While most of us have been brought up to believe that prayer involves pleading to God to greatly help, save, fix problems and bring us things in this world, that’s not true prayer nor its purpose. Prayer in A TRAINING COURSE in Miracles (ACIM) is quite different and very beautiful. More than a song, it is joyous exchange of Love and thanks between God and His Creations that employs the forgiveness process to improve the mind before Prayer Song is all that remains. It is the ticket home so understanding true prayer, and forgiveness, is worth enough time in retraining your brain.
Prayer is exchanging (sharing) a Song of Love and Creation or judgments of the ego predicated on what you require (agree with) in the mind. There is no other way. In the Course, your brain (content) is split between God and the ego; and you also are choosing constantly with a side as cause for effect.Forms (everything of the world) are miscreations reflecting the ego’s judgmental thought system. We’ve made it up (miscreated this world) and can cease anytime by correcting your brain (forgiveness). True prayer requires this correction of your brain as God has nothing to do with forms.
What Prayer isn’t:
Because you are always deciding, what you ask for once you pray is what matters. When you plead in prayer to have God fix a form problem with another form problem, you are asking the ego mind for help (not God). un curso de milagros Those forms and needs are deemed more important than God’s Love which will remain hidden to the degree you choose the illusion.
All external things (forms) are needs. Other labels are wants, desires, status, problems, sickness, human love (special relationships), gifts and goals in this world, etc. They are everything you choose as substitutes for God’s Love and the ego will distort the objective of prayer through the use of them to further the illusion. Therefore, prayer cannot be about “forms” or “needs” in any way.
The Purpose of Prayer:
The Song of Prayer is defined by the Course as a Song of Creation, Love and gratitude being sung from the daddy to the Son and returned from the Son to the Father. God gave this gift of Love to His Son at Creation so that it’s a single voice shared by both the Creator and Created. Continuously sharing Love and Creation back and forth extends them forever in eternity. That is prayer’s purpose.
Within this form world of illusion, this prayer continues to be something special from God offered through the Holy Spirit, the memory of God in the mind. It’s the way you reach God in the illusion. Whoever has ever remembered the tiniest instant of this all-inclusive joy must begin questioning what he could be choosing (praying for) and how to change his mind so he is able to have that all the time.
True Prayer and Forgiveness:
True prayer is: (1) asking to receive what is already there, The Song; and, (2) along the way, using forgiveness (correction of the mind) to stop the ego forms or what is not really there. Joining with Love in true prayer is asking for nothing (i.e., no illusion, forms or needs) so you find yourself receiving everything (Love). One problem. One solution.
Forgiveness (correction of the mind) is a part of true prayer and makes the procedure go quicker. Prayer is timeless and goes on forever, and forgiveness may be the illusory ladder in time that returns the mind to the endless exchange. Forgiveness disappears when the mind is totally corrected and remembers only The Song.
The big secret of true prayer and forgiveness would be to concentrate on disregarding and giving up the things you imagine you want and need in the illusion, even the specifics, as this asks for the mind to be returned to Truth (Love). You aren’t furthering the illusion. You are agreeing with God that (a) you’re a mind; (b) this form world is not real; (c) you made a mistake; and, (d) you can choose again.
Using correction of your brain (forgiveness) places those forms and needs on God’s altar, or in his hands, as idols which are only whatever you have chosen to be more important than God’s Love. No more wanting anything before His Love, the only effect God could return is your remembrance of Him. The more you give up, the more meaningless the world becomes and the faster you sing His Song.
Prayer in the Illusion:
Because the mind still resides with God, the Course says you don’t have to decide alone and really should ask the Holy Spirit for help deciding and wait for the solution. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. In the event that you must decide on the spot, you’ll get the correct “need” answer right then.An answer is an echo of God’s Voice from the Song of Prayer. You are not asking for the echo itself. You are choosing the gift of Love from The Song giving up all form needs. “Need” answers in the illusion are contained within that echo even during the correction of the mind process. They are met at the level of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.