FEELING IS THE SECRET – By Neville Goddard, 1951
“Of making many books there is no end.” – Ecclesiastes 12:12
“He that would perfect himself in any art whatsoever, let him betake himself to the reading of some sure and certain work upon his art many times over; for to read many books upon your art produceth confusion rather than learning.” – Old saying
Foreword
THIS book is concerned with the art of realizing your desire. It gives you an account of the mechanism used in the production of the visible world. It is a small book but not slight. There is a treasure in it, a clearly defined road to the realization of your dreams.
Were it possible to carry conviction to another by means of reasoned arguments and detailed instances, this book would be many times its size. It is seldom possible, however, to do so by means of written statements or arguments since to the suspended judgment it always seems plausible to say that the author was dishonest or deluded, and, therefore, his evidence was tainted. Consequently, I have purposely omitted all arguments and testimonials, and simply challenge the open-minded reader to practice the law of consciousness as revealed in this book.
Personal success will prove far more convincing than all the books that could be written on the subject.
– NEVILLE
Chapter 1 – Law and Its Operation
THE world, and all within it, is man’s conditioned consciousness objectified. Consciousness is the cause as well as the substance of the entire world.
So it is to consciousness that we must turn if we would discover the secret of creation.
Knowledge of the law of consciousness and the method of operating this law will enable you to accomplish all you desire in life.
Armed with a working knowledge of this law, you can build and maintain an ideal world.
Consciousness is the one and only reality, not figuratively but actually. This reality may for the sake of clarity be likened unto a stream which is divided into two parts, the conscious and the subconscious.
In order to intelligently operate the law of consciousness, it is necessary to understand the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious.
The conscious is personal and selective; the subconscious is impersonal and non- selective. The conscious is the realm of effect; the subconscious is the realm of cause. These two aspects are the male and female divisions of consciousness. The conscious is male; the subconscious is female.
The conscious generates ideas and impresses these ideas on the subconscious; the subconscious receives ideas and gives form and expression to them.
By this law – first conceiving an idea and then impressing the idea conceived on the subconscious – all things evolve out of consciousness; and without this sequence, there is not anything made that is made.
The conscious impresses the subconscious, while the subconscious expresses all that is impressed upon it.
The subconscious does not originate ideas, but accepts as true those which the conscious mind feels to be true and, in a way known only to itself, objectifies the accepted ideas.
Therefore, through his power to imagine and feel and his freedom to choose the idea he will entertain, man has control over creation. Control of the subconscious is accomplished through control of your ideas and feelings.
The mechanism of creation is hidden in the very depth of the subconscious, the female aspect or womb of creation.
The subconscious transcends reason and is independent of induction. It contemplates a feeling as a fact existing within itself and on this assumption proceeds to give expression to it. The creative process begins with an idea and its cycle runs its course as a feeling and ends in a volition to act.
Ideas are impressed on the subconscious through the medium of feeling.
No idea can be impressed on the subconscious until it is felt, but once felt – be it good, bad or indifferent – it must be expressed.
Feeling is the one and only medium through which ideas are conveyed to the subconscious.
Therefore, the man who does not control his feeling may easily impress the subconscious with undesirable states. By control of feeling is not meant restraint or suppression of your feeling, but rather the disciplining of self to imagine and entertain only such feeling as contributes to your happiness.
Control of your feeling is all important to a full and happy life.
Never entertain an undesirable feeling, nor think sympathetically about wrong in any shape or form. Do not dwell on the imperfection of yourself or others. To do so is to impress the subconscious with these limitations. What you do not want done unto you, do not feel that it is done unto you or another. This is the whole law of a full and happy life. Everything else is commentary.
Every feeling makes a subconscious impression and, unless it is counteracted by a more powerful feeling of an opposite nature, must be expressed.
The dominant of two feelings is the one expressed. I am healthy is a stronger feeling than I will be healthy. To feel I will be is to confess I am not; I am is stronger than I am not.
What you feel you are always dominates what you feel you would like to be; therefore, to be realized, the wish must be felt as a state that is rather than a state that is not.
Sensation precedes manifestation and is the foundation upon which all manifestation rests. Be careful of your moods and feelings, for there is an unbroken connection between your feelings and your visible world. Your body is an emotional filter and bears the unmistakable marks of your prevalent emotions. Emotional disturbances, especially suppressed emotions, are the causes of all disease. To feel intensely about a wrong without voicing or expressing that feeling is the beginning of disease – dis-ease – in both body and environment. Do not entertain the feeling of regret or failure for frustration or detachment from your objective results in disease.
