The Song of Prayer

On praying, wishing, fearing, and forgetting the Truth

Prayer is natural.
It sometimes seems complicated, especially when we think we must first know exactly what to ask for.
A new car? A healing? A bit of peace? Better moods in the neighbors? (Not a bad idea, by the way.)
But according to The Song of Prayer, the beautiful supplement to A Course in Miracles, prayer has a very different purpose than we often believe.

The Course teaches us:

“Prayer is a way to God, not to things of the world.”

It sounds beautiful… but how often do we actually use prayer precisely for things in the world?
Let’s be honest.
Most people only start to pray seriously when they feel worried. When something seems to be ‘going wrong’.
And then the prayer often sounds something like:
                “Let the plane not crash.”
                “Let the results be good.”
                “Let this argument not escalate.”
                “Let there be no war.”

Completely understandable.
But here, something sneaky happens: our fear becomes the engine of the prayer.
We pray to prevent something, and in doing so, we affirm the reality of the danger.

Thus, we end up strengthening exactly what we don’t want.

This is the paradox that The Song of Prayer lovingly reveals:
When we pray out of fear, we are trying to beautify a dream. We continue to believe that the dream is real.
And as long as we think the dream is real, we stay caught within it.

So what is true prayer then?

According to The Song of Prayer, true prayer is the lifting of all requests.
Not: “God, give me this!”
But:  “God, let me recognize what is real. Let me recognize Your Love that has always been here.”

True prayers are not shopping lists. They are open doors.
They don’t say, “I know what I need.”
They gently whisper, “Let me remember that I already have everything.”

A little joke in between:
If you ever doubt whether your prayer is a true one or a worldly one, simply ask yourself:
“Is this a delivery order to God or an invitation to God?”
(The Kingdom of Heaven does not offer home delivery.)

Why do we often pray from fear?

Because we believe we have lost something.
We have forgotten that we are still in the Light.
That we are still whole.
That nothing real can be threatened.

And in that forgetfulness, we seek solutions in a world that is simply an expression of our own forgetting.

But God doesn’t need to give us anything new.
He simply reminds us:
“My child, you are already Home.”

The ladder of prayer

In The Song of Prayer, prayer is portrayed as a ladder.
At the bottom of the ladder are the prayers that ask for worldly things.
Higher up, our prayers shift toward forgiveness and awakening.
And at the very top?
Prayer falls silent.
No more words. Only knowing: God is. And I am with Him.

As the Course says:

“Words are but symbols of symbols. They are twice removed from reality.”

True prayer is thus ultimately about becoming silent.
Not speaking to God, but listening to His Voice.

A little practical example

Feeling fear about something?
Instead of praying:
“Please don’t let it happen!”
you can softly say:

“Let me see that Your Love already encompasses everything.
Nothing outside Your Love can exist.
And I rest in Your Peace.”

And feel how fear starts to melt,
perhaps not completely at once,
but space will open,  and in that space, the miracle can enter.

⸻

Thoughts: The Gate to Love or Fear

When we pray, we open the door of our mind.
But what comes through that door… love or fear…depends entirely on the thoughts we choose.

A Course in Miracles lovingly reminds us:

“Projection makes perception.”

Everything we experience starts in the mind.
Thoughts are not innocent random clouds,  they are seeds that grow into worlds.

Maybe not immediately visible on the material screen,
but certainly projected onto the canvas of our feelings, relationships, and daily encounters.

The mind is a powerful painter.
The brush? Our thoughts.
The colors? Love or fear.
And the world? Simply the canvas.

That is why thoughts are not ‘harmless’ in the sense that they don’t matter.
On the contrary: thoughts are the cause of everything we believe we see.

⸻

The collective ego

Most of our thoughts aren’t even “original.”
They are borrowed from the collective ego,  that vast, ancient web of beliefs where we learn:
                “I am a woman/man.”
                “I am a child/no longer a child.”
                “I am successful/a failure.”
                “I belong/I don’t belong.”
                “I am a doctor, an artist, a teacher, a nobody…”

And so we string labels together into an identity,
without noticing that we are dreaming of being separate from Love.

Even the most innocent thought:
“I am just someone trying to do my best”
can anchor us into the collective belief in lack, fear, and separation.

But the truth is:

We are not our roles, not our stories, not our labels.
We are eternal Love.
And nothing else.

⸻

A daily practice

Would you like to train your thoughts to choose Love?
Start today, simply:

Step 1:
When you notice your thoughts drifting,
gently ask yourself:

“Does this thought feed love or fear?”

Step 2:
If you feel it feeds fear, breathe deeply and say:

“I choose again.
I choose Love.”

Step 3:
Smile at your old habit of believing drama.
Be gentle with yourself.
You are simply learning to rewrite your dream with kindness.

And believe me: Love has endless patience.
Every thought you offer back to Love is a miracle in itself.

⸻

You don’t have to fight your thoughts.
You only need to look at them kindly, feel their effect, and choose again.

That is true mind training.
No force, no harshness,
but a soft return to the voice that always sings in your heart:

“You are Love. You are Free. You are Home.”

Thus, prayer no longer becomes a request to gain or prevent something,
but a simple whisper:

“Let me see what I truly am.”

That is The Song of Prayer.
And you are the music.

With love and light,
G.