create your world, you can now build your ideal world.

• Imagine yourself to be the ideal you dream of and desire.
• Remain attentive to this imagined state.
• As fast as you completely feel that you are already this ideal, it will manifest itself as reality in your world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
The mystery hid from the ages: Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

The "He," in the first of these quotations, is your imagination. As previously explained, there is ONLY one substance. This substance is consciousness. It is your imagination which forms this substance into concepts, which concepts are then manifested as conditions, circumstances and physical objects. Thus, imagination made your world. This supreme truth with but few exceptions man is not conscious of.

The mystery, Christ in you, referred to in the second quotation, is your imagination, by which your world is molded. The hope of glory is your awareness of the ability to rise perpetually to higher levels.

Christ is not to be found in history nor in external forms. You find Christ ONLY when you become aware of the fact that your imagination is the ONLY redemptive power. When this is discovered, the 'towers of dogma will have heard the trumpets of Truth, and, like the walls of Jericho, crumble to dust.'

Chapter XII 

Subjective Control

Your imagination is able to do ALL that you ASK in proportion to the degree of your ATTENTION.

ALL progress, ALL fulfillment of desire, depend upon the CONTROL and CONCENTRATION of your ATTENTION.

ATTENTION may be either attracted from without or directed from within.

ATTENTION is attracted from without when you are consciously occupied with the external impressions of the immediate present. The very lines of this page are attracting your attention from without. 

Your attention is directed from within when you deliberately choose what you will be preoccupied with mentally.

It is obvious that in the objective world your attention is not only attracted by but is constantly directed to external impressions. Yet, your control in the subjective state is almost non-existent, for in this state attention is usually the servant and not the master--the passenger and not the navigator--of your world.

There is an enormous (Lori note: and that's BIG) difference between attention directed objectively and attention directed subjectively, and the capacity to change your future depends on the latter.

When you are able to control the movements of your attention in the subjective world, you can modify or alter your life as you please.

Yet, this control cannot be achieved if you allow your attention to be attracted constantly from without. Each day, set yourself the task of deliberately withdrawing your attention from the objective world and of FOCUSING it subjectively. 

In other words, concentrate on those thoughts or moods which you deliberately determine.

Then those things that now appear to restrict you will fade and drop away.

The day you achieve control of the movements of your attention in the subjective world, you are MASTER of YOUR FATE.

You will no longer accept the dominance of outside conditions or circumstances. You will not accept life on the basis of the world without.

Having achieved control of the movements of your attention, and having discovered the mystery hid from the ages, that Christ in you is your imagination, you will assert the supremacy of imagination and put ALL things in subjection to it.

Chapter XIII

Acceptance

Man's Perceptions are not bounded by organs of Perception. He perceives more than sense (though ever so acute) can discover.

However much you seem to be living in a material world, you are actually living in a world of imagination. 

The outer, physical events of life are the fruit of forgotten blossom-times. Results of previous and usually forgotten states of consciousness. They are the ends running true to ofttimes forgotten imaginative origins.

Whenever you become completely absorbed in an emotional state, you are at that moment assuming the FEELING of the state fulfilled.

If persisted in, whatsoever you are intensely emotional about, you will experience in your world.

These periods of absorption, of concentrated attention, are the beginnings of the things you harvest. It is in such moments that you are exercising your creative power--the ONLY creative power there is.

At the end of these periods, or moments of absorption, you speed from these imaginative states (where you have not been physically) to where you were physically an instant ago. In these periods the imagined state is SO REAL that when you return to the objective world and find that it is not the same as the imagined state, it is an actual shock.

You have seen something in imagination with such vividness that you NOW wonder whether the evidence of your senses can NOW be believed, and like Keats, 

you ask: 'was it a vision or a waking dream?'

'Fled is that music . . . Do I wake or sleep?'

This shock reverses your time sense. By this is meant that instead of your experience resulting from your past, it NOW becomes the result of being in imagination where you have not yet been physically. In effect, this moves you across a bridge of incidents to the physical realization of your imagined state.

The wo/man who AT WILL can ASSUME whatever state he pleases has found the KEYS to the KINGDOM of HEAVEN. The KEYS are 

• desire, 
• imagination and 
• a steadily FOCUSED ATTENTION on the FEELING of the wish fulfilled.

To such a wo/man any undesirable objective fact is NO longer a reality and the ardent wish NO longer a dream.

"Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Malachi 3:10

The windows of heaven may not be opened and the treasures seized by a strong will. 

The windows of heaven OPEN of themselves and PRESENT their treasures as a free gift--a gift that comes when absorption reaches such a degree that it results in a FEELING of COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE. 

The passage from your present state to the FEELING of your wish fulfilled is not across a gap.