Think feelingly only of the state you desire to realize. Feeling the reality of the state sought and living and acting on that conviction is the way of all seeming miracles. All changes of expression are brought about through a change of feeling. A change of feeling is a change of destiny. All creation occurs in the domain of the subconscious. What you must acquire, then, is a reflective control of the operation of the subconscious, that is, control of your ideas and feelings.
Chance or accident is not responsible for the things that happen to you, nor is predestined fate the author of your fortune or misfortune. Your subconscious impressions determine the conditions of your world. The subconscious is not selective; it is impersonal and no respecter of persons [Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11]. The subconscious is not concerned with the truth or falsity of your feeling. It always accepts as true that which you feel to be true. Feeling is the assent of the subconscious to the truth of that which is declared to be true. Because of this quality of the subconscious there is nothing impossible to man. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and feel as true, the subconscious can and must objectify. Your feelings create the pattern from which your world is fashioned, and a change of feeling is a change of pattern.
The subconscious never fails to express that which has been impressed upon it.
The moment it receives an impression, it begins to work out the ways of its expression. It accepts the feeling impressed upon it, your feeling, as a fact existing within itself and immediately sets about to produce in the outer or objective world the exact likeness of that feeling.
The subconscious never alters the accepted beliefs of man. It out-pictures them to the last detail whether or not they are beneficial.
To impress the subconscious with the desirable state, you must assume the feeling that would be yours had you already realized your wish. In defining your objective, you must be concerned only with the objective itself. The manner of expression or the difficulties involved are not to be considered by you. To think feelingly on any state impresses it on the subconscious. Therefore, if you dwell on difficulties, barriers or delay, the subconscious, by its very non-selective nature, accepts the feeling of difficulties and obstacles as your request and proceeds to produce them in your outer world.
The subconscious is the womb of creation. It receives the idea unto itself through the feelings of man. It never changes the idea received, but always gives it form. Hence the subconscious out-pictures the idea in the image and likeness of the feeling received. To feel a state as hopeless or impossible is to impress the subconscious with the idea of failure.
Although the subconscious faithfully serves man, it must not be inferred that the relation is that of a servant to a master as was anciently conceived. The ancient prophets called it the slave and servant of man. St. Paul personified it as a “woman” and said: “The woman should be subject to man in everything” [Ephesians 5:24; also, 1Corinthians 14:34, Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18, 1Peter 3:1]. The subconscious does serve man and faithfully gives form to his feelings. However, the subconscious has a distinct distaste for compulsion and responds to persuasion rather than to command; consequently, it resembles the beloved wife more than the servant.
“The husband is head of the wife,” Ephesians 5[:23], may not be true of man and woman in their earthly relationship, but it is true of the conscious and the subconscious, or the male and female aspects of consciousness. The mystery to which Paul referred when he wrote, “This is a great mystery [5:32]… He that loveth his wife loveth himself [5:28]… And they two shall be one flesh [5:31]”, is simply the mystery of consciousness. Consciousness is really one and undivided but for creation’s sake it appears to be divided into two.
The conscious (objective) or male aspect truly is the head and dominates the subconscious (subjective) or female aspect.
However, this leadership is not that of the tyrant, but of the lover.
So, by assuming the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your objective, the subconscious is moved to build the exact likeness of your assumption.
Your desires are not subconsciously accepted until you assume the feeling of their reality, for only through feeling is an idea subconsciously accepted and only through this subconscious acceptance is it ever expressed.
It is easier to ascribe your feeling to events in the world than to admit that the conditions of the world reflect your feeling. However, it is eternally true that the outside mirrors the inside.
“As within, so without” [“As above, so below; as below, so above; as within, so without; as without, so within”, “Correspondence”, the second of The Seven Principles of Hermes Trismegistus].
“A man can receive nothing unless it is given him from heaven” [John 3:27] and “The kingdom of heaven is within you” [Luke 17:21]. Nothing comes from without; all things come from within – from the subconscious.
It is impossible for you to see other than the contents of your consciousness. Your world in its every detail is your consciousness objectified. Objective states bear witness of subconscious impressions. A change of impression results in a change of expression.
The subconscious accepts as true that which you feel as true, and because creation is the result of subconscious impressions, you, by your feeling, determine creation.
You are already that which you want to be, and your refusal to believe this is the only reason you do not see it.
To seek on the outside for that which you do not feel you are is to seek in vain, for we never find that which we want; we find only that which we are.
In short, you express and have only that which you are conscious of being or possessing. “To him that hath it is given” [Matthew 13:12; 25:29; Mark 4:25; Luke 8:18; 19:26]. Denying the evidence of the senses and appropriating the feeling of the wish fulfilled is the way to the realization of your desire.
