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. un curso de milagros en espanol 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’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 based on what you ask for (trust) in the mind. There is no other way. In the Course, your brain (content) is split between God and the ego; and you are choosing continuously 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 the mind as God has nothing in connection with forms.
What Prayer is Not:
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). 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 in this world, etc. They are what 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. Therefore, prayer cannot be about “forms” or “needs” at all.
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 daddy. 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 backwards and forwards extends them forever in eternity. That is prayer’s purpose.
Within this form world of illusion, this prayer continues to be a gift 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 tiniest instant of the all-inclusive joy must begin questioning what he is choosing (praying for) and how exactly to change his mind so he can 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 really there. Joining with Love in true prayer is asking for 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 section of true prayer and makes the process go quicker. Prayer is timeless and continues on forever, and forgiveness is 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 is to concentrate on disregarding and quitting the things you think you want and need in the illusion, even the specifics, as this requests your brain 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 blunder; 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 only whatever you have chosen to be 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 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. If you must decide on the spot, you’ll get the correct “need” answer right then.A remedy is 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 the mind process. They are met at the amount of the forgiveness ladder it is possible to understand and accept.