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 very beautiful. More than a song, it really 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 is the ticket home so understanding true prayer, and forgiveness, is worth enough time in retraining your brain.
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 absolutely no other way. In the Course, the mind (content) is split between God and the ego; and you are choosing constantly 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 will cease 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, everything you ask for once you pray is what matters. Once you plead in prayer to possess 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 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 nowadays, 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” 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 Father. God gave this gift of Want to His Son at Creation in order 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. course in miracles That is prayer’s purpose.
Within this form world of illusion, this prayer is still 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. Anyone who has ever remembered the littlest instant of this all-inclusive joy must begin questioning what he could be 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 the mind) to stop 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) which means you end up receiving everything (Love). One problem. One solution.
Forgiveness (correction of your brain) is a section of true prayer and makes the procedure go quicker. Prayer is timeless and goes on forever, and forgiveness may be the illusory ladder with time that returns the mind to the endless exchange. Forgiveness disappears when the mind is completely 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 requests your brain to be returned to Truth (Love). You aren’t furthering the illusion. You’re agreeing with God that (a) you’re a mind; (b) this form world isn’t 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 anything you have chosen to become more important than God’s Love. No longer wanting anything before His Love, the only effect God could return can be 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 really should ask the Holy Spirit for help deciding and wait for the answer. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. In the event that you must decide on the spot, you’ll receive the appropriate “need” answer right then.A remedy is an echo of God’s Voice from the Song of Prayer. You are 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 the mind process. They’re met at the amount of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.