While most of us have been brought up to trust 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. More than a song, it is joyous exchange of Love and thanks between God and His Creations that employs the forgiveness process to correct the mind until the Prayer Song is all that remains. It’s the ticket home so understanding true prayer, and forgiveness, is 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 (agree with) 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 at all times with a side as cause for effect.Forms (everything of this world) are miscreations reflecting the ego’s judgmental thought system. We’ve managed to get up (miscreated this world) and can 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 is Not:
Since you are always deciding, what you ask for when you pray is what matters. When you plead in prayer to possess God fix a form problem with another form problem, you are asking the ego mind for help (not God). Those forms and needs are deemed more important than God’s Love that may 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 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 can’t 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 Father to the Son and returned from the Son to the Father. God gave this gift of Want 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 is still 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 tiniest instant of this 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 is already there, The Song; and, (2) on the way, using forgiveness (correction of your brain) to stop the ego forms or what is not really there. 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 the mind) 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 your brain to the endless exchange. Forgiveness disappears once the mind is completely 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 requests the mind to be returned to Truth (Love). You are not furthering the illusion. You’re 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 nothing more than anything you have chosen to be more important than God’s Love. course in miracles No longer wanting anything before His Love, the only effect God could return can be your remembrance of Him. The more you quit, the more meaningless the world 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 solution. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. In the event that you must make a decision on the spot, you’ll receive the appropriate “need” answer right then.An answer can be 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 giving up all form needs. “Need” answers in the illusion are contained within that echo even during the correction of the mind process. They’re met at the level of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.
