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 nowadays, that’s not true prayer nor its purpose. Prayer in A 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 correct the mind before Prayer Song is all that remains. It’s the ticket home so understanding true prayer, and forgiveness, will probably be worth the time in retraining the mind.
Prayer is exchanging (sharing) a Song of Love and Creation or judgments of the ego predicated on what you require (trust) in the mind. There is absolutely no other way. In the Course, the mind (content) is split between God and the ego; and you are choosing all the time with a side as cause for effect.Forms (everything of this world) are miscreations reflecting the ego’s judgmental thought system. We’ve made it up (miscreated this world) and will give it up anytime by correcting the mind (forgiveness). True prayer requires this correction of the mind as God has nothing to do with forms.
What Prayer isn’t:
Since you are always deciding, everything you ask for once you pray is what counts. When you plead in prayer to possess God fix an application 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 everything you choose as substitutes for God’s Love and the ego will distort the objective of prayer through the use of them to help expand the illusion. course in miracles Therefore, prayer can’t 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 Father 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 Creator and Created. Continuously sharing Love and Creation backwards and forwards 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 method that you reach God in the illusion. Anyone who has ever remembered the littlest instant of this all-inclusive joy must begin questioning what he is choosing (praying for) and how exactly to change his mind so he is able to have that all the time.
True Prayer and Forgiveness:
True prayer is: (1) asking to get what is already there, The Song; and, (2) along the way, using forgiveness (correction of your brain) to stop the ego forms or what’s not necessarily there. Joining with Love in true prayer is requesting nothing (i.e., no illusion, forms or needs) and that means 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 continues on forever, and forgiveness is the illusory ladder in time that returns the mind to this endless exchange. Forgiveness disappears once the mind is completely corrected and remembers only The Song.
The big secret of true prayer and forgiveness is to focus on disregarding and giving up the things you think you need and need in the illusion, even the specifics, as this requests the mind to be returned to Truth (Love). You aren’t furthering the illusion. You’re agreeing with God that (a) you’re a mind; (b) this form world isn’t real; (c) you made a blunder; and, (d) it is possible to choose again.
Using correction of the mind (forgiveness) places those forms and needs on God’s altar, or in his hands, as idols which are only whatever you have chosen to become more important than God’s Love. No longer wanting anything before His Love, the only real effect God could return is your remembrance of Him. The more you quit, the more meaningless the planet becomes and the faster you sing His Song.
Prayer in the Illusion:
Since the mind still resides with God, the Course says you don’t need 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 make a decision on the spot, you’ll receive the correct “need” answer right then.A remedy is an echo of God’s Voice from the Song of Prayer. You’re not asking for 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 are met at the amount of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.