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january-March, 2008

To Whom Do I Pray?

Rev. Robert Stoelting

Someone recently asked, “If God does not recognize us and our plights because we are in an illusion, how can He help us? Please do not tell me that is what the Holy Spirit is for. My angst comes from the following sentence, ‘If God were to recognize us, that would make the illusion real.’ To whom do I pray now?” The following is my response.

The Course says that God is Love and nothing else and it says that Love is one, indivisible whole. It also says that the only thing true about us is Love. We are asked to repeat as part of several lessons that “God is but Love and therefore so am I.” That means that we could never be separate individuals, separate from God, except in illusions which could never be real.

Oneness (Love) cannot conceive of separation. The two ideas are mutually exclusive. If we believe we are separate, the idea of oneness is inconceivable to us. The good news is that God not only does not recognize us as separate individuals (inconceivable to oneness) but He knows that we never really left Him. We are still eternally safe in Love. This is why the Course says God has not changed His Mind about us. He knows that we are still one with Him in Reality. That is the reason why release from the hell of belief in separation is possible. We are still fully embraced by His Love, even if we deny it by believing we are separate.

In A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 125 we are told, “Your Father wills you hear His Word today. He calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides.” 1:2-3 This does not sound like God does not know of us. In fact, He knows us unequivocally as whole and complete in Him, not the fragmented self we think we are with a separate identity. And we are assured that, “He has not hid Himself from us,” 5:2 even though we try to hide from Him by identifying with a body in a world of separation.

The lesson goes on to give instructions for a way to pray. We need but “wait in silence for the Word of God.” 3:5 to hear our Father speak. His Voice is heard in “the quiet place within the mind where He abides forever, in the holiness that He created and will never leave.” 4:3 We can take comfort in remembering that God is right in our mind and will never leave. We may deny His presence and feel the sense of loss that comes with this denial, but our denial cannot change the reality of Love’s eternal presence in our mind.

Waiting in silence is essential if we want to receive God’s Word. But this silence does not mean we need to go to a place where there are no sounds our ears can hear. We are told, “…His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled.” 6:2 We must reach a stillness “without intrusion of our petty thoughts, without our personal desires, and without all judgment of His holy Word.” 3:1

In case we think reaching this stillness is a tall order, we can take comfort in the fact that, “There is a peace within you to be called upon today, to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice for its Creator speak.” 6:4 We need only “…choose a gentle listening to the Word of God. He speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is closer than your hand. His Love is everything you are and that He is; the same as you, and you the same as He.” 7:1-3

The statement, “Please do not tell me that is what the Holy Spirit is for,” is typical of the ego thought system. The ego is afraid of the Truth because acceptance of the Truth means the end of the ego. When we believe we are in a world of separation, we are dreaming a dream that could never be true. The Course tells us that the instant we had the thought of being separate, God provided the Answer to that insane thought. The Answer is what the Course calls the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, the Comforter, Guide, true Self. It is this Answer that guarantees that we will eventually return to full awareness that we are still safely at Home in Love.

In some places the Course seems to say that we are to pray to the Holy Spirit, or God’s Voice as it is called in Lesson 125. The Holy Spirit is called the remaining communication link to the Oneness of God. But in part two of the Workbook lessons, there are many prayers that are addressed to our Father.

The bottom line is that it does not matter what name we use as a focus of our prayer. What matters is that we are willing to be open to a new way of seeing, a new way of perceiving, that leads us back to awareness of our oneness with Love. In other words, we need to be willing to forgive, to let go of our attachment to being a separate individual and to accept that we are Love. We do not have to do this forgiving on our own. In fact we cannot, because if we think we are on our own, we are believing in the thought system of separation, which is incapable of forgiving. But our true Self, a.k.a. the Holy Spirit, does not believe in separation and still remains in our mind to gently guide us to seeing past the illusion of separate images to the reality of oneness in Love.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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