1960 HOLLAND OPEN CLASS

TAPE 341 SIDE 1

UNDERSTANDING GOD AND PRAYER

By Joel Goldsmith

Part 5 of 6

There is only one Selfhood, and what I do unto another I am doing unto myself. And when I learn to forgive, be assured, I have learned how to be forgiven. When I have learned how to be philanthropic, I have learned how to receive philanthropy, not charity, love. When I have learned to give love, I have learned how to receive love. When I have learned to give abundance, I have learned how to receive abundance. Why? Because I am only giving it unto myself, which you are, and which I am.

Once you learn that there is only one God, and that God is closer to you than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet, you will know that that’s the God that is closer to me than breathing, nearer than hands and feet. And therefore, there is only one God in you and in me, it is your Self as it is my Self, for we are One in spiritual Sonship. We are One in divine Being.

Any prayer that is aimed at directing God’s goodness to someone someplace, sometime, is a waste of time. It is a waste of time! God cannot be influenced by man. Just think of the prayers that are uttered by the billions every day in attempt to get God to do something for somebody, as if God were not infinite Intelligence; as if the Master had never taught, “Your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things;” as if the Master had never taught, “It is God’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” Yet we go on telling God, begging, pleading, sacrificing, trying to get God, trying to influence God, trying to move God, instead of learning this.

We have to yield ourselves to God; not my will be done, Thy Will.. We have to let go of what we think is good for us or our neighbor, and trust to the fact that the God that we behold out here in the sun, the moon, the stars, and the times and the tides, and the crops; this God that knows all this surely knows more than we do. And any attempt to teach God, tell God, influence God must be throwing dust in the face of God. Actually it’s an insult. But since God isn’t easily insulted, the insult comes back to us, for it is an insult to our own intelligence to believe that we are so superior to God’s Wisdom and God’s Love that we can tell God, direct Him.

You see, this isn’t the first time in the history of the world that a civilization stood on the brink. It has happened many times before, and each time before, the civilization was wiped out. Each time before that civilizations have been threatened, civilizations have been wiped out. Not one has ever come to a place in history, such as we are in today, and been saved. Everyone has gone down to utter destruction. Out of each one there has come a remnant. And that remnant has been the start of a new civilization, and in each time an improved one but up to a certain point, and then destruction.

End Part 5