#201: The State of Being Chosen

The State of Being Chosen A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard You move through your days carrying the quiet conviction that you have not been chosen. The positions go to others. The affections are bestowed upon others. The opportunities seem to single out everyone but you. And this conviction, though painful, appears to be confirmed by everything you see and experience. You have tried to be better, to do more, to make yourself worthy of selection, yet the feeling of not being the preferred one persists. It is as though life has looked upon you and passed you by, and you have accepted this as the natural order of things. But I tell you that this order is not natural. It is the inevitable out-picturing of a state of consciousness which you have occupied without knowing it. The state of not being chosen is a state. The state of being chosen is another state. And you are free to move from one to the other the moment you become aware that consciousness is the only reality and that what you are conscious of being you must express. The state of being chosen is the inner feeling that you are the one selected, the one desired, the one preferred, the one welcomed by life. It is not a hope that one day you will be chosen. It is the present tense assumption that you are already chosen. When this feeling becomes your dominant mood, when it becomes as natural to you as breathing, then the world must reflect it. For the world is not the cause; it is the effect. Your consciousness is the cause. Let us enter this state together and explore its depths. To feel chosen is to feel a profound relaxation in your soul. The striving ceases. The anxiety about whether you will be accepted or rejected melts away. In its place there arises a quiet certainty that you belong here, that you are wanted here, that your presence is a welcome addition to every situation you enter. It is the feeling of being at home in the universe, of knowing that the universe has made room for you and is glad that you have come. This feeling does not depend upon the approval of others. It does not wait for someone to tell you that you are chosen. It is generated from within by your own assumption. You simply decide to feel it. You say within yourself, “I am chosen,” and you mean it with the whole of your being. You do not argue with the outer evidence. You do not try to make it so by effort. You simply assume the feeling of it being so, and you persist in that assumption until it becomes your reality. As you do this, something subtle yet profound begins to happen within you. Your entire demeanor changes. You no longer approach life as one who must prove himself worthy of selection. You approach it as one who has already been selected. This shift in inner attitude is felt by others, though they may not know why. They sense in you a quality of being preferred, and they respond accordingly. They give you the place, the attention, the affection that you have first given to yourself in consciousness. The law is simple and unchanging. You are always expressing the state you are in. If you are in the state of being the overlooked one, the world overlooks you. If you are in the state of being the chosen one, the world chooses you. There is no exception to this. The world has no power to choose or reject independently of your consciousness. It is your consciousness choosing or rejecting itself, and the world faithfully mirroring that choice. Many believe that to be chosen is a matter of luck or fate or the arbitrary decision of others. But there is no luck. There is no fate apart from consciousness. What appears as the choice of others is but the reflection of your own inner choice. When you choose yourself by assuming the state of being chosen, you compel the seeming choices of others to align with your assumption. This is not coercion. It is the simple working of the law that consciousness is the only reality. Dwell upon the words “I am chosen.” Do not say them mechanically. Feel them. Feel the weight of responsibility that comes with being chosen, but also the joy. Feel the peace that comes from knowing the decision has already been made in your favor. Feel the warmth of being welcomed, as though every door you approach is already open to receive you. Let this feeling saturate your mind. Let it become the lens through which you view every experience. When seeming rejection comes, and it will come as long as you are testing the state, do not accept it as final. See it as the old state trying to reassert itself. Return immediately to the feeling of being chosen. Do not fight the rejection. Do not try to change the person or the circumstance. Simply change your state. Assume once more that you are the chosen one, and continue in that assumption. The rejection will dissolve as the new state takes hold. This is the secret of persistence. Not persistence in effort, but persistence in feeling. You persist in feeling yourself to be chosen even when the evidence screams the opposite. And because you persist, the evidence must change. It has no choice. The evidence is the servant of consciousness, not its master. In the scriptures it is said that you are chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. This is not a statement about a distant historical event. It is a statement about the eternal nature of consciousness. The state of being chosen exists eternally as a possibility within you. It is not created by time or effort. It is entered by assumption. Before any outer condition existed, the state was there, waiting for you to occupy it. When you occupy it, you discover that you were always chosen; you simply had not realized it. The realization is everything. To realize that you are chosen is to be chosen. The outer confirmation follows the inner realization as surely as the shadow follows the object. You do not labor to make the shadow appear. You simply stand in the light, and the shadow appears of its own accord. Stand in the light of the assumption that you are chosen, and the confirmation will appear of its own accord. This state elevates your entire sense of self. You cease to be the one who is seeking a place and become the one who has a place. You cease to be the one who is seeking love and become the one who is loved. You cease to be the one who is seeking opportunity and become the one for whom opportunity exists. This is not a change in the outer world first. It is a change in the inner world, and the outer world obediently follows. You will find that as you live in this state, your reactions to life change. Where once you would have felt slighted by a seeming slight, you now remain unmoved, for you know yourself to be chosen. Where once you would have felt anxious about an outcome, you now rest in the knowledge that the outcome is already in your favor. This inner rest is the Sabbath of which the scriptures speak. You rest from all labor to make yourself chosen, for you have assumed that you are