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 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 before Prayer Song is all that remains. It is 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 (trust) in your brain. There is absolutely no other way. In the Course, the mind (content) is split between God and the ego; and you also are choosing constantly with a side as cause for effect.Forms (all things of this 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 to do with forms.
What Prayer is Not:
Because you are always deciding, what you ask for when you pray is what matters. Once 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 which will remain hidden to the amount you select the illusion.
un curso de milagros en espanol 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 purpose of prayer through the use of 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 daddy to the Son and returned from the Son to the Father. God gave this gift of Love to His Son at Creation in order that it is a single voice shared by both the Creator and Created. Continuously sharing Love and Creation backwards and forwards 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 the method that 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 can have that all enough time.
True Prayer and Forgiveness:
True prayer is: (1) asking to get what’s already there, The Song; and, (2) along the way, using forgiveness (correction of the mind) 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) so you end up 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 goes 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 totally corrected and remembers only The Song.
The big secret of true prayer and forgiveness would be to focus on disregarding and giving up the things you think 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 are agreeing with God that (a) you are a mind; (b) this form world is not real; (c) you made a mistake; 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 become more important than God’s Love. No more 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:
Since the mind still resides with God, the Course says you don’t need to decide alone and should ask the Holy Spirit for help deciding and wait for the solution. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. If you must decide on the spot, you’ll get the appropriate “need” answer right then.A remedy can be an echo of God’s Voice from the Song of Prayer. You are 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 through the correction of the mind process. They are met at the level of the forgiveness ladder it is possible to understand and accept.