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The Neville Goddard Podcast is dedicated to bringing Neville's timeless ideas into a modern, immersive format you can return to again and again. This is a modern faithful interpretation of Neville Goddard's most powerful teachings.
The Assumption Beneath the Problem
A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard
You look at your problem and you see it as something standing between you and the life you desire. You see it as a condition to be fought, a circumstance to be altered by effort or by appeal to others. You have done all that the outer world has counseled you to do, and still the difficulty remains or returns in a slightly different form. The reason is not hidden from you any longer once you understand that every problem has beneath it an assumption you are making in consciousness. The problem is not the cause. The problem is the effect, the visible clothing of an invisible state you have accepted as true. Until that state is found and changed, the problem will continue to appear, for it has no life of its own. It lives only by the assumption that sustains it.
You are always assuming. There is no moment, waking or sleeping, when you are not occupying some state of consciousness. This state may be so habitual, so quietly accepted, that you do not even recognize it as an assumption. It has become your natural way of seeing yourself and your world. Yet it is this very assumption that is shaping every detail of your experience. If the experience is one of lack or pain or frustration, then somewhere within you there is an assumption of lack, of pain, or of frustration being natural to you. It may not be the loud, obvious thought. It may be a subtle feeling, almost beneath notice, that “this is the way it is for me,” or “I am the sort of person for whom things like this happen,” or “life in this area is always difficult.” These quiet acceptances are assumptions, and they are more powerful than any surface affirmation because they are lived from without question.
Consciousness is the only reality. Your world, in every detail, is your consciousness out-pictured. There is no other cause. The people who seem to oppose you, the conditions that seem to bind you, the events that seem to thwart you—these are not independent powers. They are faithful servants of the assumption you hold. They can do nothing else. When you understand this, you cease to blame the mirror for the image it reflects. You turn instead to the one who stands before the mirror. You turn to yourself and ask what you are assuming that makes this image appear.
To find the assumption beneath the problem, you must do what the world rarely does. You must turn your attention away from the problem itself. As long as you give the problem your full attention, you are feeding the very assumption that produces it. You must become still enough to feel what you are accepting as true while the problem is present. Do not argue with the problem. Do not rehearse its history. Simply ask, in the quiet of your own mind, what must I be assuming for this to be my experience? The answer comes not always in words but in feeling. It may be a sense of being limited, of being unworthy, of being opposed, of being fated to struggle in this particular way. Whatever the feeling, it is your assumption. It is the hidden state from which the problem draws its life.
You may discover that the assumption is not about the problem at all. It may be an assumption about yourself—an identity you have accepted. “I am one who never quite succeeds in this.” “I am one who is always overlooked.” “I am one for whom good things are just out of reach.” These are not descriptions of fact. They are assumptions you have made about who you are. And because consciousness forever out-pictures the state it occupies, the outer world arranges itself to confirm the assumption. The problem is not something that happened to you. It is something that is happening from you.
When you see the assumption clearly, you have already begun to loosen its hold. For to see it as an assumption rather than as truth is to rob it of its power. It is no longer “the way things are.” It is now “the way I have been assuming things are.” This seeing is the beginning of freedom. You do not need to fight the old assumption. You do not need to destroy it. You simply cease to feed it by withdrawing your attention from it and placing your attention upon a new assumption.
The new assumption is the state in which the problem does not exist. If the problem is one of health, you assume the state of wholeness. If it is one of means, you assume the state of abundance. If it is one of relationship, you assume the state of harmony. You do not hope for it. You do not long for it. You assume it as a present fact in consciousness. You feel yourself to be already the one who is whole, or provided for, or in harmonious relation. You make this feeling as natural as you can. You dwell in it. You return to it whenever the old assumption tries to reassert itself. For the old assumption will try. It has momentum. It has been your habit. But every time you feel the new state, you are weakening the old one. Every time you persist in the new, you are building its reality.
Persistence is not stubbornness. It is faithfulness to the new assumption. It is refusing to be moved by appearances that contradict it. Appearances are always the out-picturing of the old state. They will continue for a time even after you have changed the assumption, because the outer world does not change instantly. But as you remain faithful to the new feeling, the bridge of incidents begins to form. Events arrange themselves. People change their attitudes. Conditions shift. Not because you have forced them, but because you have changed the assumption from which they spring. An assumption, though it may seem false to the outer senses, if persisted in, hardens into fact. This is the law. It works for the old assumption and it works for the new. The choice is yours.