There is continuity between the so-called real and unreal. To cross from one state to the other, you simply extend your feelers, TRUST your TOUCH, and enter FULLY into the SPIRIT of what you are doing.

'Not by might nor by power, but BY MY SPIRIT, saith the Lord of hosts.'

Assume the Spirit, the FEELING of the wish fulfilled and you will have opened the windows to receive the blessing. 

To assume a state is to get into the SPIRIT of it. 

Your TRIUMPHS will be a surprise ONLY to those who did not know your hidden passage from the state of longing to the assumption of the wish fulfilled.

The Lord of hosts will NOT respond to your wish UNTIL you have ASSUMED the FEELING of ALREADY BEING what you want to be, for ACCEPTANCE is the channel of HIS action. Acceptance is the Lord of hosts in action.

Chapter XIV

The Effortless Way

The principle of 'Least Action' governs EVERYTHING in physics from the path of a planet to the path of a pulse of light.

Least Action is the minimum of energy, multiplies by the minimum of time.

Therefore, in moving from your present state to the state desired, you MUST use the minimum of energy and take the shortest possible time.

Your journey from one state of consciousness to another is a psychological one, so, to make the journey, you MUST employ the psychological equivalent of 'Least Action', and the psychological equivalent is mere assumption.

The day you fully realize the power of assumption, you discover that it works in complete conformity with this principle. It works by means of attention, minus effort. Thus, with the least action, through an assumption, you hurry without hast and reach your goal without effort.

Because creation is finished, what you desire already exists. It is excluded from view because you can see ONLY the contents of your own consciousness. 

It is the function of an assumption to call back the excluded view and restore full vision.

It is not the world but your assumptions that change.

An assumption brings the invisible into sight. It is nothing more nor less than seeing with the eye of God, i.e., imagination.

'For the Lord seeth not as a man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart'.

The heart is the primary organ of sense, hence the first cause of experience. When you look 'on the heart' you are looking at your assumptions: assumptions determine your experience.

Watch your assumption with ALL DILIGENCE for out of it are the issues of life. Assumptions have the POWER of objective realization.

EVERY event in the visible world is the result of an assumption or idea in the unseen world.

The present moment is ALL important, for it is ONLY in the present moment that our assumptions can be controlled.

The future MUST become the present in your mind if you would wisely operate the LAW of ASSUMPTION. The future becomes the present when you imagine that you already are what you will be when your assumption is fulfilled.

Be still (least action) and KNOW you are that which you desire to be.

The end of longing should be BEING.

Translate your dream into BEING. Perpetual construction of future states without the consciousness of already being them, that is, picturing your desire without actually assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled, is the fallacy and mirage of mankind. It is simply futile daydreaming.

Chapter XV

Crown of the Mysteries

The assumption of the wish fulfilled is the ship that carries you over the unknown seas to the fulfillment of your dream. 

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

Act on the assumption that you already possess that which you sought.

‘Blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.’

As the Immaculate Conception* is the foundation of the Christian mysteries, so the Assumption** of it is their crown.

Psychologically the Immaculate Conception means the birth of an idea in your own consciousness unaided by another. For instance, when you have a specific wish or hunger or longing, it is an immaculate conception in the sense that no physical person or thing plants it in your mind. It is self-conceived. 

Every man is the Mary of the Immaculate Conception and birth to his idea must give.*** 

The Assumption is the crown of the mysteries because it is the highest use of consciousness. When in imagination you assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you are mentally lifted to a higher level. When, through your persistence, this assumption becomes actual fact, you automatically find yourself on a higher level (that is, you have achieved your desire) in your objective world. Your assumption guides all your conscious and subconscious movements towards its suggested end. So inevitably, that it actually dictates the events.

The drama of life is a psychological one and the whole of it is written and produced by your assumptions.

Learn the art of assumption, for only in this way can you create your own happiness.

* Mary’s birth without Original Sin. However, Neville seems to have in mind the Virgin Birth of Jesus. – Ed.

** The taking up of the body (usually, the body of Mary) into heaven. – Ed

.*** Stylistic inversion deriving from quotation not cited – and must give birth to his idea.” – Ed.

Chapter XVI 

Personal Impotence

Self-surrender is essential, and by that is meant ‘the confession of personal impotence’.

I can of mine own self do nothing.

Since creation is finished, it is impossible to force anything into being. The example of magnetism previously given is a good illustration. You cannot make magnetism; it can only be displayed. You cannot make the law of magnetism. 

If you want to build a magnet, you can do so only by conforming to the law of magnetism. In other words, you surrender yourself, or yield to the law. In like manner, when you use the faculty of assumption, you are conforming to a law just as real as the law governing magnetism.

