ACIM V. Beyond Perception, P 6. Prayer is a way of asking for something. It is the medium of miracles.
ACIM V. Beyond Perception, P 6
V. Beyond Perception, P 6
6 Prayer is a way of asking for something. It 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. The prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that you may be able to recognize what you already have. In electing perception instead of knowledge, you placed yourself in a position where you could resemble your Father only by perceiving miraculously. You have lost the knowledge that you yourself are a miracle of God. Creation is your Source and your only real function.
The Song of Prayer begins by telling us that prayer is the greatest gift with which God blessed His Son at his creation. It says about prayer:
It was then what it is to become; the single voice Creator and creation share; the song the Son sings to the Father, Who returns the thanks it offers Him, unto the Son.
Prayer, as given by God to His Son, is a love song, one to the other, and we are assured it will be so again. But then Jesus goes on to say that for those of us still in time, prayer takes the form that best will suit our needs. As he is saying here in this paragraph, our only real need is forgiveness. Let us forgive what we have made so that we can remember what we are. Today, I am forgiving the body I projected. I am doing this as I look at the body through the beliefs in time, pain, and sleep.
Forgiveness=Undo
Every time I see the word forgiveness, my mind automatically translates it to “undo.” I forgive the world I think I see. I forgive my perceptions and my projections. As I choose forgiveness, and all I have done is undone, I will know what has always been true. I will know myself as my Father’s creation. I will know myself as like my Father. I will, finally, remember that I am a creator rather than a maker.
I am in the absurd position of not knowing who or what I am and not knowing Who my Creator is because I chose to perceive rather than to know. Now it requires miraculous perception to see the truth. I pray for forgiveness. I pray for a miracle. I pray that my perceptions be healed and brought as close to the truth as is possible in the world of time.
In the story of Myron, this means that I continue to follow the Holy Spirit’s prompts and forgive whatever is in my awareness. It seems that we must forgive from the bottom up. So, I start with the misperception that is in my mind right now. Whatever this misperception might seem to be, it is just a symbol of the only misperception there is. It represents the desire to be separate. But it seems I cannot go straight to the desire to be separate, but must first look with the Holy Spirit at the effects of that desire and make a new decision. I must choose again; this time, I choose knowledge over truth.
Perception of the Body
Right now, it seems that the Holy Spirit is helping me as I look at the perception that I am this body or in this body. He is helping me to see that the body is not real. I didn’t, at first, realize this was what was happening. For instance, I thought the body was in pain, and I wanted the pain to stop. But He waited until I asked a real question. My prayer became, “Holy Spirit, what am I supposed to do with this pain?” Then He led me to Workbook Lesson 190, and He helped me, step by step, to forgive the idea that pain could ever be real.
I am still learning this lesson. Or maybe a better way to say this is that I sometimes accept this lesson and sometimes return to my old perception. But I never go all the way back. What I learn, I cannot unlearn, it seems. I have nerve pain in my feet and back now. I have come to be at peace with the pain as it happens. And I continue to remind myself that I am not a victim and that I do this to myself. I am certain that whatever lesson this has for me is one I will learn.
Ambien
Then the Holy Spirit surprised me. One night as I was getting ready for bed, I reached for my Ambien, which I perceived as a necessary sleep aid. He whispered a question into my heart. He asked me if I would like to learn that I don’t need this magic. I was intrigued and assumed that I was ready for this step if He asked this question, so I said yes.
This was not as hard as the previous experiment in rediscovering the truth about the body. After the first week or so, I didn’t really feel like I needed the Ambien. I have taken it a couple of times, but I am certain I didn’t need it even then. The reason I am certain is that I am beginning to remember that the body doesn’t need anything. Only the mind believes it needs something and then projects that need onto the body in the form of pain, suffering, and, finally, death.
Asking for Help
One day, I found a new prayer. I noticed that I had gained five pounds and could no longer wear some of my clothes. Well, no need to panic. This is a dance I am very familiar with. I knew what to do, and I knew it would be easy to lose weight. But suddenly, I felt very tired of the whole thing. I felt tired of the constant struggle with weight and the way my life seemed to revolve around what I ate.
I was reminded of the way Holy Spirit helped me to see time differently. I used to think I had to be asleep at a certain time so I could get a certain amount of sleep before I got up to write in my journal with Holy Spirit. This felt very important to me because the writing was not optional, but I had to get it done before work. This is why I took Ambien. I could not always sleep, and then I would panic and think that, as a result, I would not be able to write, or I would oversleep and then would be late for work while I took the time for God.
There were other ways that time would be an issue. It was like time was a tyrant, and I was enslaved to it. One morning I was feeling the flow from Spirit, and my writing was taking longer than usual. I felt the familiar worry about time. I really didn’t want to stop the flow, but I had an appointment I could not miss. I felt, rather than said, a prayer that, if put into words, would be, “Holy Spirit, what can I do about this?”
Leaning Into Faith
Then I remembered what Jesus said in the Course about time. He said he could manipulate time, so I asked him to. And he did! I put my faith in his words and continued to write until I was through. I resisted the ego nudging me to look at the clock. I just kept writing until the flow stopped. Then I got dressed and left. Only then did I look at the clock, and I was right on time. I have often since then taken Jesus up on his offer to manipulate time, and it always works.
So, this is what I thought about. I am no longer a slave to time, and it feels so good. Now I wondered if I could forgive the idea that I am a slave to food. Could food simply become for me something that fuels the body in this dream of bodies? Could I change my perceptions of food to something closer to truth? I looked at this idea from time to time. But I finally made a decision recently to forgive the old ideas about food. For the first time ever, I am experiencing a real change in this body issue.
Learning the Body Is Not Real
I am learning from each of these lessons that the body is not real. The body does not get sleepy, and it does not resist sleep. This happens in the mind, which then projects it onto the body. The body does not get fat from eating food. The mind gets fat from guilt and fear and projects it onto the body. There has been a story of a guilty Myron who overeats (or, God forbid, eats something that actually tastes good) and suffers the consequences for her sin. That seems to have changed.
These lessons and my acceptance of the truth about them is the way I pray for forgiveness. I have misperceived the world, and the Holy Spirit is helping me to change that perception. This will, ultimately, lead to knowledge, though this is on another level altogether and comes directly from God. However, I am busy enough with the lessons I am given and am not concerned about how knowledge will come. I will allow the truth to unfold in its time.
It is so interesting that we have to learn lessons to discover what we are. This is necessary because we have denied the truth so completely that we are insane. But we can change this as we accept responsibility for our choices and make new choices. Forgiveness is the way we do this. It is the way we back out of our stories and the false beliefs that drive them. We have chosen to perceive ourselves as helpless victims of a world we made up. All along, we are a miracle of God.
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