While most of us have been brought up to believe that prayer involves pleading to God to help, save, fix problems and bring us things in this world, that is not true prayer nor its purpose. Prayer in A TRAINING COURSE in Miracles (ACIM) is quite different and very beautiful. Greater than a song, it really is joyous exchange of Love and thanks between God and His Creations that employs the forgiveness process to improve the mind until the Prayer Song is all that remains. It’s the ticket home so understanding true prayer, and forgiveness, will probably be worth enough time in retraining your brain.
Prayer is exchanging (sharing) a Song of Love and Creation or judgments of the ego based on what you ask for (trust) in your brain. There is no other way. In the Course, the mind (content) is split between God and the ego; and you are choosing on a regular basis with a side as cause for effect.Forms (all things of the world) are miscreations reflecting the ego’s judgmental thought system. We’ve managed to get up (miscreated this world) and will cease anytime by correcting the mind (forgiveness). True prayer requires this correction of your brain as God has nothing to do with forms.
What Prayer isn’t:
Since you are always deciding, what you ask for once you pray is what matters. When you plead in prayer to possess God fix a form problem with another form problem, you’re asking the ego mind for help (not God). Those forms and needs are deemed more important than God’s Love that will remain hidden to the amount you select 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 what you choose as substitutes for God’s Love and the ego will distort the purpose of prayer by using them to further the illusion. Therefore, prayer cannot be about “forms” or “needs” in any way.
The objective 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 Want to His Son at Creation in order that it is a single voice shared by both the Creator and Created. Continuously sharing Love and Creation backwards and forwards extends them forever in eternity. That’s 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 how 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’s already there, The Song; and, (2) along the way, using forgiveness (correction of the mind) to stop the ego forms or what’s not really there. un curso de milagros Joining with Love in true prayer is requesting nothing (i.e., no illusion, forms or needs) which means you find yourself receiving everything (Love). One problem. One solution.
Forgiveness (correction of your brain) is a part of true prayer and makes the process go quicker. Prayer is timeless and continues on forever, and forgiveness may be the illusory ladder in time that returns the mind to this endless exchange. Forgiveness disappears when the mind is completely corrected and remembers only The Song.
The big secret of true prayer and forgiveness is to focus on disregarding and quitting 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 are not furthering the illusion. You are agreeing with God that (a) you are a mind; (b) this form world is not real; (c) you made a mistake; and, (d) it is possible to 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 nothing more than anything you have chosen to be more important than God’s Love. No more wanting anything before His Love, the only real effect God could return can be 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 await the answer. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. In the event that you must decide on the spot, you’ll receive the correct “need” answer right then.A remedy can be an echo of God’s Voice from the Song of Prayer. You are not requesting the echo itself. You are choosing the gift of Love from The Song by giving up all form needs. “Need” answers in the illusion are contained within that echo even through the correction of your brain process. They’re met at the level of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.
