Name: Stefan Schulz
Date: May 27, 2024
Course: Doctor of Spirituality (ACIM) of ULC Seminary
Lesson: VI – The Nature of Prayer
Hello Loretta, hello ULC Seminary, please find attached my coursework to lesson no. 6 / The Nature of Prayer. Thanks to this course, I am for the first time able to understand the true nature of prayer in all its fundamental aspects and integrate it into my daily life. Thank you for your support in reaching this higher level of understanding! Your brother in Christ, Stefan
Prayer Exercise:
1. In your own words explain how prayer came to be and what is meant by the concept communication and creation are synonymous.
In my words, prayer is pure, unadulterated, total, and mutual communion of God with His creation. From a human perspective, prayer is both the celebration and thanksgiving of one's fully restored oneness with God, which means having both personally regained true spiritual life and being able to activate true spiritual life in others, through the radiance (= conscious and unconscious communication) of the perfection of God's light, which is love, forgiveness, joy, abundance, wisdom, truth, and peace.
In the Hebrew-Christian tradition, the act of initial "spiritual creation of life through communication" can originally be traced back to and is vividly depicted in the biblical book of Genesis 2:7: "And the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul", as well as in the Gospel of John 1:1-4: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him nothing that was created was done. There was life in him; and life was the light of men."
Coming from this perspective, God can be understood in this context as the creating universal life force or universal life energy (= spiritually / biblically identified and labeled as "Holy Spirit"). Biblically speaking, God created humanity in His own "likeness" and "image" (see the biblical book of Genesis 1:26-27). This "likeness" implies that His creation is equipped with a particular medium or channel of communication with His Spirit, or for receiving His life energy respectively. This inherent, spiritual medium or channel can be referred to as the totality of the human "mind", "soul", or "consciousness", each with partial, different functions and characteristics (notice in this context the Gospel of Luke, 17:21, where Jesus spoke: "the kingdom of God is within you"; moreover, see the Epistle to Titus, 3:3-5, which states that the eternal life energy of God would be spiritually activated "by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost", emphasis by the author).
Therefore, this restored oneness in prayer does not require any particular man-made form, rules, time, or space. It is simply about being spiritually one with God and all His creation in the universe.
2. Explain to a friend the definition of true prayer according to A Course in Miracles. With the help of this friend make a list of the things for which people typically pray and describe how these things disguise the real problem and the real solution. Tell how they are substitutes for God's Answer.
As a result of a dialog with my wife, we derived the following list people typically pray for. Please notice that this list is only in categories and is certainly not exhaustive, as people's ego-driven prayer requests are certainly much more diverse and differentiated. Our list includes prayers for
§ protection against emergencies, threats or illnesses, protection of close people (family, friends, animals)
§ forgiveness from people who seem important to them
§ relief from worries, pain, fears, feelings of shame, guilt
§ happiness, peace, well-being, favorable fate
§ success (e.g. passing exams, professional development, power and influence)
§ health, vitality, strength, attractiveness, long life
§ material prosperity, wealth, financial independence
§ finding a suitable partner or friends, restoring of relationships
§ guidance in unfamiliar environments (e.g. professional or personal restart, moving)
§ thanksgiving for preservation, protection, favorable developments in the past
With regard to this list, our initial hypothesis is that all of these requests, wishes or desires are projections and reflections of people's egos, i.e. each derived from an egoistic perspective. This is because the common pattern of this ego driven prayers is that God is supposed to recognize and solve a problem that the ego has defined by itself, this by giving His help, by doing something desired or even by performing „miracles", based on the particular life situation which the ego in turn has created previously.
Moreover, one can see that this ego-driven prayer pattern therefore allows no real answer, solution or guidance from God, because this kind of prayer request already implies in its request the result what the ego wants from God.
In this context, the ego can be described as a selfish, worldly-programmed and therefore unnatural and unreal belief system of individual human consciousness which for this purpose has eliminated the oneness of God and man by (sub-) conscious choice. The ego has been built up over a lifetime and is perpetually evolving by emotions, thoughts and experiences of fear, success, happiness, guilt, shame, unforgiveness, rejection and conflict. This is because the ego constantly feels threatened in its existence and in its power of being reduced in size or even eliminated or replaced. In turn the ego wants to survive, dominate and expand, which is also expressed by ego-driven „prayer".