You may wonder how long this takes. Time is not the measure. The measure is the naturalness of the new assumption. When you can feel the new state without effort, when it becomes your automatic way of seeing, the outer will conform quickly. Until then, you persist. You do not argue with doubts. You do not try to convince the old state that it is wrong. You simply return, again and again, to the feeling of the new. In this there is no strain. There is only the quiet decision to occupy a different state.
The assumption beneath the problem is often a limitation you have placed upon the “I AM” within you. You have said, without words, “I AM limited in this way.” “I AM always struggling here.” When you change the assumption, you are not changing God. You are changing the state you are occupying. You are rising from one conception of yourself to another. And because consciousness is the resurrecting power, it resurrects the new conception into visible form. The old problem dies because it is no longer assumed. The new condition appears because it is now assumed.
This is why you are told to seek first the kingdom. The kingdom is the state of consciousness. Seek first to occupy the state in which the problem is already solved, and all things are added unto you. The things are not sought directly. They follow the assumption as the shadow follows the body. Your only work is to assume the state and to remain faithful to it. The how is not your concern. Consciousness has ways you know not of. It will find its own means of expression. Your part is only to assume and to persist.
Do not be discouraged if at first the new assumption feels unreal. All new states feel unreal at the beginning. They become real by being lived from. You live from a state by feeling it as true now, by making it the basis of your inner conversations, by seeing the world from that state rather than seeing the state from the world. When you look at your problem from the old assumption, the problem grows larger. When you look at the problem from the new assumption, the problem shrinks and finally disappears. For you are no longer giving it the consciousness that keeps it alive.
You are not asked to pretend. You are asked to assume. Pretending is trying to make the outer conform while the inner remains unchanged. Assuming is changing the inner so that the outer must conform. There is all the difference in the world between these two. Pretending is effort. Assuming is acceptance. When you assume the state of the solution, you accept it as already so in consciousness. You rest in it. You no longer strive. And in this rest the creative power of consciousness does its work without your interference.
Every problem you have ever had has been sustained by an assumption. Every problem you will ever have will be sustained by an assumption. There is no exception. The assumption may change its form, but it remains the cause. When you understand this, you cease to be the victim of conditions. You become the master of assumptions. You watch your assumption with diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. You catch the subtle feelings that would keep an old problem alive, and you replace them with the feeling of the new state. This watching is not anxiety. It is awareness. It is the quiet vigilance of one who knows that consciousness is the only reality and that assumption is the mold.
Tonight, take the problem that troubles you most. Do not fight it. Do not rehearse its causes or its history. Be still. Feel what you are assuming while it is present. See it for what it is—an assumption, not a fact. Then assume the opposite. Assume the state in which this problem has no existence. Feel yourself to be already free of it. Make that feeling as vivid and as natural as you can. Return to it whenever the old feeling rises. Persist. And as you persist, you will discover that the problem loses its power over you. It may linger for a time in the outer world, but its roots in consciousness have been cut. And what has no root must wither.
You are not bound to any assumption. You are free to choose the state you will occupy. This freedom is your birthright. It is the gift of consciousness itself. When you exercise it by assuming the state of the solution, you are exercising the greatest power in the world—the power to determine what you will out-picture. There is no greater power. All other powers are secondary to this.
So you see, the assumption beneath the problem is not your enemy. It is your teacher. It shows you where you have been assuming limitation. It invites you to assume freedom instead. When you accept the invitation, the problem ceases to be a problem. It becomes a memory of a state you have outgrown. And you walk forward in the new assumption, knowing that your world must conform to it, for consciousness is faithful and assumption is the law.
You are assuming now. Make certain you are assuming the state you wish to express. For you will express it. There is no escape from this truth, and in this truth there is no despair. There is only the quiet certainty that you can change any assumption and therefore change any experience. The problem is not greater than you. The assumption that sustains it is not greater than you. You are the one who assumes. You are the one who can assume anew. And when you do, you will know, with a knowing deeper than any outer proof, that you are free.