26.02.06
Prayer – Part II (Oct 24, 1997)
Posted in Transcripts at 3:14 pm by miracles 
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Notes from a talk given by Linda and James Hale Oct 24, 1997
Contents
The quotations from the Course are given in the second edition format. We have presented only the first few words of the relevant quotes and request that you look them up to read them in full as we do consider them very important.
Part II will focus on the specifics of what is entailed in our movement up the “ladder” of prayer. You will recall that the ladder is a symbol used by Jesus to express, in this context, the stages that a spiritual seeker seems to go through in order to reach the upper rung or end of prayer: remembrance of the changeless, eternal relationship between the Son or Christ and the Creator or God. Last week we explored the concept that prayer is both a means and an end. As each of us lets go of our belief in, and attachment to, egoic goals, our prayer or our asking is released to become an ever clearer or transparent reflection of the ultimate truth of union. When we finally let go of all idols and substitutes for the truth of love’s reality, that is all we experience. Communion once again becomes our state; means and end have joined; having and being are once again experienced as one. And with that experience we instantly go beyond experience, because Oneness is beyond the duality inherent in the experiential, perceptual realm. Our Father has taken the final step.
Another central symbol used to express that same idea is that of the song and its echo. The process of moving towards making a transparent and single call for the unity of love (the song) is actualised as we let go our investment in holding onto the echoes we think we need in order to be happy.
“You cannot, then, ask for the echo…” S-1.I.3.
Increasingly we seek only the Cause, with a trust and faith that the Cause will provide all effects we need while we continue to seemingly exist in a realm of perception and time. Increasingly, we cease the attempt of making the effect the seeming cause of our happiness e.g. “I will be happy if I get this job, if I find a perfect partner, if I lose 5 kg etc.”
Prayer is asking, and what we want most is inextricably bound up in what we think we need and thus think we are. The Course is here to teach us that we have only one need, and that need is satisfied only by remembering our Source. The word “only” is extremely important–while we think there is something other to seek, we are on the lower rungs of the ladder of prayer and seeking substitutes for Truth. We are still learning the central lesson that this world, in and of itself, cannot make us happy and complete. We are the Sons of God and even a “something” as vast as the universe is an unfathomable limitation on eternity, for it too shall pass away.
Engaging in the spiritual path we call A Course in Miracles is thus a process of sorting out what we truly want and need. It is a process of finding the rock upon which we can build our home while we live here. In our questioning of our imagined needs we gradually discover that our home is our very Self, the Self we are as God created us. We were deluded when we thought that we destroyed our place in our home, and as we realise this, we can return, like the prodigal son, to the place we never left, and embrace the Father who has always been there for us. That process of returning to the place we never left is symbolised by the ladder of prayer. The whole movement is one of giving up the myth of separation in whatever guise it may appear, to reveal the truth of unity abiding behind the illusion of fragmentation.
Jesus tells us that , whether we realise it or not, we are all praying all the time:
“And prayer is as continual as life…” S-1.II.2:4-6
The lowest form of prayer is one in which we merely want because of our sense of scarcity and lack. The Song of Prayer describes this as ‘asking out of need’ and it is the prayer each fragment of the Sonship is engaged in continuously. This must be so, because in fragmenting we have set up the condition of lack and need.
The central thought at this level is: we go separately to separate goals and we must compete for limited supply. In its most basic form the intensity of our wishing and willing is only for our own gain, and may indeed involve the overt destruction of others to obtain that goal. Belief in God, or a larger purpose, need not exist at this level. If God is appealed to , it will be a vengeful God, who will reap punishment upon someone.
“The earlier forms of prayer…” S-1.III.2:1-4
An example of this form of prayer is the desire to see someone killed for what they have done. This is the “eye for an eye” mentality in which we set ourselves up as judge and jury and presume to know God’s will is punishment of a most severe kind.
Even on the lowest rung, however, there are levels of learning because as the Song of Prayer tells us
“…in this world prayer is reparative, and so it must entail levels of learning.” S-1.II.3:1
More abstract and higher goals may be sought for–for example, honesty, goodness and forgiveness for one’s own sinful nature. At this level, the belief in good and evil is still seen as an inherent part of the world. The fundamental belief in sin has not yet been questioned, so that its corollary, guilt, is also sacrosanct. Guilt demands punishment so that fear becomes the very fabric of our existence here. The pain of guilt the son carries and the fear it invokes is intolerable and projection is the means he uses to alleviate it. In order to say that “someone else did it and deserves to be punished,” a specific world of enemies, victimisers and tyrants is needed. And where there are victimisers there must also be victims.
