Welcome to week 18 of building your Miracle Toolboxes. This week we continued our study of the practice of true prayer and how our practice of prayer evolves over many lifetimes. Jesus explains to us in The Ladder of Prayer (S-1.II) that everyone is in a constant state of prayer whether we realize it or not. Over many lifetimes our understanding and practice of prayer changes in form, and continues to grow with learning until it reaches a formless state, and fuses into total communication with God.

At the lowest level of prayer, in its asking form prayer need not, and often does not, make appeal to God, or even involve belief in Him. For example, when we were cavemen and cavewomen, the prayer of our hearts requested food, shelter, and clothing out of a sense of wanting, scarcity and lack. At a higher level on the ladder of prayer, our prayer becomes an asking that now addresses God and we request things of this world in various forms. Additionally, we can ask for gifts such as honesty or goodness. At this level we also practice praying for our enemies which, according to Jesus, is a huge problem! It is a problem because as a created holy Son or Daughter of God, also known as the Christ, we are unknowingly imprisoning the Christ part of ourselves within the belief that we are bodies and are evil.

Lastly, Jesus tells us to never forget that prayer at any level is always for ourselves. If we pray truly for our "enemies", then we will find our own salvation. In other words, whenever we think we perceive an enemy, pause and ask the Holy Spirit to help us to have an experience of "True Perception" of the perceived enemy. And in the moment that the gift is received, we will have a recognition that the light within another is the same light within ourselves. In this knowing, we can then move to the highest state of prayer, which is true prayer, where we simply go into meditation, step aside, let go, and open up to a state of listening, loving, and communing with God.