A few excerpts from Neville Goddard’s The Wish Fulfilled
The feeling of the wish fulfilled, if assumed and sustained, must objectify the state that would have created it.
This law explains why
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen”
and why
“He calleth things that are not seen as
though they were and things
that were not seen
become seen.”
Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled and continue feeling that it is fulfilled until that which you feel objectifies itself.
The Wish Fulfilled
Prayer . . the art of believing what is denied by the senses . . deals almost entirely with the subconscious. Through prayer, the subconscious is suggested, into acceptance of the wish fulfilled, and, reasoning deductively, logically unfolds it to its legitimate end.
The Wish Fulfilled
The subconscious mind is the universal conductor which the operator modifies with his thoughts and feelings. Visible states are either the vibratory effects of subconscious vibrations within you or they are vibratory causes of the corresponding vibrations within you. A disciplined man never permits them to be causes unless they awaken in him the desirable states of consciousness.
With knowledge of the law of reversibility, the disciplined man transforms his world by imagining and feeling only what is lovely and of good report. The beautiful idea he awakens within himself shall not fail to arouse its affinity in others.
He knows the savior of the world is not a man but the manifestation that would save.
The sick man’s savior is health, the hungry man’s is food, the thirsty man’s savior is water. He walks in the company of the savior, by assuming the feeling of his wish fulfilled.
The Wish Fulfilled
The spiritual man speaks to the natural man through the language of desire. The key to progress in life and to the fulfillment of dreams lies in ready obedience to its voice. Unhesitating obedience to its voice is an immediate assumption of the wish fulfilled. To desire a state is to have it.
As Pascal has said,
“You would not have sought me had you not already found me.”
Man, by assuming the feeling of his wish fulfilled, and then living and acting on this conviction, alters the future in harmony with his assumption.
Assumptions awaken what they affirm. As soon as man assumes the feeling of his wish fulfilled, his four-dimensional self finds ways for the attainment of this end, discovers methods for its realization.
I know of no clearer definition of the means by which we realize our desires than to experience in imagination what we would experience in the flesh were we to achieve our goal.
The Wish Fulfilled
A most effective way to embody a desire is to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and then, in a relaxed and sleepy state, repeat over and over again, like a lullaby, any short phrase which implies fulfillment of our desire, such as “Thank you” as though we addressed a higher power for having done it for us.
If, however, we seek a conscious projection into a dimensionally larger world, then we must keep the action going right up until sleep ensues.
Experience in imagination, with all the distinctness of reality, what would be experienced in the flesh were you to achieve your goal; and you shall, in time, meet it in the flesh as you met it in your imagination.
The Wish Fulfilled
We call things by wishing and assuming the feeling of our wish fulfilled. Unlike the world of three dimensions where there is an interval between our assumption and its fulfillment, in the dimensionally larger world there is an immediate realization of our assumption. The external reality instantly mirrors our assumption.
Here there is no need to wait four months till harvest. We look again as though we saw, and lo and behold, the fields are already white to harvest.
In this dimensionally larger world
“Ye shall not need to fight: set yourselves, stand ye still,
and see the salvation of the Lord with you.”
And because that greater world is slowly passing through our three-dimensional world, we can by the power of imagination mold our world in harmony with our desire. Look as though you saw, listen as though you heard; stretch forth your imaginary hand as though you touched . . and your assumptions will harden into facts.
The Wish Fulfilled
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.”
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.
The Wish Fulfilled
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 Wish Fulfilled
“As in heaven, so on earth.”
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?”
The Wish Fulfilled
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.
The Wish Fulfilled
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.”
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.
The Wish Fulfilled
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.
The Wish Fulfilled
“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
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.”
The Wish Fulfilled
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.”
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.
The Wish Fulfilled
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.
The Wish Fulfilled
“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
To be transformed, the whole basis of your thoughts must change. But your thoughts cannot change unless you have new ideas, for you think from your ideas.
All transformation begins with an intense, burning desire to be transformed. The first step in the
“renewing of the mind”
is desire. You must want to be different, and intend to be, before you can begin to change yourself. Then you must make your future dream a present fact.
You do this by assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled. By desiring to be other than what you are, you can create an ideal of the person you want to be and assume that you are already that person. If this assumption is persisted in until it becomes your dominant feeling, the attainment of your ideal is inevitable.
The ideal you hope to achieve is always ready for an incarnation, but unless you yourself offer it human parentage, it is incapable of birth.
Therefore, your attitude should be one in which having desired to express a higher state . . you alone accept the task of incarnating this new and greater value of yourself.
In giving birth to your ideal, you must bear in mind that the methods of mental and spiritual knowledge are entirely different.
This is a point that is truly understood by probably not more than one person in a million.
The Wish Fulfilled
You must be conscious of being secure if you are to know what security is.
Therefore, to incarnate a new and greater value of yourself, you must assume that you already are what you want to be and then live by faith in this assumption, which is not yet incarnate in the body of your life, in confidence that this new value or state of consciousness will become incarnated through your absolute fidelity to the assumption that you are that which you desire to be.
This is what wholeness means, what integrity means.
They mean submission of the whole self to the feeling of the wish fulfilled in certainty that that new state of consciousness is the renewing of mind which transforms. There is no order in Nature corresponding to this willing submission of the self to the ideal beyond the self.
Therefore, it is the height of folly to expect the incarnation of a new and greater concept of self to come about by natural evolutionary process.
That which requires a state of consciousness to produce its effect obviously cannot be effected without such a state of consciousness, and in your ability to assume the feeling of a greater life, to assume a new concept of yourself, you possess what the rest of Nature does not possess . . imagination . . the instrument by which you create your world.
The Wish Fulfilled
The changes which take place in your life as a result of your changed concept of yourself always appear to the unenlightened to be the result, not of a change of your consciousness, but of chance, outer cause, or coincidence.
However, the only fate governing your life is the fate determined by your own concepts, your own assumptions; for an assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact.
The ideal you seek and hope to attain will not manifest itself, will not be realized by you until you have imagined that you are already that ideal.
There is no escape for you except by a radical psychological transformation of yourself, except by your assumption of the feeling of your wish fulfilled. Therefore, make results or accomplishments the crucial test of your ability to use your imagination.
Everything depends on your attitude towards yourself. That which you will not affirm as true of yourself can never be realized by you, for that attitude alone is the necessary condition by which you realize your goal.
The Wish Fulfilled
All transformation is based upon suggestion, and this can work only where you lay yourself completely open to an influence.
You must abandon yourself to your ideal as a woman abandons herself to love, for complete abandonment of self to it is the way to union with your ideal.
You must assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled until your assumption has all the sensory vividness of reality. You must imagine that you are already experiencing what you desire. That is, you must assume the feeling of the fulfillment of your desire until you are possessed by it and this feeling crowds all other ideas out of your consciousness.
The man who is not prepared for the conscious plunge into the assumption of the wish fulfilled in the faith that it is the only way to the realization of his dream is not yet ready to live consciously by the law of assumption, although there is no doubt that he does live by the law of assumption unconsciously.
But for you, who accept this principle and are ready to live by consciously assuming that your wish is already fulfilled, the adventure of life begins.
To reach a higher level of being, you must assume a higher concept of yourself. If you will not imagine yourself as other than what you are, then you remain as you are,
“for if ye believe not that I AM He,
ye shall die in your sins.”
If you do not believe that you are He, the person you want to be, then you remain as you are.
Through the faithful systematic cultivation of the feeling of the wish fulfilled, desire becomes the promise of its own fulfillment.
The assumption of the feeling of the wish fulfilled makes the future dream a present fact.