Mastery of self-control of your thoughts and feelings is your highest achievement.
However, until perfect self-control is attained, so that, in spite of appearances, you feel all that you want to feel, use sleep and prayer to aid you in realizing your desired states.
These are the two gateways into the subconscious.
Chapter 2 – Sleep
SLEEP, the life that occupies one-third of our stay on earth, is the natural door into the subconscious.
So it is with sleep that we are now concerned. The conscious two-thirds of our life on earth is measured by the degree of attention we give sleep. Our understanding of and delight in what sleep has to bestow will cause us, night after night, to set out for it as though we were keeping an appointment with a lover.
“In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumbering upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction”, Job 33.
It is in sleep and in prayer, a state akin to sleep, that man enters the subconscious to make his impressions and receive his instructions. In these states the conscious and subconscious are creatively joined. The male and female become one flesh. Sleep is the time when the male or conscious mind turns from the world of sense to seek its lover or subconscious self.
The subconscious – unlike the woman of the world who marries her husband to change him – has no desire to change the conscious, waking state, but loves it as it is and faithfully reproduces its likeness in the outer world of form.
The conditions and events of your life are your children formed from the molds of your subconscious impressions in sleep. They are made in the image and likeness of your innermost feeling that they may reveal you to yourself.
“As in heaven, so on earth” [Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2]. As in the subconscious, so on earth.
Whatever you have in consciousness as you go to sleep is the measure of your expression in the waking two-thirds of your life on earth.
Nothing stops you from realizing your objective save your failure to feel that you are already that which you wish to be, or that you are already in possession of the thing sought. Your subconscious gives form to your desires only when you feel your wish fulfilled.
The unconsciousness of sleep is the normal state of the subconscious. Because all things come from within yourself, and your conception of yourself determines that which comes, you should always feel the wish fulfilled before you drop off to sleep.
You never draw out of the deep of yourself that which you want; you always draw that which you are, and you are that which you feel yourself to be as well as that which you feel as true of others.
To be realized, then, the wish must be resolved into the feeling of being or having or witnessing the state sought. This is accomplished by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The feeling which comes in response to the question “How would I feel were my wish realized?” is the feeling which should monopolize and immobilize your attention as you relax into sleep. You must be in the consciousness of being or having that which you want to be or to have before you drop off to sleep.
Once asleep, man has no freedom of choice. His entire slumber is dominated by his last waking concept of self.
It follows, therefore, that he should always assume the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction before he retires in sleep, “Come before me with singing and thanksgiving” [Psalm 95:2], “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise” [Psalm 100:4]. Your mood prior to sleep defines your state of consciousness as you enter into the presence of your everlasting lover, the subconscious.
She sees you exactly as you feel yourself to be. If, as you prepare for sleep, you assume and maintain the consciousness of success by feeling “I am successful”, you must be successful. Lie flat on your back with your head on a level with your body. Feel as you would were you in possession of your wish and quietly relax into unconsciousness.
“He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” [Psalm 121:4]. Nevertheless “He giveth his beloved sleep” [Psalm 127:2].
The subconscious never sleeps. Sleep is the door through which the conscious, waking mind passes to be creatively joined to the subconscious.
Sleep conceals the creative act, while the objective world reveals it.
In sleep, man impresses the subconscious with his conception of himself.
What more beautiful description of this romance of the conscious and subconscious is there than that told in the “Song of Solomon”: “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth [3:1]… I found him whom my soul loveth; I held him and I not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me” [3:4].
Preparing to sleep, you feel yourself into the state of the answered wish, and then relax into unconsciousness. Your realized wish is he whom you seek. By night, on your bed, you seek the feeling of the wish fulfilled that you may take it with you into the chamber of her that conceived you, into sleep or the subconscious which gave you form, that this wish also may be given expression.
This is the way to discover and conduct your wishes into the subconscious. Feel yourself in the state of the realized wish and quietly drop off to sleep.
Night after night, you should assume the feeling of being, having and witnessing that which you seek to be, possess and see manifested. Never go to sleep feeling discouraged or dissatisfied. Never sleep in the consciousness of failure.
Your subconscious, whose natural state is sleep, sees you as you believe yourself to be, and whether it be good, bad or indifferent, the subconscious will faithfully embody your belief.
As you feel so do you impress her; and she, the perfect lover, gives form to these impressions and out-pictures them as the children of her beloved.
“Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee” [Song of Solomon 4:7] is the attitude of mind to adopt before dropping off to sleep.
Disregard appearances and feel that things are as you wish them to be, for “He calleth things that are not seen as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen” [Approx., Romans 4:17]. To assume the feeling of satisfaction is to call conditions into being which will mirror satisfaction.
