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 very 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 improve the mind until the Prayer Song is all that remains. It is the ticket home so understanding true prayer, and forgiveness, is worth enough time in retraining the mind.
Prayer is exchanging (sharing) a Song of Love and Creation or judgments of the ego based on what you require (agree with) 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 this world) are miscreations reflecting the ego’s judgmental thought system. We’ve managed to get 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 isn’t:
Because you are always deciding, everything you ask for once you pray is what counts. When 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 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 by using them to help expand the illusion. Therefore, prayer can’t be about “forms” or “needs” in any way.
un curso de milagros 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 in order 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 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 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 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 the mind) to give up 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) and that 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 goes on forever, and forgiveness is 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 imagine 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 are 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 the mind (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 more wanting anything before His Love, the only effect God could return is 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 have 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. In the event that you must make a decision on the spot, you’ll receive the correct “need” answer right then.A remedy can be 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 giving up all form needs. “Need” answers in the illusion are contained within that echo even during the correction of your brain process. They are met at the level of the forgiveness ladder it is possible to understand and accept.