#12: States, Not Circumstances

States, Not Circumstances

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You look out upon your world tonight and you see the circumstances that seem to bind you. You feel the weight of conditions that appear immovable, the situations that press upon you, the appearances that whisper failure or limitation. And in the quiet of your heart you say, “If only these circumstances would change, then I could live as I desire.” But I tell you, with all the authority of one who has tested this truth in the depths of his own being, circumstances have no power of themselves. Not one. They are not the cause of your life; they are the faithful reflection of the state of consciousness you now occupy.

The world you see is never independent of you. It is the objectification of your state. Every condition, every event, every seeming obstacle or blessing that meets you is simply the outpicturing of the state with which you are fused. On the distinction between your states of consciousness depends entirely the distinction between the circumstances and conditions of your life. This is the great secret. This is the law that never fails.

You are never outside a state. You are always in one. At this very moment you dwell in a state, and that state molds your entire world. You do not have to create the state; the states are already prepared, infinite in number, waiting only for your acceptance. They are like rooms in the one great house of consciousness, each complete, each ready, each containing within itself the circumstances natural to it. Your task is not to struggle with the outer picture. Your task is to choose the state you would occupy and to become one with it.

Most men believe that circumstances come first and that their inner state must follow. They look at the barrenness or the pressure around them and they say, “I will feel better when this changes.” But that is the way of bondage. That is thinking of the desired state instead of thinking from it. The moment you accept a state as true of yourself, the moment you fuse with it in feeling and in awareness, that state begins to project its natural circumstances upon the screen of your world. The outer picture rearranges itself with perfect obedience. It has no choice. It cannot do otherwise.

Consciousness is the only reality. The world and all within it are states of consciousness made visible. Your present circumstances are nothing more than the solidified form of the state you have been wearing. Change the state you wear and the circumstances must change. There is no other way. You may labor to alter the outer conditions by physical effort or by argument or by pleading with the world, but until you change the inner state, the outer picture will return again and again, wearing perhaps a slightly different mask but carrying the same essential meaning. The circumstances are only the shadow. The state is the substance.

You are free to choose your state. This is your true freedom. Man, who is free in his choice of state, so often cries out to be delivered from the very state he has chosen. He dwells in limitation and then prays for deliverance while remaining fused with the consciousness of limitation. But the law is impersonal. It does not judge; it only expresses. It gives you exactly what you are conscious of being. The state you accept as true of yourself becomes the womb from which your world is born.

How do you enter a new state? You enter it by assuming it. You enter it by feeling yourself to be in it now. You do not think about the state; you think from it. You do not look at it from a distance; you occupy it. You view your world from within that state as though it were already natural to you. You feel its reality so completely that the old state loses its hold. You withdraw your attention from the old state as completely as you once withdrew it from a dream upon waking. The moment you do this, the conditions and circumstances to which the old union gave being begin to dissolve. They have no life apart from your identification with them.

You are not the victim of circumstances. You are the creator of them through the state you accept. Tonight you may be facing what the world calls an insurmountable problem. The evidence of your senses may be overwhelming. But I tell you, that evidence is only the outpicturing of your present state. It has no power to continue once you cease to be fused with the consciousness that gave it birth. Withdraw your attention from it. Do not fight it. Do not argue with it. Simply turn your mind to the state you would rather occupy and let yourself become one with it in feeling.

Imagine yourself right into the state of your fulfilled desire. View the world from that state. Let the circumstances natural to that state rise before you in imagination. Feel them to be real. Dwell in them until they take on the tone of reality. Do not concern yourself with how the outer world will rearrange itself. That is not your concern. The state you occupy will devise the means best suited to its own expression. Its ways are past finding out. Your only responsibility is to assume the state and to remain in it.

Many of you have tried to change your world by changing your actions alone. You have attempted outer reforms while the inner state remained untouched. But outer reforms are useless if the inner state is not changed. Success is never gained by imitating the outer actions of those who appear successful. It is gained by right inner action, by the inner assumption of the new state. When you truly occupy a new state, the outer actions follow naturally. They are the inevitable fruit of the state itself. You do not have to force them. They express themselves through you without effort.

The rich man, the poor man, the healthy man, the sick man, the free man, the bound man, each is what he is by virtue of the state from which he views the world. The same world appears entirely different to each because each is fused with a different state. The world is not one fixed reality that all men see alike. It is a revelation of the state with which imagination is fused. Change the state and the same world presents a new face.

You are the operant power. You are the one who chooses. No one can force you to remain in any state. You may leave any state at any moment by withdrawing your attention from it. The conditions to which that state gave being will vanish as surely as a dream vanishes upon waking. You have done this many times unconsciously. Every time you have passed from one mood to another, you have moved from state to state. Now you are asked to do it consciously, deliberately, with purpose.

The states are infinite. There is no limit to the mansions available to you in the house of consciousness. Every conceivable state awaits your occupancy. There is a state for every desire, for every aspiration, for every fulfillment your heart can conceive. You need only claim it by becoming one with it in feeling. You need only assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and let that feeling become your dwelling place.

Do not look back upon the old state once you have withdrawn from it. Do not give it reality by thinking from it again. The moment you return to it in thought or in feeling, you give it life once more. But if you persist in the new state, if you remain faithful to the assumption that it is so, then the new state will objectify itself and the old circumstances will fade like shadows at the coming of light.