“Signs follow, they do not precede”.
Proof that you are will follow the consciousness that you are; it will not precede it.
You are an eternal dreamer dreaming non-eternal dreams. Your dreams take form as you assume the feeling of their reality.
Do not limit yourself to the past.
Knowing that nothing is impossible to consciousness, begin to imagine states beyond the experiences of the past.
Whatever the mind of man can imagine, man can realize. All objective (visible) states were first subjective (invisible) states, and you called them into visible by assuming the feeling of their reality.
The creative process is first imagining and then believing the state imagined. Always imagine and expect the best.
The world cannot change until you change your conception of it. “As within, so without”.
Nations, as well as people, are only what you believe them to be. No matter what the problem is, no matter where it is, no matter whom it concerns, you have no one to change but yourself, and you have neither opponent nor helper in bringing about the change within yourself. You have nothing to do but convince yourself of the truth of that which you desire to see manifested.
As soon as you succeed in convincing yourself of the reality of the state sought, results follow to confirm your fixed belief. You never suggest to another the state which you desire to see him express; instead, you convince yourself that he is already that which you desire him to be.
Realization of your wish is accomplished by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. You cannot fail unless you fail to convince yourself of the reality of your wish. A change of belief is confirmed by a change of expression.
Every night, as you drop off to sleep, feel satisfied and spotless, for your subjective lover always forms the objective world in the image and likeness of your conception of it, the conception defined by your feeling.
The waking two-thirds of your life on earth ever corroborates or bears witness to your subconscious impressions. The actions and events of the day are effects; they are not causes. Free will is only freedom of choice.
“Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve” [Joshua 24:15] is your freedom to choose the kind of mood you assume; but the expression of the mood is the secret of the subconscious.
The subconscious receives impressions only through the feelings of man and, in a way known only to itself, gives these impressions form and expression. The actions of man are determined by his subconscious impressions.
His illusion of free will, his belief in freedom of action, is but ignorance of the causes which make him act. He thinks himself free because he has forgotten the link between himself and the event.
Man awake is under compulsion to express his subconscious impressions. If in the past he unwisely impressed himself, then let him begin to change his thought and feeling, for only as he does so will he change his world. Do not waste one moment in regret, for to think feelingly of the mistakes of the past is to reinfect yourself. “Let the dead bury the dead” [Matthew 8:22; Luke 9:60]. Turn from appearances and assume the feeling that would be yours were you already the one you wish to be.
Feeling a state produces that state.
The part you play on the world’s stage is determined by your conception of yourself.
By feeling your wish fulfilled and quietly relaxing into sleep, you cast yourself in a star role to be played on earth tomorrow, and, while asleep, you are rehearsed and instructed in your part.
The acceptance of the end automatically wills the means of realization. Make no mistake about this. If, as you prepare for sleep, you do not consciously feel yourself into the state of the answered wish, then you will take with you into the chamber of her who conceived you the sum total of the reactions and feelings of the waking day; and while asleep, you will be instructed in the manner in which they will be expressed tomorrow. You will rise believing that you are a free agent, not realizing that every action and event of the day is predetermined by your concept of self as you fell asleep. Your only freedom, then, is your freedom of reaction. You are free to choose how you feel and react to the day’s drama, but the drama – the actions, events and circumstances of the day – have already been determined.
Unless you consciously and purposely define the attitude of mind with which you go to sleep, you unconsciously go to sleep in the composite attitude of mind made up of all feelings and reactions of the day. Every reaction makes a subconscious impression and, unless counteracted by an opposite and more dominant feeling, is the cause of future action.
Ideas enveloped in feeling are creative actions. Use your divine right wisely. Through your ability to think and feel, you have dominion over all creation.
While you are awake, you are a gardener selecting seed for your garden, but “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” [John 12:24]. Your conception of yourself as you fall asleep is the seed you drop into the ground of the subconscious. Dropping off to sleep feeling satisfied and happy compels conditions and events to appear in your world which confirm these attitudes of mind.
Sleep is the door into heaven. What you take in as a feeling you bring out as a condition, action, or object in space. So sleep in the feeling of the wish fulfilled.
“As in consciousness, so on earth.”
Chapter 3 – Prayer
PRAYER, like sleep, is also an entrance into the subconscious.
“When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret and your Father which is in secret shall reward you openly” [Matthew 6:6].
Prayer is an illusion of sleep which diminishes the impression of the outer world and renders the mind more receptive to suggestion from within. The mind in prayer is in a state of relaxation and receptivity akin to the feeling attained just before dropping off to sleep.
