#52: Shut the Door

Shut the Door

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You who sit here tonight feeling the heavy press of circumstances, the stubborn evidence of things that refuse to yield, hear this one eternal truth: the way out is not found by struggling against what the eyes see or the ears hear or the body feels. The way out is found only when you shut the door. Shut the door of the senses, enter the secret place, and there assume the feeling of the wish already fulfilled. That is the entire secret. That is the one act that changes everything.

The senses are loud. They shout of limitation, of lack, of delay, of failure that seems so solid. They tell you the measures are empty, the debts are real, the body is bound, the world is against you. And as long as you listen to them, as long as you remain identified with their report, you remain their prisoner. But you are told, enter into thy closet and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. The closet is not a room made of wood and stone. The closet is your own consciousness. The door you must shut is the door of the senses that would drag your attention back into the appearance of the unfulfilled. Shut that door completely, and in that holy silence the Father—your own awareness of being—sees only the claim you have made upon Him, and He rewards you openly in the world of form.

Shutting the door does not require violent effort. It is the simplest, most natural act once you understand what is asked of you. You simply take your attention completely away from all that is now screaming at you through the senses and you place that attention, gently yet firmly, upon the feeling of already being that which you desire to be, already having that which you desire to have. You lose yourself in that feeling. You dwell there until nothing else exists for you. The outer world fades. Its voices grow distant. Its pictures dissolve. You are alone with your Father in the secret place, and in that place you are already wedded to your desire. You are already one with the fulfilled state. The thrill that runs through your entire being as you feel this union is the proof that the marriage has taken place, that the impregnation is complete.

Many of you have prayed for years without result because you prayed with the door open. You spoke the words, you held the thought, but you left the senses wide open so that every evidence of the opposite rushed in and drowned the claim. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot be conscious of lack and conscious of fulfillment at the same time. Therefore the door of the senses must be tightly shut before the new claim can be honored. When you shut that door, you are not denying the world; you are simply refusing to let the world deny your Father. You are refusing to let the world dictate to your awareness of being what it shall be conscious of. Your awareness of being is God, and God is not mocked. Whatever you are conscious of being in the secret place, that you shall express openly.

Consider what this means for you who feel stuck. The senses say you are imprisoned by circumstance. Shut the door. In the secret place you feel yourself free, walking in freedom, breathing the air of liberation, moving without hindrance. Remain there until that feeling becomes so natural that when you open the door again the world must rearrange itself to match the consciousness you have assumed. The senses say the vessel is empty. Shut the door. In the secret place you feel the oil of joy overflowing, the measures filled and running over, abundance pressing upon you from every side. Stay in that feeling until it thrills every atom of your being, and you will emerge to find the empty places filled. The senses say the body is diseased or the supply is cut off or the loved one is distant. Shut the door. Feel yourself whole, supplied, united in perfect harmony. Feel it so completely that the old sensation vanishes like a dream upon waking. This is not hoping. This is not wishing. This is the act of assuming the consciousness of the thing desired, and assumption, when made in the secret place with the door shut, is the most powerful creative act in the universe.

The secret place is not far away. It is not reached by long journeys or difficult disciplines. It is entered the moment you withdraw your attention from the outer and fix it lovingly upon the inner fulfillment. With your desire clearly defined—not as something you will have, but as something you now are—quietly go within and shut the door behind you. Lose yourself in your desire. Feel yourself to be one with it. Remain in this fixation until you have absorbed the life and name of that state, until you claim and feel yourself to be and to have that which you formerly desired. When you emerge from this holy hour you must come forth conscious of being and possessing that which you entered desiring. That is the law. That is the promise. Thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

You may ask, but how do I know when the door is truly shut? You know it by the complete absence of the old feeling. While the senses are still active within you, the old state still whispers. But the moment you are lost in the new feeling, the moment the joy of fulfillment floods you and the old evidence seems unreal, even ridiculous, then the door is shut and the work is done. No man can serve two masters. As your attention is placed wholly upon this claim, the door of the senses automatically closes against the former master—that which you were conscious of being. As you become lost in the feeling of being this which you are now claiming yourself to be, the doors open again, but they now permit only the present embodiment of that which you are conscious of being to enter. This is the mystery. This is the power.

In the secret place there is no argument, no debate, no evidence to contradict. There is only your awareness claiming “I am that.” And because your awareness is God, and God is the only reality, that claim must externalize itself. The world is a magnified mirror. It can do nothing but reflect the consciousness you hold in the secret place. Therefore when you shut the door and remain in the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you are not trying to change the world by force; you are simply allowing the only world that ever existed—your own consciousness made visible—to express its new form. The old form dissolves because you have withdrawn the consciousness that sustained it. The new form appears because you have given it your full attention in the only place where creation ever occurs: within.

