Since the mind still resides with God, the Course says you don’t have to decide alone and should ask the Holy Spirit for help deciding and wait for the answer. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. If you must make a decision on the spot, you’ll get the appropriate “need” answer right then.
An answer is an echo of God’s Voice from the un curso de milagros Song of Prayer. You’re not asking for the echo itself. You are choosing the gift of Love from The Song by giving up all form needs. “Need” answers in the illusion are contained within that echo even during the correction of the mind process. They are met at the level of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.
At the bottom of the ladder, it’s all about asking for needs to be met and withdrawing your projections from others. It is here you must begin to learn that all forgiveness is self forgiveness (correcting your own mind) and is practiced in the same order as projected.
The ladder of forgiveness is an illusion as you’re not forgiving anyone except yourself. All you are really doing is “giving up” what you don’t want (in the mind) that you’ve projected “out there” into form.
1. Take back your projections from all forms and that includes brothers.
2. The associated thoughts, feelings and emotions (sin, guilt and fear underneath) are yours.
3. Take those, in the mind, to the Holy Spirit (in prayer) as the idols they are and give them up.
4. You find your own, and a brother’s, innocence, by doing this and receiving correction of the mind.
(NOTE: Forgiveness to destroy is the ego’s version which “corrects” error with more error. It’s not the same as true forgiveness. All four (4) aspects must be relinquished as well).
Enemies show your projected sin, guilt and fear and you hate them because they remind you of what you’re hiding from yourself. At the bottom of the ladder, it’s taking back projection to stop seeing enemies. Prayer for another makes them an enemy because you are asking for two different goals, one for you and one for them. It’s using the ego for separation and seeing differences.
True prayer and forgiveness is the only solution that corrects the mind and allows you to recognize the Christ in both of you; and that’s how you share Love. “Need” answers from the ego are met at the level you can practice this.
As you begin the ladder in the mind and question the ego need for enemies, your goals change as well. You’re no longer asking (praying) for the same kinds of needs and separation. That brings up praying with others for more common goals like, for example, needs of the world (hunger, war, etc).
It’s still not about praying (asking) for things, needs, forms, etc., because asking for more forms (needs) is asking to have the past repeated because you are using the ego as cause. Staying on the ladder and keeping on with true prayer and forgiveness takes ego special relationships and turns them into Holy Relationships whether individually or in a group.
It’s saying you want something different. The “need” answer comes according to this level of acceptance.
The goal is really the illusion or God; and the truly humble are all about giving up all of the illusion for God. There’s nothing they place before God (idol, need, form) and if they find they have, they simply give it up. They use the ladder to ask for what is real (The Song, Love) by forgiving the illusions along the way.
At the top of the ladder, forms no longer serve a purpose except to join in Love with brothers. Enemies are useless and there are no needs. With guilt gone, they have no shame in knowing that Creation and Love are the Will of God, which is their Will.
No longer interested in singing the ego’s praises (praying for more ego things), they only sing The Song of Prayer which becomes what it was meant to be, a sharing of Love and Creation. They’ve recognized the Christ in themselves and that everyone goes together. When learning is no longer necessary, the illusory ladder of forgiveness ends and all that’s left is The Song.