True Prayer is meant to elicit experience and transformation in ones mind and heart through communication between Created and Creator. True prayer is a quiet time of listening and loving. True prayer is not for you alone. It comes from the selfless recognition that we are all Gods Creations/Children and all wholly worthy of receiving answers to our prayers. It is not an individual asking, but a universal remembering.
In fear & pain, we are blinded by what we think we want and need. We pray for the little things and the big things but in the back of our minds think we might not be answered. All this really is, is an inability (as of yet) to recognize the true need in the situation. Without knowing the true need and what we are asking for, we will not recognize the answer when it comes.
There is one true prayer and that is always for forgiveness.
In praying for forgiveness it is a simultaneous forgiveness of your mistakes along with the other(s).
In fact, its mostly about you and for you. It heals you, so you are not longer effected by lacks of forgiveness.
Forgiveness plucks the peg and anger out of our own eye, so that we can look with forgiving eyes onto others.
Forgiveness never excuses or condones mistakes or actions, but it does correct them on an internal causation level that effects change in form.
We want to forgive, because we want peace.
Since we want peace, we will dedicate ourselves to learning how to Pray Truly.
True forgiveness is the answer to true prayer, and true prayers are ALWAYS answered.
Prayer is not an asking for the things you think you need in the world.
It is a way of remembering our shared identity, it is a way of welcoming healing for everyone involved.
This experience is called in A Course in Miracles the “Holy Instant”; for it is a recognition of our shared holiness that lifts all pain, removes all seeming sins, and shows the innocence of the Soul, in a single instant. We are transformed from feeling alone, abused, in need and afraid; to that of being Holy, powerful, united, and beaming with love and gratitude.
The Holy Instant is learning how to include ALL our brothers in our prayer.
Our holiness cannot be seen as partial or to the exclusion of another for it is SHARED.
We will be taught HOW to pray and be shown forgiveness along with our Holiness, when we leave it all to the Holy Spirit.
Since the Holy Spirit is our internal guide, given us by God to remember Him, to remember our function and to remember our Holiness, there is no way we can fail to remember or receive. It is Holy Spirit’s ONLY function to give us this gift of forgiveness and remembrance, the instant that we ask ONLY for it.
This is why we must question within ourselves:
“What am I asking/praying for?”
Is it for the things of the world, contradicting wants, individual goals?
Or am I asking for what God would have me have? [peace and freedom!]
What we are asking/praying for, is what will determine what and if we seem to receive.
We will climb up this ladder of prayer and receiving, the more we realize that TRUE prayer is an asking not for things, but an asking to give, to love and to see AS God does.
We will be taught how to SEE when we are willing to move beyond all stories and concepts we made of what is happening or what happened to us. This new and holy and forgiven vision will show to us that we share one mind and one purpose with all our brothers and with God and the “bad” we thought had happened, was happening to bring us closer to the “good and eternal”. This change of mind and purpose is what heals and allows transformation of all things of form to shift, evolve, change and enables multitudes of blessings to come to us.
God only gives to all of His Sons, equally. No one is ever excluded, no matter how much we think they are to be condemned, or judged or how mean or cruel they appear to have been; And nothing is any more difficult or hard to heal or change than another. As it says in miracle principle 1 of A Course in Miracles: “There is no order of difficulty among miracles. One is not harder or bigger than another. All expressions of love are maximal.” Through prayer we are joining with the power that is ALL mighty, ALL powerful and for ALL. There is nothing this power cannot do, and therefore there is nothing our love and prayer cannot do united with IT.
This law of God: Give (the love/forgiveness/charity) you want to receive. It frees us from EVERY law of the world. Including lack, suffering, sickness and death. For we are no longer thinking of or for ourselves alone, instead, we are thinking how GOD thinks. The law of God and true prayer are united eternally.
We cannot Know nor live in thy Kingdom of Heaven here (where everything is perfect and everything is given and every prayer is answered) with out going first through forgiveness that illuminates us to our brothers and then unto God. We must return all brothers to the wholeness and sinlessness in our minds, in order to know how God sees and how God loves. This is what true prayer is for.
More questions to ask ourselves when it comes to prayer:
“Am I leaving any one out of my praying?”
“Is some one less deserving or more deserving in my mind?”
“Am I withholding forgiveness from another or my self?”
Leave one brother out, see one brother as less than or one brother as greater than you and you have FORGOTTEN the truth about all of us.
This will keep you bound to the world and at a distance from our true freedom and release.
Leave no one out!
If you have found that you have left some one out, then prayer is needed to return the mind to unity and to see that my brothers need is my own.
Pray for the other AND yourself and you will indeed receive limitlessly.
All ELSE will be added unto you when you say YES to what God has given you and seek ONLY what He wills for us all.
God does NOT Will suffering in any degree, but when we leave a brother out of our minds and our love, we WILL suffer, for we are harboring a will separate from Gods.
There is nothing to fear here. Only love to gain and limitless peace to experience when we include our brothers, love our brothers, love our “enemy’s, and know we are ALL equally worthy of what God has given us all.
If you feel the call to want or need something, ask first how you can GIVE something, and you will start to see and experience miracles unfold before you.
Holy Spirit is the giver of miracles. Ask of HIM all things and you will receive all things.
We are Gods beloved Children with whom he is well pleased.
Nothing is kept from you, everything is given you; ask for what is rightfully yours in TRUTH and so it is given YOU.
Prayer is the re-statement of INCLUSION, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God.
~ACIM T6.2
“Prayer is the medium of miracles, but the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven HAVE everything. Once forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly meaningless. Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to RECOGNIZE something we already have.”
~ACIM T3.6
“You do not ask too much of life, but far too little. When you let
your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to
eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for
happiness.”
~ACIM Lesson 133