1960 HOLLAND OPEN CLASS

TAPE 341 SIDE 1

UNDERSTANDING GOD AND PRAYER

By Joel Goldsmith

Part 3 of 6

I am sure that for awhile it shocked many people in the United States to find that one of the great scientific discoverers, a man who has added a great deal to knowledge of scientific facts in the States, is a Negro, born of parents in slavery. I am sure that it must shock a lot of people to learn that some of our great discoveries, some of our great works in the world have come from, not your religion or mine, or not your belief or mine, or not your race or mine. And must not this open us to the realization that God’s Wisdom is available to those who open themselves to receive it? The fish are in the sea in every part of the world, close to the bad people and the good ones, and the black ones, and the white ones. Fish are in the sea and birds are in the air. God is no respecter of persons. Let any individual open their consciousness to receive the Grace of God, and they will receive it and not because God is choosing them particularly, but because God is as universal as sunshine and anyone may have the warmth and the light of the sun who will open themselves to it.

First of all, we must understand God, and we must understand God not as the pagans did, as an individual holding out the things that we need and forcing us to our knees to make us pray for it or sacrifice for it, we must understand God as love but as universal love. We must understand God as “That which is closer to us than breathing, nearer than hands and feet”, regardless of who we may be. We must understand God to be the Light and the Life of all being; the Wisdom. Then when we have found within ourselves an acceptance of God as Universal Being, as Universal Life, as Universal Love, as the Life of the human world or the animal world or vegetable world or mineral world, Universal Life, when we have acknowledged a God of that nature and the God closer to us than breathing; a God that enables us to say, “The place whereon I stand is Holy Ground;” a God that enables us to say, “Whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit; if I mount up to heaven, Thou art there, if I make my bed in hell, Thou art there, if I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Thou art there; whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit and Thy rain falls on the just and the unjust;” once we have opened ourselves to that God, do you know that we are halfway home in our search for harmony, safety, security, peace, abundance? Not by desiring any of these things, merely by coming into an awareness of the God that really is. That is why Scripture says, “To know Him aright is life eternal”. The world ought to know by now that they do not know Him aright because they have not found life eternal. They are having a hard time stretching it out to three score years and ten with this bomb hanging over our heads.

Now it is true that to know Him aright is life eternal. It is true that from the very moment we begin to understand God as the Life of our being, the Life of all being, we are beginning to understand God aright. The very moment that we acknowledge that God has placed cattle on a thousand hills, and crops in all the soil, and fish in all the sea, and birds in all the air, that God has done this not for you or me, and not for Jews, and not for Gentiles, and not for Orientals but for God’s own Grace for His children, the moment that we have acknowledged that God has done all of this for His children, not for a personal you or me, from that moment on we are getting closer to the Throne of God. Because we now can learn the meaning of praise and thanksgiving which is one of the highest forms of prayer.

You cannot praise God or fight God for anything that you receive..  And those who are praising God and thanking God for something they have received, are praying amiss because God did not send it to you, God sent it to earth for all of us, no matter who we may be.  And the very moment that you begin to change your prayer, your praise and your gratitude, the very moment that you begin to change the form of saying grace at your table; if you do it; and instead of thanking God for what is on your table, as if God had anything to do with it, and begin to thank Him aright. Thank Him because He grew the crops, thank Him because He grew the cattle and the fish, thank Him because He made all of this universe possible for us. Then when you are thanking Him for His Grace on earth, and realize that it is here for all of us. He does not deliver it to your table or to mine; He has placed it here on earth. And He has also said, “Son, all that I have is thine”.

Now just think. The minute we give up the idea of personalizing God, the minute we give up the idea of personalizing our sense of prayers and gratitude, and begin to be grateful with every meal we eat, be grateful that there are vegetables and fruits in all the lands on earth for all the people. Be grateful that there are fish in every sea and birds in all the air. Be grateful that the sun and the moon and the stars are governed by God, the incoming and the outgoing of the tides governed by God. Be grateful that man does not have something to do with it or it would be in a mess. Be grateful that the Laws of God are under God’s jurisdiction!  Roses come from rose bushes, peaches come from peach trees, apples come from apple trees. Why? Because man cannot interfere with that, that is the province of God.. He has not done it for you or for me.  He has not even made tulips for Holland, they’re for all the world. You just appreciate them more and that’s why you have more of them!

So it is, anything that we really appreciate unselfishly, we can have an abundance of, it is when we begin to love it selfishly that we find we’re choking off our supply. Just be assured of that, that you can watch it in your gardens, the minute you start growing things for you, you have put limitation on it. And when you plant your gardens with the realization that anybody and everybody can come along and enjoy their beauty and their fragrance and their color, in that moment, you are starting to demonstrate abundance, abundance, infinite abundance! Personalize it, and it begins to dry up.

End Part 3