Daniel 6: Faith as a State of Consciousness

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Quick Insights

Daniel's public trial reads as a private resolution made visible: a settled inner posture that resists the pressure of external opinion.
The rival governors and their sealed decree represent the weight of collective belief and fixed rules that seek to define what is possible for you.
The lions' den is the terrain of raw fear and instinct where conviction is tested and transforms into a new evidence of reality.
Deliverance comes not from legal argument but from the unshakable living state already assumed and sustained in imagination and feeling.

What is the Main Point of Daniel 6?

The chapter teaches that a fixed, repeated inner assumption of identity and communion with the living source of power persists even when outward circumstances imply impossibility; by maintaining that inner posture against hostile consensus, imagination collapses the apparent threat into a transformed outcome.

What is the Spiritual Meaning of Daniel 6?

At the heart of the story is a psychology of preference and persecution. Being appointed and favored corresponds to an awakened state that naturally draws attention and provokes resistance. Those who plot against Daniel are not simply political enemies but the internalized voices of doubt, envy, and literal-minded law that try to legislate what the self can or cannot be. Their plot to trap him exposes the common drama: when one assumes an uncommon state, the surrounding consensus reacts to preserve the status quo. The royal statute is the stage on which inner law and outer law collide. The decree that no one may petition any power but the king for thirty days dramatizes the illusion of immutable limitation. Daniel's repeated kneeling and thanksgiving are not ritual compliance but a disciplined imaginative practice: the conscious return to identity as already linked to the living source. Repetition here is creative rehearsal; it is the sustained feeling of the wish fulfilled that does not negotiate with present evidence but instead reorders perception from the inside out. The night of the king and the morning of rescue show how the inner state influences the field of consciousness that shapes behavior in others. The king's sleepless anxiety is the ripple effect of an unreconciled assumption; his eventual cry and the declaration that follows are the outer reversal that issues from the inner conviction that was not relinquished. Recovery in the narrative is therefore not a miraculous exception but the natural response of reality to the persistence of a chosen, living state within the imagination.

Key Symbols Decoded

The high officials and the signed decree function psychologically as symbolic authorities: internalized rigid beliefs that set boundaries on what the self considers acceptable. Daniel's open windows are the willingness to expose his inner life and to let his orientation face toward the true center of longing. Kneeling three times a day signals disciplined alignment with that center, a habitual mental posture that repeatedly returns attention to the desired state. The lions are the raw forces of fear, social consequence, and the animal parts of the psyche that seem to devour fragile hopes; the den is the enclosed arena of crisis where the ego believes it faces annihilation. The stone and the king's seal represent the appearance of finality: the world's way of making things seem irreversible. Yet the angel and the unhurt Daniel point to the creative faculty that operates beneath apparent finality, the constructive imagination that quiets instinctive hostility. The king's public proclamation afterward decodes as the transformed testimony of a field once dominated by fear but now shaped by acknowledged presence; what was privately imagined has altered the shared scene and become communal law.

Practical Application

Begin by noticing the fixed decrees in your life — the assumptions about who you are and what is possible — and give them names quietly so they lose their unexamined authority. Then choose one living state you wish to inhabit and commit to returning to it at set moments each day, not as a sleepy wish but as an active, sensory rehearsal: imagine the scene from the inside, feel its emotional tone, speak or think the posture of one who already lives from that center. If outside events oppose your repetition, imagine them as the chorus of governors and see yourself continuing the private practice despite their clamor. When fear arises like a den of lions, move into the experience with the calm confidence of someone who has rehearsed rescue. Keep the windows of attention open toward the reality you claim, allow the images to be vivid and sensory, and refuse to argue with appearances. Over time you will notice a shift in the outer field: sleepless anxieties in others, barriers that once felt sealed, and the narrative around you will begin to change in ways that reflect the inner law you have established. Persistence, not argument, is the work; imagination, not negotiation, is the instrument that turns apparent peril into proof of the life you have assumed.

The Inner Drama of Unshakable Faith

Daniel 6 is best read as an inner drama of consciousness in which the faculties, laws, and states of mind play out their rivalry for dominion. The scene opens with a ruler who wishes to govern his realm by order and fixed statutes. This ruler is the conscious self, the egoic executive, who organizes attention, responsibility, and public face. He appoints a hundred and twenty officials and three presidents to administer his realm; these are the various functions of personality and intellect delegated to maintain the outer life. Daniel stands as the creative imagination, the sacred faculty within that consistently leans toward the inner center. He is preferred because an excellent spirit is in him; psychologically this means the imaginative consciousness is pure, constant, and ordered around a chosen vision. The ruler thinks to set this faculty over the whole realm because imagination is, in truth, the origin of external events when it is acknowledged and used.