Prayer is not so much what you ask for, as how you prepare for its reception. “Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray believe that you have received them, and ye shall have them” [Mark 11:24].
The only condition required is that you believe that your prayers are already realized.
Your prayer must be answered if you assume the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your objective. The moment you accept the wish as an accomplished fact, the subconscious finds means for its realization. To pray successfully then, you must yield to the wish, that is, feel the wish fulfilled.
The perfectly disciplined man is always in tune with the wish as an accomplished fact.
He knows that consciousness is the one and only reality, that ideas and feelings are facts of consciousness and are as real as objects in space; therefore he never entertains a feeling which does not contribute to his happiness, for feelings are the causes of the actions and circumstances of his life.
On the other hand, the undisciplined man finds it difficult to believe that which is denied by the senses and usually accepts or rejects solely on appearances of the senses. Because of this tendency to rely on the evidence of the senses, it is necessary to shut them out before starting to pray, before attempting to feel that which they deny. Whenever you are in the state of mind “I should like to, but I cannot”, the harder you try, the less you are able to yield to the wish. You never attract that which you want, but always attract that which you are conscious of being.
Prayer is the art of assuming the feeling of being and having that which you want.
When the senses confirm the absence of your wish, all conscious effort to counteract this suggestion is futile and tends to intensify the suggestion.
Prayer is the art of yielding to the wish and not the forcing of the wish. Whenever your feeling is in conflict with your wish, feeling will be the victor. The dominant feeling invariably expresses itself. Prayer must be without effort. In attempting to fix an attitude of mind which is denied by the senses, effort is fatal.
To yield successfully to the wish as an accomplished fact, you must create a passive state, a kind of reverie or meditative reflection similar to the feeling which precedes sleep. In such a relaxed state, the mind is turned from the objective world and easily senses the reality of a subjective state. It is a state in which you are conscious and quite able to move or open your eyes but have no desire to do so. An easy way to create this passive state is to relax in a comfortable chair or on a bed. If on a bed, lie flat on your back with your head on a level with your body, close the eyes and imagine that you are sleepy. Feel – I am sleepy, so sleepy, so very sleepy.
In a little while, a faraway feeling accompanied by a general lassitude and loss of all desire to move envelops you. You feel a pleasant, comfortable rest and not inclined to alter your position, although under other circumstances you would not be at all comfortable. When this passive state is reached, imagine that you have realized your wish – not how it was realized, but simply the wish fulfilled. Imagine in picture form what you desire to achieve in life; then feel yourself as having already achieved it. Thoughts produce tiny little speech movements which may be heard in the passive state of prayer as pronouncements from without. However, this degree of passivity is not essential to the realization of your prayers. All that is necessary is to create a passive state and feel the wish fulfilled.
All you can possibly need or desire is already yours. You need no helper to give it to you; it is yours now. Call your desires into being by imagining and feeling your wish fulfilled. As the end is accepted, you become totally indifferent as to possible failure, for acceptance of the end wills the means to that end. When you emerge from the moment of prayer, it is as though you were shown the happy and successful end of a play although you were not shown how that end was achieved. However, having witnessed the end, regardless of any anticlimactic sequence, you remain calm and secure in the knowledge that the end has been perfectly defined.
Chapter 4 – Spirit – Feeling
“NOT by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” [Zechariah 4:6]. Get into the spirit of the state desired by assuming the feeling that would be yours were you already the one you want to be. As you capture the feeling of the state sought, you are relieved of all effort to make it so, for it is already so. There is a definite feeling associated with every idea in the mind of man. Capture the feeling associated with your realized wish by assuming the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of the thing you desire, and your wish will objectify itself.
Faith is feeling, “According to your faith (feeling) be it unto you” [Matthew 9:29]. You never attract that which you want, but always that which you are. As a man is, so does he see. “To him that hath it shall be given and to him that hath not it shall be taken away…” [Matthew 13:12; 25:29; Mark 4:25; Luke 8:18; 19:26]. That which you feel yourself to be, you are, and you are given that which you are. So assume the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your wish, and your wish must be realized.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him” [Genesis 1:27]. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” [Philippians 2:5,6]. You are that which you believe yourself to be.
Instead of believing in God or in Jesus – believe you are God or you are Jesus. “He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also” [John 14:12] should be “He that believes as I believe the works that I do shall he do also”. Jesus found it not strange to do the works of God, because He believed Himself to be God. “I and My Father are one” [John 10:30]. It is natural to do the works of the one you believe yourself to be. So live in the feeling of being the one you want to be and that you shall be.
When a man believes in the value of the advice given him and applies it, he establishes within himself the reality of success.
