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’s not true prayer nor its purpose. Prayer in A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is quite different and incredibly 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 until the Prayer Song is all that remains. It is 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 predicated 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 continuously with a side as cause for effect.Forms (all things of this world) are miscreations reflecting the ego’s judgmental thought system. We’ve managed to get up (miscreated this world) and may cease anytime by correcting the mind (forgiveness). True prayer requires this correction of the mind as God has nothing in connection with forms.
a course in miracles online What Prayer is Not:
Because you are always deciding, what you ask for once you pray is what counts. Once you plead in prayer to have 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 which 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. Therefore, prayer can’t be about “forms” or “needs” at all.
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 Love to His Son at Creation so 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 a gift from God offered through the Holy Spirit, the memory of God in your brain. It’s how you reach God in the illusion. Whoever 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 receive what’s already there, The Song; and, (2) on 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) which means you end up 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 is the illusory ladder with time that returns your brain 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 would be to concentrate on disregarding and quitting the things you imagine you want 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 blunder; 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 become more important than God’s Love. No longer wanting anything before His Love, the only real 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:
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 solution. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. If you must make a decision on the spot, you’ll get the correct “need” answer right then.An answer 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 during the correction of your brain process. They’re met at the amount of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.