As a result, these negative, perpetual patterns and (sub-) consciously programmed, harming mental and emotional figures („beliefs"/"dreams") are the main obstacles that prevent human beings from true prayer also. In this perspective, this kind of „prayer" then can easily be identified as a symbol of being in a perpetuate a state of „duality" (= spiritual separation of God and man).
From this perspective, ego-driven prayer is just an imaginary one-way street or a symbolic, potentially useful call for support from man to God, since the cause of the prayer request and the solution to it are completely created and dictated by the ego.
Because of its „false" approach, ego-rooted „prayer" is primarily oriented both towards negative „symptoms" (e.g. fear, guilt, shame, sadness, worries) and „results" of a separated life (e.g. feelings of lack of success, poverty, loneliness, pain). Such artificial "prayer" is not able to see and solve the real problems arising from the separation of man and God through the construction of the ego, nor can it grasp the only possible solution to these problems, namely the complete restoration of the oneness of creation with God.
In summary, such a „prayer" is therefore a purely symbolic, artificial act, since real, mutual communication in spiritual oneness with God is not intended to take place. It is a result of selfish, utilitarian, (sub-) conscious thinking by which the unnatural self (ego) seeks to protect itself. "Prayer" is then reduced to a placebo, a spiritually empty cry for help from the ego with regard to life situations and problems that it has caused itself.
3. Tell how you would use the concept of true prayer to minister to a young person who was praying to win a basketball game, or a man or woman who was praying to find a spouse.
In this cases I would use the concept of true prayer as follows in bullet point form, this with an understanding of the dynamics of the situation and the potential reactions of the persons and their particular state of consciousness. This could also result in a process with different stages that built on one another and which therefore could extend over a longer period of time:
· At first I would tell the persons that I would like to understand their perspective of prayer, their desires and their needs. In this context I would ask them to depict why it is so important to them to win this game or to find a spouse.
· After I understand their starting point, i.e. their (= ego-programmed, illusion-driven) desires (= egoic believe system) for success, recognition, fear avoidance, security, happiness, conformity to social norms or simply to be loved, I would try to direct the conversation to the point why they feel certain that their wishes or desires mentioned above would then come true by winning this particular game or by finding a spouse.
· Furthermore, I would ask what makes them certain that God should have the same view towards them and their pursuit of success or happiness. Additionally, I would encourage them to ask themselves why winning such a game or finding a spouse couldn´t be as important to God or even to other people
· I would also ask them, since they pray to God, whether they really love and trust God and whether they would accept His decision for their future path unconditionally and without sadness or resentment
· More over I would encourage them to ask God in prayer to show them for what are they really looking for and what are they think what their wishes and desires tell them about theirselves and their current state of consciousness
· Then as a final step I would invite them to pray together in the Spirit, using the „Prayer Vizualization" pattern described in this lesson. When visualizing, however, in my view it is important to pay attention to the fact that the "thinking" could be overshadowed by the ego and that true prayer must therefore be done purely, i.e. in a state of "ego-emptiness". Coming from this view, I would like to invite and
o Coming from this view, I would like to invite and to encourage them to relax, to calm down and to feel their own breath in order to quiet their minds
o then to imagine a beautiful river, to feel, to touch and to bath into the water, to feel its perfect temperatur and its peace, wonderful color and harmony with the natural environment
o then to surrender to the flow of the water, to let go, to give in and simply to float with the flow
o then to release every attachment and problem, every imagined solution and every thought and emotion about it to the river and to have trust and faith that the river will carry the problems, attachments and solutions wherever they go
o then to feel that the river will carry the problems, attachments and solutions directly into the hands of God
o then to receive the true answers and guidance of God to them in and by the Holy Spirit (the flow of the living water)
o then to feel the love of God for them as well as the easiness, the freedom, the wisdom and peace within these answers
o Finally thanksgiving in prayer in Jesus` name to be a son or daughter of God and to have been given the grace and the love to be in oneness with God and all of His creation
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