You can neither create nor change the law of assumption. It is in this respect that you are impotent. You can ONLY yield or conform, and since all of your experiences are the result of your assumptions (consciously or unconsciously) the value of consciously using the power of assumption surely must be obvious.

Willingly identify yourself with that which you most desire, knowing that it will find expression through you. Yield to the feeling of the wish fulfilled and be consumed as its victim, then rise as the prophet of the law of assumption.

Chapter XVII

All Things Are Possible

It is of great significance that the truth of the principles outlined in this book have been proven time and again by the personal experiences of the Author. Throughout the past twenty-five years he has applied these principles and proved them successful in innumerable instances. He attributes to an unwavering assumption of his wish already being fulfilled every success that he has achieved. He was confident that by these fixed assumptions his desires were predestined to be fulfilled. Time and again he assumed the feeling of his wish fulfilled and continued in his assumption until that which he desired was completely realized.

Live your life in a sublime spirit of confidence and determination; disregard appearances, conditions, in fact DISREGARD (TOTAL INDIFFERENCE) ALL evidence of your senses that deny the fulfillment of your desire. Rest in the assumption that you are already what you want to be, for in that determined assumption you and your Infinite Being are merged in creative unity, and with your Infinite Being (God) all things are possible. God never fails. GOD ONLY SUCCEEDS!

For who can stay His hand or say unto Him, 'What doest thou?'

Through the mastery of your assumptions you are in very truth enabled to master life. It is thus that the ladder of life is ascended: thus the ideal is realized. The clue to the real purpose of life is to surrender yourself to your ideal with such awareness of its reality that you begin to live the life of the ideal and no longer your own life as it was prior to this surrender.

'He calleth things that are not seen as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen.'

Each assumption has its corresponding world. If you are truly observant, you will notice the power of your assumptions to change circumstances which appear wholly immutable (unable to be changed).

You, by your conscious assumptions, determine the nature of the world in which you live. Ignore the present state and assume the wish fulfilled.

Claim it; it will respond. The Law of Assumption is the means by which the fulfillment of your desires may be realized. 

Every moment of your life, consciously or unconsciously, you are assuming a feeling. 

You can no more avoid assuming a feeling than you can avoid eating and drinking. All you can do is control the nature of your assumptions.

Thus it is clearly seen that the control of your assumption is the key you now hold to an ever expanding, happier, more noble life.

Chapter XVIII 

Be Ye Doers

'Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass and goeth his way, and straightaway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continue therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.' James 1:22- 25.

The word in this quotation means idea, concept, or desire. You deceive yourself by “hearing only” when you expect your desire to be fulfilled through mere wishful thinking. Your desire is what you want to be, and looking at yourself “in a glass” is seeing yourself in imagination as that person. Forgetting “what manner of man” you are is failing to persist in your assumption. 

The “perfect law of liberty” is the law which makes possible liberation from limitation, that is, the law of assumption.

To continue in the perfect law of liberty is to persist in the assumption that your desire is already fulfilled. You are not a “forgetful hearer” when you keep the feeling of your wish fulfilled constantly alive in your consciousness. This makes you a “doer of the work,” and you are blessed in your deed by the inevitable realization of your desire.

You must be doers of the law of assumption, for without application the most profound understanding will not produce any desired result.

Frequent reiteration and repetition of important basic truths runs through these pages. Where the law of assumption is concerned — the law that sets man free — this is a good thing. It should be made clear again and again even at the risk of repetition. The real truth-seeker will welcome this aid in concentrating his attention upon the law which sets him free.

The parable of the Master’s condemnation of the servant who neglected to use the talent given him is clear and unmistakable. Having discovered within yourself the key to the Treasure House, you should be like the good servant who by wise use multiplied by many times the talents entrusted to him. 

The talent entrusted to you is the power to consciously determine your assumption. 

The talent not used, like the limb not exercised, withers and finally atrophies.

What you must strive after is being. In order to do it is necessary to be. 

The end of yearning is to be. 

Your concept of yourself can only be driven out of consciousness by another concept of yourself. 

By creating an ideal in your mind, you can identify yourself with it until you become one and the same with the ideal, thereby transforming yourself into it.

“The dynamic prevails over the static; the active over the passive. One who is a doer is magnetic and therefore infinitely more creative than any who merely hear."

Be among the doers.

Chapter XIX 

Essentials

The essential points in the successful use of the law of assumption are these: First, and above all, yearning; longing; intense, burning desire.

With all your heart you must want to be different from what you are. Intense, burning desire [combined with intention to make good] is the mainspring of action, the beginning of all successful ventures. In every great passion [which achieves its objective] desire is concentrated [and intentioned. You must first desire and then intend to succeed].

'As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.'

'Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.'