chosen, and in that assumption you have entered your rest. The Father within you does the work. Your awareness of being chosen is the Father. When you assume this state, the Father within you goes forth to make it so in your world. You do not need to know how. You do not need to plan the ways and means. The ways and means are contained within the state itself. As you occupy the state, the bridge of incidents necessary to confirm it appears. But you do not concern yourself with the bridge. You concern yourself only with the state. This is the simplicity that the wisdom of the world finds foolish. The world says you must do, achieve, prove, earn. But consciousness says you must be. You must be the chosen one in consciousness, and all that belongs to the chosen one will be added unto you. This is the great reversal. Not by works, lest any man should boast, but by grace, which is the unearned favor of assuming the state. Grace is the state of being chosen assumed. When you assume it without having earned it in the outer sense, you are exercising grace. And grace, when assumed, compels the world to give you the gifts of grace. You receive not because you deserve it in the eyes of the world, but because you have assumed the state of the one who receives. So you see, the state of being chosen is not about others choosing you. It is about you choosing to be conscious of being chosen. It is about you electing yourself to the position of the elect. When you do this, the whole world elects you. When you do this, life itself prefers you. When you do this, every experience welcomes you as its own. The feeling of being chosen is not static. It grows as you dwell in it. At first it may seem like a faint hope, a tentative assumption. But as you persist, it becomes a living reality, a constant companion. You wake in the morning with the feeling that the day has chosen you to live it fully. You move through your tasks with the feeling that each task has chosen you to perform it well. You meet people with the feeling that they have chosen you to know them, and you have chosen them. This mutual choosing is the harmony of the state. In this state, there is no competition. You do not see others as rivals for the favor you seek. You see them as fellow expressions of the same consciousness, each in their own state. If they are chosen in their own consciousness, you rejoice with them, for you know that there is no limit to the number who may be chosen. The state is infinite. Your being chosen does not diminish another’s. It simply affirms the law that all may assume it who will. This removes the sting of seeming rejection. When someone appears to prefer another, you do not take it as a statement about your worth. You see it as a reflection of their state or of your old state if you still harbor it. You return to the assumption that you are chosen, and you release the incident. In releasing it, you free yourself to receive the next confirmation that your assumption is true. The state of being chosen includes the feeling of being loved by life. To be chosen is to be loved. The two are inseparable. When you feel chosen, you feel loved. When you feel loved, you feel chosen. This love is not personal in the limited sense. It is the love of consciousness for itself expressed through you. It is the Father loving the Son, which is your awareness loving the state you have assumed. As this love fills you, you naturally express love toward all. You prefer others because you know yourself preferred. You welcome others because you know yourself welcomed. You desire the good of others because you know yourself desired by the good. This is the ethical flowering of the state. It is not imposed morality. It is the spontaneous expression of one who knows himself chosen. The world will test you. It will present situations designed to make you doubt your assumption. These tests are not punishments. They are opportunities to confirm the state. Each time you maintain the feeling of being chosen in the face of contrary evidence, you strengthen the state. Each time you waver, you weaken it. But even if you waver, you may return. The state is always available. You simply assume it again. There is no limit to how deeply you may enter this state. You may begin with a specific area of your life where you desire to be chosen. You may assume that in your work you are the chosen one for promotion or recognition. You may assume that in your relationships you are the chosen one for love and companionship. You may assume that in your health you are the chosen one for vitality and wholeness. But as you persist, you will discover that the state is one. To be chosen in one area is to open the door to being chosen in all areas. For the state does not know compartments. It is a unified feeling of being the preferred expression of life. This is why the mystics of old spoke of the chosen as those who had found favor with God. They had found favor with their own awareness by assuming the state of favor. They had become the elect by electing to feel elected. You stand in the same position. The same opportunity is before you. The same law operates for you as for them. Do not postpone the assumption. Do not say that one day, when conditions are better, you will assume it. Assume it now. The conditions will never be better until you assume the state that produces better conditions. The state is the cause. The conditions are the effect. Begin with the cause, and the effect must follow. As you assume the state of being chosen, you will notice a subtle change in your desires. You will no longer desire to be chosen in a frantic or desperate way. You will desire from a place of already being chosen. Your desires will be the natural expressions of one who knows himself favored. They will carry the mark of certainty rather than the mark of anxiety. And because they do, they will be fulfilled more quickly and more harmoniously. This is the secret of naturalness. The chosen one does not strain. He does not push. He moves with the quiet confidence that all things are working together for his good because he has assumed his good. He rests in the knowledge that he is preferred, and preference flows to him from every quarter. You are that chosen one. Not in some future time. Not after you have done certain things. Now. In this moment. As you read these words, you may assume the feeling. You may say within yourself, “I am chosen,” and feel the truth of it. And as you do, something eternal awakens in you. The same awareness that said “I AM” to Moses says “I am chosen” to you. And the world must obey. This is the great truth. This is the state of being chosen. Enter it. Dwell in it. Let it become you. And you will discover that you have always been chosen, from the foundation of the world, which is the foundation of your own consciousness. You have only to realize it to make it manifest. Feel it now. Live from it now. And the world will bear witness that you have been chosen from the beginning.