While just about everyone has been brought up to trust that prayer involves pleading to God to help, save, fix problems and bring us things nowadays, that’s not true prayer nor its purpose. Prayer in A TRAINING COURSE in Miracles (ACIM) is quite different and incredibly 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 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 the time in retraining the mind.
Prayer is exchanging (sharing) a Song of Love and Creation or judgments of the ego predicated on what you require (agree with) in your brain. 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 (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 your brain as God has nothing to do with forms.
un curso de milagros en espanol What Prayer isn’t:
Because you are always deciding, what you ask for once you pray is what counts. When 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 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 purpose of prayer through the use of them to further 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 daddy. God gave this gift of Want 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 back and forth extends them forever in eternity. That is prayer’s purpose.
In this form world of illusion, this prayer is still something special from God offered through the Holy Spirit, the memory of God in your brain. It’s the way you reach God in the illusion. Anyone who has ever remembered the littlest instant of the all-inclusive joy must begin questioning what he could be choosing (praying for) and how to change his mind so he can have that all the time.
True Prayer and Forgiveness:
True prayer is: (1) asking to receive what’s already there, The Song; and, (2) along the way, using forgiveness (correction of your brain) to stop the ego forms or what is 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 section of true prayer and makes the procedure go quicker. Prayer is timeless and continues on forever, and forgiveness is the illusory ladder with time that returns your brain to the endless exchange. Forgiveness disappears once the mind is completely corrected and remembers only The Song.
The big secret of true prayer and forgiveness is to focus on disregarding and quitting the things you think you need and need in the illusion, even the specifics, as this asks for 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 isn’t 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 nothing more than anything 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 quit, the more meaningless the planet 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 wait for the solution. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. If you must decide on the spot, you’ll receive 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 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 through the correction of the mind process. They’re met at the amount of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.