But elements within the personality covet that authority. The presidents and princes are aspects of mind that live by competition, comparison, and self-preservation. Their motive is not truth but supremacy. Unable to find fault in outward behavior or competence, they soldier on to find a weakness: the inner practice by which Daniel sustains himself. They realize that the imaginative center, the one that communes with its source, will not be harmed by ordinary tests, so they design a trap that will bind the conscious ruler himself. That trap is a law, absolute in appearance, signed and sealed. This law represents fixed, externalized belief systems, social consensus, and rigid habits of thought that have the power to silence the inner creative voice if the self honors them above its own imagination.

The decree they propose is simple and cruel: for thirty days no petition shall be made to any god or man other than the ruler. Psychologically this translates into a mandate to direct all attention outward toward status, approval, and the demands of the visible world; it forbids communion with the inner source. When the ruler signs it, he unwittingly binds himself to his own outer system. This is the common human mistake of valuing public law over private inner law. The moment the conscious self confers absolute sanction to an outer decree, the inner life becomes vulnerable to the machinations of those jealous faculties.

Daniel, however, does not capitulate. His windows face Jerusalem, the symbolic heart of his being. Jerusalem stands for the ideal state, the center from which vision issues, the chosen end. Opening windows toward Jerusalem is the simple technique of directed attention: a deliberate orientation of thought toward the inner reality one chooses to inhabit. Kneeling three times a day is not mere ritual; it is the practice of entering the desired state repeatedly until it is established. The triple repetition covers waking, midday, and evening states, or more deeply, the waking mind, the reflective mind, and the dreaming or subconscious hours. Praying and giving thanks are two aspects of the same act of assumption: to act as if the desire is already fulfilled and to feel gratitude as if the outcome is a present fact.

The jealous faculties watch and report. They cannot find wrong in Daniel's conduct, so they weaponize law. Their accusation to the ruler is a projection of their own fear: they claim that Daniel disrespects the king because he honors a higher, unseen authority. That claim is the usual accusation leveled at any inner life that refuses to capitulate to social conformity. The ruler, bound by his own decree, is helpless despite his affection for Daniel. This stage of the drama shows how the conscious self, once it places trust in outer rules, loses the power to rescue its own inner child.

Daniel is cast into the lions' den. The den is the region of the subconscious, the reservoir of instinct, fear, and unresolved images. To be thrown there is to face the raw, animal aspects one has not integrated. The act appears violent and irreversible: a stone is rolled over the mouth and sealed with the ruler's signet so that no one can alter the decision. Sealing with a signet represents the ego's attempt to make final what is merely habitual. It fetishizes the outer form and assumes that no inner act can breach the tomb of apparent reality.

But the life that dwells within cannot be consumed by animal fear when it remains faithful to its own identity. Daniel's presence in the den is not a passive suffering; it is the unshaken assumption of an inner state despite hostile surroundings. The lions' mouths being shut are the most precise image of imagination controlling the senses and instincts. When the inner man dwells in the realized state, fear becomes mute. The power of imagination arrests the jaws of the lion; the senses, deprived of the authority to complain, fall silent. Daniel's innocence before the king and before the inner law means he has aligned himself with the source; his creative act is congruent with the end he assumes.

The ruler, who cannot sleep and who fasts through the night, is the aspect of consciousness which is torn by regret and anxiety when it abandons its inner authority. He rises at dawn and hastens to the den, calling with lamentation. This is the moment of recognition when the self remembers the creative faculty it cast down. The ruler expresses faith that the God whom Daniel serves is able to deliver him. In psychological terms, this is the ego's surrender to its own imaginative center. Daniel's answer, calm and dignified, reflects the realized consciousness speaking: affirmation, credit to the imagination's angelic activity, and the testimony that innocence was found in him. The angel who shuts the lions' mouths is not a being apart from the self; it is the active, protective quality of imagination that intervenes when one inhabits the inner scene.

When Daniel emerges unhurt, the drama of projection turns. The accusers are hurled into the same den and destroyed with their families. This reversal illustrates the law that discharges the energy of hatred back upon its origin. Jealousy, conspiracy, and the compulsion to punish are mental acts that create corresponding things in the field. Until the jealous faculties are redeemed, they will be the instruments of their own demise. The grim detail that their children and wives perish as well suggests that mental actions extend to all associated states; a false decree affects not only the instigators but the network of thought through which they live.