You are always moving through states. Life is nothing but the appeasement of hunger through the successive occupancy of states. Every desire is a state of consciousness seeking embodiment. When you accept a desire as already fulfilled, you enter the state that will embody it. Thinking from the end is creative living. Thinking of the end is the way of bondage.

Tonight, choose the state you would occupy. Do not postpone it. Do not wait for better conditions. The conditions you now see are the result of your former state. They have no power to prevent you from entering the new. The only power they have is the power you give them by remaining identified with the consciousness that produced them. Turn from them now. Enter the new state this very night.

Feel yourself to be the man or woman you desire to be. View your world from that assumption. Walk in it. Talk in it. Act in it as though it were true. Let the feeling of its naturalness possess you completely. Sleep in that state. Wake in that state. Carry it with you through the hours of the day. Do not waver. Do not return even for a moment to the old consciousness. Persist until the new state feels more real than the old. Then you will see the circumstances of your life rearrange themselves in harmony with the new state you occupy.

This is not a theory. This is the law of your being. Consciousness is the one and only reality. Your world is defined by the state with which you are identified. You are free to choose any state, and having chosen, you are free to remain in it or to move to another. No power in the universe can compel you to stay in a state you no longer wish to occupy. Your freedom is absolute in this regard.

Many will hear this truth and still believe that circumstances are the master. They will say, “But look at my life. Look at what I face.” Yet the very circumstances they point to are the proof of the state they now wear. They are living in the state of limitation and therefore seeing limitation. But the moment they dare to assume the opposite state, the moment they dare to feel themselves free of the burden, that moment the outer picture must begin to conform.

You are not bound by your past. The past is simply a former state that you have outgrown. You are not bound by the opinions of others. Their opinions are the outpicturing of their own states. You are not bound by the evidence of your senses. The senses report only what you have already accepted in consciousness. When you change your state, the senses will report a new world.

The truth is simple. It is profound. It is this: circumstances are not things; they are states made visible. Change the state and you change the visibility. You do not have to fight the circumstance. You do not have to overcome it by effort. You simply move to another state and the circumstance dissolves of itself.

I ask you tonight to test this. Take one area of your life where the circumstances seem fixed and immovable. Recognize that those circumstances are the faithful servants of your present state. Then deliberately withdraw your attention from them. Refuse to give them power by thinking from them. Instead, assume the state that would naturally produce the opposite circumstances. Feel yourself in that state. Dwell there. View everything from there. Let the feeling become so natural that you no longer have to make an effort to maintain it. It is now you.

You will find, as you persist in this, that the old circumstances lose their grip. They begin to dissolve. New conditions, new events, new relationships arise, all in perfect harmony with the new state you occupy. This is not magic. This is the operation of the law that has always been operating, only now you are operating it consciously.

The states are real. They are more real than the world you see. The world you see is but their shadow. When you know this, you will never again bow before circumstances. You will never again accept them as final. You will know that they are plastic, that they are obedient to your state, that they exist only to express the state you wear.

You are the lord of your world because you are the chooser of your state. You have always been. You did not know it. You thought the world was fixed and you were its victim. But now you know. Now you see that the world is fluid, that it is forever reshaping itself according to the state you accept as true.

Tonight, choose wisely. Choose the state that represents your highest ideal. Choose the state that would make you the man or woman you long to be. Enter it fully. Become it. Live in it. And as you do, the circumstances of your life will quietly, inevitably, joyfully rearrange themselves to match the new you.

This is the great revelation. This is the secret that sets men free. Not circumstances, but states. Not the outer, but the inner. Not the effect, but the cause. And the cause is always your state of consciousness.

You are free. You have always been free. Now use your freedom. Now move consciously from state to state, knowing that every state you occupy will bring forth its own world. Know that no state is permanent unless you make it so by remaining in it. Know that you can leave any state at will and enter another.

The power is in your hands tonight. The choice is yours. The world you see tomorrow will be the world projected by the state you occupy tonight. Choose the state of fulfillment. Choose the state of freedom. Choose the state of joy. Choose the state of abundance. Choose the state of health. Choose the state of love. And having chosen, remain there until it objectifies.

You are the operant power. You are the imaginer. You are the one who fuses with states and brings forth worlds. Let this truth sink deep into your being. Let it become the very foundation of your life.

Circumstances are not your master. States are the only reality. Occupy the state you desire and the circumstances will follow as surely as night follows day. They have no choice. They never did.

You are in a state now. You will be in a state tomorrow. Make certain that the state you choose tonight is the one you truly wish to express. For whatever state you accept, that state will express itself through you and as you, and your world will bear its image.

This is the law. This is the truth. This is the way.

Dwell in the state tonight. Sleep in it. Rise in it. Walk in it. And watch as your world, in perfect obedience, reflects the glory of the state you have chosen.

You are not the victim of circumstances. You are the creator of them through the state you occupy. Know this. Live this. And you will never again be bound.

The state is everything. The circumstance is nothing but its shadow.

Choose the state. Become the state. And the shadow will change.

This is the eternal truth. And it is yours tonight.