Praying that enemies get their just deserts need not assume as crude a form as praying consciously that ill fortune come to them. It can be, and usually is [particularly in our so-called "civilised" world] more subtle than that.
Asking for special favour is a way of setting myself apart from my brother and setting up my needs as more important that his. For example, in praying that I get the job, or the house, or his or her love, I am implicitly denying another the same. In thanking God that my child was not killed in the landslide, what am I implicitly saying about those unfortunate children who were? In holding on to the belief in separate interests I inevitably have a world view in which we must jostle with each other in order to gain. Someone must lose in order for another to win: Someone must die for another to live. Separation and a feeling of enmity are the very fabric of our existence here.
“Enemies do not share a goal….” S-1.IV.1:4-6
It can indeed be quite startling and disconcerting to see the ruthlessness of the world we have made and despair can seem to be an appropriate response. The genuine solution is not to try and improve this world, in and of itself, but to turn to the Teacher who can use all that we have made for another purpose, a purpose with which we can leave ruthlessness, malice and destruction behind forever. When we do this, our prayer takes on a different nature, and we are moving into the next major phase of prayer in our spiritual journey.
Before we can do this however we need to begin to realise a number of things. The most fundamental assumption which needs to be questioned is the belief holding onto enemies keeps us safe.
“To the guilty there seems indeed to be a real advantage in having enemies, and this imagined gain must go, if enemies are to be set free.” S-1.III.3:9
We are told that the merciful nature of the step may be followed…
“…by a deep retreat into fear.” S-1.III.4:2
All our interactions, relationships and perceptions of the world are based on the assumption “I will be saved from my guilt if I can make another guilty.” We can begin to question this once we can accept the Course’s assertion that:
“…real escape from guilt can lie only in the recognition that the guilt has gone.” S-1.III.4:5
Before we accept this, our prayers can only give us an illusion of escape.
“It is not easy to realize that prayers for things…” S-1.III.6:1-2
Forgiveness is the key in letting go the belief in sin and guilt, and this is why it is symbolised as a sister to prayer, quickening its ascent up the ladder.
Workbook lesson 192 expresses the importance of forgiveness this way:
“Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven …” W-pI.192.8.
Our motivation to practice forgiveness is fuelled once we begin to truly understand the as I see my brother I see myself. What I ask for, for another, I get, myself.
“Hell cannot be asked for another, and then escaped by him who asks for it.” S-1.III.2:5
Another realisation which needs to occur is that in asking for specific things, we limit what we can receive. The specific words we use define a specific object we think we want, which is supposed to give us the experience we think we need. Our prayer thus becomes like a prescription we give to the Holy Spirit or God, who is supposed to then supply a need. This way of approaching prayer is far removed from the wisdom which says that in our ignorance of what we truly are, we cannot know what we truly need. Lesson 24 of the Workbook, entitled “I do not perceive my own best interests” states:
“In no situation that arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy…” W-pI.24.1.
Letting go our perception of what our specific needs are is described in the Song of Prayer as no less than our gifts to God, and signify our willingness, however small, to let go our idols.
“Also in the same way, in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see them…” S-1.I.4:3-4
A major shift has occurred in the purpose of our prayer and the way has been opened for us to share our prayers with others.
We have seen that the “first” rungs of the ladder involve our belief in the maintenance of separate interests, in whatever form that seems to take. It is therefore no surprise that the next major transition is in letting go of these separate interests and engaging in shared interests. We can call this phase of our journey, in the context of our topic of prayer, as “praying with others.” Here we have, albeit momentarily at first, chosen not to see our brother as an enemy but truly as a brother.
This is reminiscent of the Manual for Teachers where we are told that a teacher of God is anyone who has:
“…made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else’s.” M-1.1:2
For it is in this, not seeing separate interests, that we have accepted that the need for an enemy has gone, for enemies could not share the same goal and remain enemies.
This stage or change of mind is epitomised by the thought:
“We go together, you and I.” S-1.IV.1:8
Once more we also need to remind ourselves of the “all or nothing” aspect of the Course. As it says of itself
“This course will be believed entirely or not at all…” T-22.II.7:4-5
Perhaps an understanding of this can clear up some of the misconceptions that may arise here. We are either fully aware or not. We are either fully in the ego’s thought system or not. Once we hold to any part of the ego’s system we have taken all of it. So it is also for the thought system of the Holy Spirit. However, in time this doesn’t appear to be the case. In time it seems as if we are gradually shifting our allegiance from one system to another and actually making meaningful gains and change. Even the Course, itself in the ego framework, seems to speak often in a process oriented way. This is because this is how we experience our journey. A slow, gradual change of mind. In truth we are not making slow changes of mind, we either are in one “camp” or the “other”. Perhaps the easiest way of understanding this is to think of this seemingly gradual process as spending less and less time in the ego’s camp. When we are “there” we are fully “there”, yet we are “there” less and less.
