As far as I can tell, God is not a personality. There is nobody there who is thinking about whether to favor you or not in the football game or the war. There is nobody there who is busy creating humans so they can praise him; there is nobody there who cares about any praise. There is no personality there.
This is a hard one. There is nobody listening when we're praying. Because that would imply a duality—you and God—that doesn't exist. There is no separation whatsoever between you and God, so there is nobody to pray to except yourself.
As Byron Katie says, are you listening to your prayer? Have you yourself really heard it? If so, then God has heard it.
As far as I can tell, God is not an entity somewhere who wants something. There is no need for the world to evolve in order for it to be perfect and lovable. It already is perfect and lovable. When you see it that way, then God has seen it.
As far as I can tell, oneness is not trying to get somewhere. It already pervades everything, is everything. Where could it possibly get to? It's already everywhere. What could it possibly achieve? it's already everything.
And nothing, of course. It's like the emptiness in the room, always there and everywhere but usually not noticed. It's not going anywhere, has nothing to achieve.
Nevertheless, our attempts to pray to God, to make affirmations about God and so on can be extremely valuable. Because they change or influence, not God, but us. And we are that.
In order to pray to God, we have to change. We have to be humble enough to pray to God; it makes us humble. In order to pray to God, we have to become receptive to some extent; we become more receptive.
We become more humble, receptive, available, open when we pray. And that is what brings about the change we seek. It is we ourselves changing as we pray that brings about "results," when results manifest themselves.
Similarly, many approaches to success in life use affirmations to affirm that the universe is bringing success to us. It does, but through we ourselves. In order to affirm certain things, such as God is "good," we ourselves must become open to the notion, and that very openness begins to bring about changes in our life.
Because as we change, the world changes. As James Allen said, "As you change, the world changes."
And that is God, "changing" through you and me.
When we affirm something or visualize something, we become more attuned to that vibration, and that change in vibration is what brings about whatever changes occur.
The change in vibration in ourselves as we pray or affirm or visualize becomes the catalyst for change. By the law of attraction, we begin attracting to us that new vibration, we become more magnetic to all things and beings in the world of that vibration—and changes begin happening.
So instead of saying that God is answering our prayer or our affirmation, we could say that we are answering it ourselves. Or we could say that God is answering the prayer of God itself.
So as you become more loving, that is "God" becoming more loving, through you, as you.
Since there is not the slightest separation between us and God, as our hearts open that is God's heart opening. As we become more conscious, that is the infinite becoming more conscious of itself, more aware of itself.
Everything that exists is a potential vehicle for the ungraspable to be aware of itself, to appreciate itself. When we begin to appreciate this world as it is, that is the ungraspable appreciating itself.
Knowing all that, we still do whatever we do. We might work on the environment, for instance, but from a place of love and lightness rather than a place of hostility or separation or complaining. Because we're aware of that other level, which is this level, where all is divine simply because it is the way it is. And so, at the very same time that we're working on the environment, say, we're also falling endlessly in love and gratitude.
—jim sloman, for 8/4/01
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