Here the soul is interpreted as the sum total of all you believe, think, feel, and accept as true; in other words, your present level of awareness. 

God, I AM, is the power of awareness, the source and fulfilment of all desire [understood psychologically. I am an infinite series of levels of awareness and I am what I am in accordance with where I am in the series]. This quotation describes how your present level of awareness longs to transcend itself. 

Righteousness is the consciousness of already being what you want to be.

Second, cultivate physical immobility, a physical incapacity not unlike the state described by Keats in his “Ode to a Nightingale.”

A drowsy numbness pains my senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk.

It is a state akin to sleep, but one in which you are still in control of the direction of attention. You MUST learn to induce this state at will, while experience has taught that it is more easily induced after a substantial meal, or when you wake in the morning feeling very loathe to arise. Then you are naturally disposed to enter this state. The value of physical immobility exposes itself in the accumulation of mental force which absolute stillness brings with it. It increases your power of concentration.

'Be still and know that I am God.'

In fact, the greater energies of the mind seldom break forth save when the body is stilled and the door of the senses closed to the objective world.

The third and last thing to do is to experience in your imagination what you would experience in reality had you achieved your goal. [You MUST gain it in imagination first, for imagination is the very door to the reality of that which you seek. Yet, use imagination masterfully and not as an onlooker thinking of the end, Use imagination masterfully as a partaker thinking from the end.] 

Imagine you possess a quality or something you desire which hitherto has not been yours. Surrender yourself completely to this feeling until your whole being is possessed by it. This state differs from reverie in this respect: it is the result of a controlled imagination and a steadied, concentrated attention, whereas reverie is the result of an uncontrolled imagination — usually just a daydream. In the controlled state, a minimum of effort suffices to keep your consciousness filled with the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The physical and mental immobility of this state is a powerful aid to voluntary attention and a major factor of minimum effort.

The application of these three points:

1. Desire

2. Physical immobility

3. The assumption of the wish already fulfilled

is the way to at-one-ment or union with your objective. [The first point is thinking of the end, with intention to realize it. The third point is thinking from the end with the feeling of accomplishment. The secret of thinking from the end is to enjoy being it. The minute you make it pleasurable and imagine you are it, you start thinking from the end.]

One of the most prevalent misunderstandings is that this law works only for those having a devout or a religious objective. This is a fallacy.

The law works just as impersonally as the law of electricity works. It can be used for greedy, selfish purposes as well as noble ones. But it should always be borne in mind that ignoble thoughts and actions inevitably result in unhappy consequences.

Chapter XX 

Righteousness

In the preceding chapter righteousness was defined as the consciousness of already being what you want to be. This is the true psychological meaning and obviously does not refer to adherence to moral codes, civil law, or religious precepts. 

You cannot attach too much importance to being righteous. In fact, the entire Bible is permeated with admonition and exhortations on this subject.

Break off thy sins by righteousness. Dan. 4:27.

My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. Job 27:6.

My righteousness shall answer for me in time to come. Genesis 30:33.

Very often the words sin and righteousness are used in the same quotation. This is a logical contrast of opposites and becomes enormously significant in the light of the psychological meaning of righteousness and the psychological meaning of sin. Sin means to miss the mark. Not to attain your desire, not to be the person you want to be, is sinning. 

Righteousness is the consciousness of already being what you want to be. It is a changeless educative law that effects must follow causes. Only by righteousness can you be saved from sinning.

There is a widespread misunderstanding as to what it means to be “saved from sin.” The following example will suffice to demonstrate this misunderstanding and to establish the truth. 

A person living in abject poverty may believe that by means of some religious or philosophical activity he can be saved from 'sin” and his life improved as a result. If however, he continues to live in the same state of poverty, it is obvious that what he believed was not the truth, and, in fact, he was not “saved” 

On the other hand, he can be saved by righteousness. The successful use of the law of assumption would have the inevitable result of an actual change in his life. He would no longer live in poverty. He would no longer miss the mark. He would be saved from sin.

Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 5:20.

Scribes and Pharisees means those who are influenced and governed by the outer appearances — the rules and customs of the society in which they live, the vain desire to be thought well of by other men. 

Unless this state of mind is exceeded, your life will be one of limitation — of failure to attain your desires — of missing the mark — of sin. This righteousness is exceeded by true righteousness, which is always the consciousness of already being that which you want to be.

One of the greatest pitfalls in attempting to use the law of assumption is focusing your attention on things, on a new home, a better job, a bigger bank balance. This is not the righteousness without which you “die in your sins.” Righteousness is not the thing itself; it is the consciousness, the feeling of already being the person you want to be, of already having the thing you desire.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33.

The kingdom (entire creation) of God (your I AM) IS within you. Righteousness is the awareness that you already possess it all.