Now then, there is no way to contact God, except through prayer. There is no way to understand prayer, except through first knowing the nature of God.

Now, there is a reason for this. How would we come to any understanding of either God or prayer unless our motive were pure? How could we ever come, think for a minute. Let’s forget religion. Let’s forget church. Let’s forget your teaching, or my teaching, or Christian Science teaching, or Catholic teaching. Let’s forget all that for a minute. Let’s just think now about the word, “God.” That’s all, just God. If you like, let us go back in history to where there wasn’t a man or a woman on the face of the Earth. And think of God. Think of this round globe that we call the Earth, first of all. And see if it would make any difference to God, which side of the round Earth were up, or down, or sideways. See if actually heaven could be upstairs and hell downstairs, and you’ll understand that in this rotation of the Earth, you’d have hell upstairs and heaven downstairs at some time or other.

Now, as you observe this universe, notice that the waters are all in their beds. And the mountains are here; the trees are here; the fish are in the sea; the birds are in the air. Around this universe, there are universes of stars and planets. Now just think of what the nature of God must be that it is all inclusive and that it circles this entire globe and all these other universes and maintains them in a rhythm. Maintains them in a rhythm, so that the waters are always flowing here and there, and the skies are always over our head; the birds are here and the fish are here; and everything is in its rightful place. And tell me now, does it make any difference to God what religion the fish are. Or which church they go into? Or what river they are flowing up or down? No.

Now man comes on earth and woman. Can it make any difference whether the Garden of Eden is in the East, or the Middle East, or in the West? Can it make any difference to God whether it’s male or female? Can it make any difference to God whether it’s two-footed man or four-footed man? No, now you commence to see what the nature of God is. God is Love. God is Life. And God is Law, and God is Action. And you can see God flowing in this universe. You can see God flowing all through the stars and the planets. You can see and feel God. You can feel God rustling through the trees. You can feel God in the breeze. You can feel God in the sunset, in a sunrise. And you know right well that God has no religion, and you know God has no race, and God has no climb. God just is an eternal state of harmonious Being, a Law governing this universe, knowing no such thing as differences.

Now, as you commence to perceive God in all growing things, you’ll know the livingness of God, the life of God, the soul of God. As you begin to perceive the beauty of this universe, you’ll see how God shines Itself forth in infinite form and variety, and you’ll know then that God is no respecter of persons. God has no awareness of persons. God merely flows into expression. The invisible flows into visibility. The Word becomes flesh. Remember that, God flows from the invisible to the visible. Why you can see that in your own experience of parenthood, how in one second there is nothing, and in the next second somewhere in your body, there’s a seed, and a few months later, it’s a child. The invisible first becomes visible as a tiny seed, and the tiny seed becomes visible as a baby, and ultimately that becomes visible as our adulthood. But it was the invisible flowing into visibility. Even before there was a visible seed, there had to be an invisible action called “Love.” Love is behind it all, whether it is the creation of human children, or birds, or fish. It’s Love. Love is the animating principle.

Now, does a bird know anything about Love? Not any more than a human being does, and a human being knows nothing. God alone is Love. And it is the Love of God that causes mating, not love of man or woman, not the love of a male bird and a female bird, not the love of a male fish and a female fish. There is no such thing as that kind of love. All Love is of God.

Now, the only reason that humans have gummed up the situation is that they have taken a love unto themselves and made a cheap passion of it, a pastime of it, a pleasure. And out of that has come the fruits of evil humanhood. Instead of being passive, and not going out and trying to mate, but waiting for the instinct to come through one and draw one’s own. You’d be surprised that after you’ve seen the spiritual vision, you’ll know there’s a wonderful truth. There’s only one man made for one woman. In all the world, there’s no such thing as two women for one man or two men for one woman. There is no such thing in all the world. The minute you see back into the spiritual picture, you’ll know that from the beginning of time, there has been one man and one woman created in the image and likeness of God in their own being. If the world had enough ability not to want to marry for a home, or for an income, or for security, or for a family, but would give up all desire to marry until that thing came through, each would find that one. And very much like that happens in the bird world and some parts of the animal world where there is no such thing as promiscuity.

Now, the reason for it is this. It has nothing to do with you or me. It has nothing to do with men or women because, of this you may be assured, and this has come to me in a revelation. Not through thinking, not through reasoning, nor through teaching, and it’s all in that book, Love and Gratitude. It is an impossibility for you or me to love. Love is God. God is Love. And God is the Love that permeates our being, just as you watch dogs playing together, cats playing together, birds singing together, and you’ll say, “why they don’t have the capacity for that.” They don’t know anything about singing. They don’t know anything about playing. They don’t know anything about loving. Certainly not. It’s the force of God Itself operating in them, just as It operates to form coral in the sea, just as It operates to form the caves in the sea. Love, God is doing all that.

Now, the moment you catch that glimpse of God, you commence to know how to pray. Why? Because now you can see that you can’t get that God to do anything for you, for your friends, or for your relatives. And you can’t get that God to stop doing things for your enemies. That kind of a God cannot be influenced by man. Now, the minute you realize that you can’t even influence God, your idea of prayer changes. Now you don’t ask for things. Now you don’t demand things. Now you don’t say, turn to God, as if you were expecting things. Now you have a whole new concept of God. You see God now as the life flowing through bird, through plants, through trees, through the ocean. You can go and sit by the ocean and just watch the vibration, the atmosphere of God as it permeates the water. Now then, you can do that on a mountaintop too. You can just feel the sacredness of that experience.

Well, who now would pray to that God to do something for their friends or relatives? You see that? That’s the meaning of the passage in Scripture. It profiteth you nothing to turn to that God and ask it to do things for your friends and relatives. But the minute you understand that God, you can see that all mankind, human, animal, vegetable, mineral is included in that Godhead and is the fruitage of the flow of God. Now you are praying for your friends, as well as your enemies. Now you can pray for those of your own household, because now you can sit back and ponder this idea of God, realize, and what do you find?

Why you just see life flowing through a coconut tree and appearing as coconuts. And you see some more life flowing through the papaya tree and appearing as papaya. And then you see it through your rose garden, and it appears as roses. And you look out into the ocean, and you’re not only aware of the activity of the sea, but you’re also aware of the billions of fish down there and the food that has been provided for those fish. Just think of it. At the bottom of the sea, there are not only fish. God has not only planted fish there but planted food for the fish, and nesting places for the fish, or resting places for the fish.

And so in the air. God has not only given us air but birds to fly through the air. And as you travel this world, especially as you travel by automobile, and come upon places such as I have seen. Well, outside of Victoria, B.C. is one. A great big bird sanctuary where the birds all roost coming down from Alaska. That’s a stopping place for the birds coming down from the north, right outside of Victoria, B.C., and they are there in, oh, I was going to say millions, but that may be an exaggeration. Thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of birds in this sanctuary all knowing that they should go to Victoria, B.C. Well that Victoria is a very beautiful city, and probably they want to see it too.

But the point is that God has provided sanctuaries all over. You say, no, man provided them. Don’t you ever believe it. It is the Love of God in man that makes him provide a sanctuary for a bird. Man, when he provides a sanctuary for a bird, is praying. He’s fulfilling God’s mission to those birds. He’s an instrument used by God to provide them with their resting places.