With this understanding it is now possible to answer the obvious clarification sought regarding whether a particular shared goal is an example of true joining. The answer must always be yes, but with the understanding that the sharing may be but momentary and that separate interests can, and will often, once more lay claim to those who had joined. Make no mistake, the ego will attempt with all its guile and ferocity to maintain its version of truth, a version that demands separate interests. Our task is only to be aware of this and recognise it when it happens.
In the Song of Prayer we are told that even after reaching this stage there are still many lessons to learn. For the ego is forever alert and ready to feign absence even when it is still drawing you into its web of illusion. In the beginning stages of joining with your brother this could be expressed as the sharing of a goal for something of this world, or as the Song of Prayer describes it:
“Even together you may ask for things…” S-1.IV.2:5-6
Here we are again suffering under the illusion, promoted quite energetically by the ego, that we can have a bit of both thought systems. It probably goes something like,
“Well I am truly joining with my brother, who is one with me, in seeking out this ‘thing’ that will make us happy/be of benefit/do good…etc.”
Yet what we are asking for, even if the request is jointly held, is still proof that we are in exile, that we are incomplete, that we believe in scarcity and vulnerability. This is the paradox that besets those of us who participate in “Save the XXXX against the YYYY”. Regardless of how ‘good and righteous’ the aims of XXXX may be, they are stating clearly and uneqivocally that there is a threat to peace, that God can be destroyed! Jesus reminds us that we cannot ask God to give us what He did not create, but we can ask the one who did. Thus in asking for the effects of separation, however disguised, we are paying homage to the belief in separation. The only true request we can make, even in joining, is to know God’s will for us, for it is only then that we can truly say we have given up separate interests by our willingness to know One will.
A further aspect of prayer that begins to have meaning at this level is that because true prayer is true communion, it can only happen now. Thus all requests for specifics of any kind are but another way of keeping us “chained” to the past. Prayer then, can be said to:
“…release the present from its chains of past illusions…” S-1.IV.3:5
Not only are specifics locked in time and therefore not eternal, but they also are asking for something that was, implying it is not, now. Specifics thus speak, in a timely sense, of not only limits on what you truly are but of the lie that you can lose and are lost. Jesus tells us that each time we pray we are offered a new chance to free ourselves of all the chains that bind and imprison us to this world of illusion and despair.
Joining truly with our brother is the step which at last begins our journey home to God for it is only by joining with our brother that we can at last entertain the truth that there is indeed no separation. In accepting the seed of this truth do we at last begin to realise that the chains that seemed to bind us to the specifics of the world are no different to our intoxication with the past. An intoxication that in itself has aided in preventing us from that joining and the lie it will put to rest at last.
Our discussion of prayer, and the image of the ladder, can serve as a meaningful metaphor for the whole process that is described as A Course in Miracles. In looking at prayer, its constancy of purpose and its real nature, we can see how it too is a constant companion of our journey of Self discovery. How it is only through forgiveness, which gives wings to prayer, that we can at last recognise we are indeed joined with our brother. The Song of Prayer is an attempt to remind us of the joy that is us, and can indeed be realised if we are but willing to look at the limits we have placed upon ourselves.
The end of the “ladder” is indeed the end of our journey. Our “journey without distance” [T-8.VI.9:7] to a place we never left. It is described as a place of true humility for it makes no claims that set you apart from anything other. We have now gladly given over the requests for the specifics recognising their nothingness. Gone too is the resentment, and fear of loss, for it is now understood that nothing has been given up, and nothing can be lost. Now is a time of praise for the truth of our brother, and therefore ourselves, is forever revealed. This realisation is summarised by Jesus with our saying:
“I cannot go without you, for you are a part of me.” S-1.V.3:9
For in that is the understanding that what is one is one, what is joined is joined, what is complete is complete. This is where the “ladder” ends for here has learning ended, being needed no more.
“The ladder ends with this, for learning is no longer needed. Now you stand before the gate of Heaven, and your brother stands beside you there. The lawns are deep and still, for here the place appointed for the time when you should come has waited long for you. Here will time end forever. At this gate eternity itself will join with you. Prayer has become what it was meant to be, for you have recognized the Christ in you.” S-1.V.4.
Linda & James Hale
“Portions from A Course in Miracles Copyright © 1975, 1985, 1992 reprinted by permission of the Foundation for Inner Peace, Inc.
The ideas represented herein are the personal interpretation of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the copyright holder.”