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 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, is worth the time in retraining your brain.
Prayer is exchanging (sharing) a Song of Love and Creation or judgments of the ego based on what you require (agree with) in your brain. un curso de milagros There is no other way. In the Course, your brain (content) is split between God and the ego; and you are choosing at all times 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 may give it up anytime by correcting your brain (forgiveness). True prayer requires this correction of the mind as God has nothing in connection with forms.
What Prayer is Not:
Since you are always deciding, everything you ask for once you pray is what counts. When you plead in prayer to have 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 degree 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 nowadays, etc. They are everything you choose as substitutes for God’s Love and the ego will distort the objective of prayer by using them to help expand the illusion. 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 back and forth 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 your brain. It’s the way you reach God in the illusion. Whoever has ever remembered the littlest instant of the all-inclusive joy must begin questioning what he is choosing (praying for) and how to change his mind so he is able to have that all enough time.
True Prayer and Forgiveness:
True prayer is: (1) asking to get what’s already there, The Song; and, (2) on the way, using forgiveness (correction of your brain) to give up the ego forms or what’s not necessarily 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 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 totally corrected and remembers only The Song.
The big secret of true prayer and forgiveness would be to concentrate on disregarding and quitting the things you imagine you need 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’re agreeing with God that (a) you are a mind; (b) this form world isn’t real; (c) you made a mistake; and, (d) you can 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 nothing more than 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 give up, the more meaningless the planet 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 need to decide alone and really should ask the Holy Spirit for help deciding and await the solution. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. If you must make a decision on the spot, you’ll receive the appropriate “need” answer right then.A remedy can be an echo of God’s Voice from the Song of Prayer. You’re not requesting the echo itself. You’re 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 during the correction of your brain process. They are met at the level of the forgiveness ladder it is possible to understand and accept.