Finally, the ruler's proclamation to all nations that the God of Daniel is living and steadfast is the conversion of outer law into inner recognition. Once the imagination has prevailed, the self broadcasts its validated experience as a decree: peace is multiplied. This is the natural consequence of a restored center. The creative power operating within human consciousness does not merely save the one who assumes it; it transforms the ruling beliefs into a new order and establishes a dominion that will not be destroyed. Daniel prospers in the reign of Darius and Cyrus because the imaginative habit becomes integrated into the whole personality and later into broader conditions that respond to the inner law.

The practical teaching beneath this drama is precise. The decree that binds the ruler is any unexamined external law that forbids private communion with the desired state. The remedy is unwavering inner practice: open the window toward the true center, assume the fulfilled state with feeling, and persist through repetition. When imagination becomes dominant it acts like an angelic force that stills the senses, neutralizes fear, and rearranges circumstance to correspond to the inner scene. The lions' den is not to be avoided but entered with the consciousness that the inner presence makes all hostile images impotent.

In short, Daniel 6 dramatizes the triumph of inner fidelity over outer legality. It shows how jealousy in the mind will attempt to abolish imagination by appealing to the authority of rigid habit, how the ego may sign its own limitation, and how the imaginative self, when practiced and steadfast, will survive and transmute every den of fear into a theater of resurrection. The chapter teaches that imagination is both judge and savior: it judges the reality of things by assumption and saves by making that assumed state the dominant reality. The kingdom of outer form will always respond to the kingdom within, and the man who will not be intimidated by the law of men, who prays and gives thanks in the privacy of his inner chamber, will find that lions can do him no harm.

Common Questions About Daniel 6

What manifestation principle can be learned from Daniel 6?

Daniel 6 teaches the principle that the inner state precedes and determines outer events: hold and live in the assumption that what you desire is already true, and the world will align; legal or visible opposition cannot overturn the law of consciousness. The lesson is practical rather than mystical: persist in the feeling of the wish fulfilled amid contrary evidence, keep your imaginal acts steady, and allow time for the outer to adjust. This story shows faith as a settled state of being that issues an invisible decree which works more powerfully than any human statute (Daniel 6).

Can I use Neville's law of assumption to replicate Daniel's faith?

Yes, you can employ Neville’s law of assumption to cultivate the same abiding faith Daniel displayed by deliberately assuming the mental state of the answered petition and refusing to be moved by outer appearances; imagine and feel the reality you seek as already fulfilled, rehearse that state daily, and act from it until it becomes natural. Neville instructs that faith is not belief about the future but living in the feeling of the end now; persist through doubt, trust the imaginative act, and let your inner conviction govern your words and deeds, as Daniel did despite the king’s decree (Daniel 6).

How does Neville Goddard interpret the story of Daniel in the lions' den?

Neville sees Daniel not primarily as a historical victim but as a living illustration of consciousness ruling circumstance, and he would say Daniel maintained an inward assumption of safety and communion with God despite outward decrees; that constant assumption, that excellent spirit, is what prospered him (Daniel 6). Neville teaches that prayer was Daniel’s sustained imaginal act — not pleading for escape but dwelling in the state of the fulfilled wish — and because he inhabited that inner state continuously, the outer world conformed, demonstrating that imagination and assumption are the creative forces behind apparent miracles.

What visualization or imagination practice would Neville suggest for Daniel 6?

Neville would suggest a brief, vivid scene enacted imaginally in the first person where Daniel perceives himself safe, walking away from the den or standing unharmed with the king’s praise, feeling gratitude and the reality of deliverance as present now; repeat this quietly at night and in moments of solitude until the feeling is fixed. Use sensory detail: the weight of clothing, the sound of freedom, the warmth of a released heart, and retire feeling the wish fulfilled. This controlled imaginal act, sustained until it becomes a state, aligns inner conviction with outer manifestation (Daniel 6).

How does Daniel exemplify 'feeling is the secret' according to Neville Goddard?

Daniel exemplifies 'feeling is the secret' by persistently embodying the feeling of God’s presence and deliverance rather than vacillating with fear; his threefold daily devotion represents repeated assumptive feeling, not mere ritual, and that inner state produced the outward rescue. Neville would point out that the secret is to feel the end accomplished and to live from that inner reality so completely that no external law can unsettle you. Daniel’s calm, consistent communion created an inner law that brought an angelic outcome, proving that the dominant feeling in consciousness shapes experience (Daniel 6).