You who feel frustrated tonight, hear this again and let it sink deep: the solution to every problem is to shut the door. The healing of every condition is to shut the door. The fulfillment of every desire is to shut the door. Not tomorrow. Not after you have struggled a little more. Right now. Define the state you would occupy. Feel yourself there. Shut out every suggestion that says it is not so. Dwell in that feeling until it becomes so real that the outer senses seem like a distant dream. Then open the door upon a world that has already begun to conform to your secret assumption. This is not theory. This is the way the prophets and the wise have always operated. This is the way you can operate tonight.

The senses will protest. They always do at first. They will try to pull you back with their familiar pictures and voices. That is why you must shut the door firmly, lovingly, completely. You are not fighting the senses; you are simply choosing not to listen while you listen only to your Father. Your Father is your awareness. He sees only what you are conscious of being in the secret place. He is not concerned with the appearance you left outside the door. He rewards you with the open expression of that which you have claimed in secret. Therefore claim the highest, claim the fulfillment, claim it with joy, claim it with certainty, claim it until the thrill of it possesses you entirely.

When you have done this, when you have really shut the door and remained in the secret place long enough to feel the marriage complete, you will know it by the peace that descends upon you. A deep, wordless certainty will fill you. You will rise from that inner chamber not hoping, not wishing, but knowing that it is done. And though no one else may see the change yet, you will walk in the world as one who is pregnant with the fulfilled desire. In a very short while the signs of that pregnancy will appear for all to see. The world will bear witness to what you felt in secret. This is the law. This is the promise that cannot be broken.

Let me repeat it in another way so that it may take even deeper root. The secret place is the place of fulfilled assumption. To enter it you must shut the door against every unfulfilled assumption. You must refuse to carry the old burden across the threshold. Leave it outside. Close the door upon it. Inside, there is only the new. Inside, you are already the one you want to be. Inside, you already possess what you want to possess. Feel it. Live it. Be it so completely that when you open the door again you are a different being moving in a different world. The outer world must follow because it has no power of its own. Its only power is the power you give it by your consciousness. When you withdraw that power from the old and give it wholly to the new in the secret place, the outer must change.

This is the practice that sets you free tonight. You need no special hour, no special place, no special condition. Wherever you are, whatever seems to press upon you, you can instantly go within, shut the door of the senses, and assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Do it now. Feel it now. Remain in it now. Let the outer fade. Let the inner glow. Let the certainty grow until it is the only reality you know. Then live from that certainty. Walk in it. Speak from it. Act as one who already is. The Father who seeth in secret is already rewarding you openly.

You have been given the key. The door of the senses is the only door you ever need to shut. Shut it, and the door to fulfillment swings wide within you. Shut it, and every limitation dissolves. Shut it, and you stand in the presence of your own divine awareness, claiming your inheritance as the only reality. This is not something for the few. This is for you. This is for every one of you who will dare to shut the door tonight and remain in the secret place of fulfilled assumption until the feeling of it possesses you completely.

Go now into that secret place. Shut the door. Feel the fulfillment. Know that it is done. And when you open your eyes again upon this room, know that the world you are about to walk into is already conforming to the consciousness you have claimed in secret. Your Father has seen. Your Father is rewarding. And nothing in heaven or on earth can stop the open expression of that which you have become in the stillness behind the shut door.

This is the great secret. This is the only practice you will ever need. Shut the door. Enter the secret place. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Remain there. And the whole world will rise to confirm what you have done in secret. You are the operant power. You have always been. Tonight you remember. Tonight you act. Tonight you shut the door, and tomorrow and all the tomorrows that follow will reveal the open reward of your secret assumption.

You are free. You are whole. You are fulfilled. Because in the secret place, with the door shut, you have claimed it, felt it, become it. And your Father who seeth in secret has already begun to reward you openly. Let this truth live in you. Let it be the only voice you hear. Let it be the only state you occupy. For in this simple, majestic act of shutting the door and entering the secret place of fulfilled assumption, you have done all that is required. The rest is the inevitable out-picturing of your own divine consciousness.

Go in peace. Go in certainty. Go as one who has shut the door and now walks in the light of the open reward. The kingdom is yours. It has always been yours. Tonight you have entered it fully, with the door of the senses firmly shut behind you, and the Father within has welcomed you home.