True Prayer Meditation

Settle somewhere quiet, eyes closed, body relaxed. Then, following Renard’s guided structure:

1. Light induction. Picture a white light that surrounds you and gradually fills you — a simple relaxing, settling image to soften the body and quiet the surface mind.
2. Bring your “idols” to mind. Call up “all the things we think we need in order to be happy in this world” — the wants, fears, goals, people, outcomes the ego clings to. Renard calls these idols: substitutes we’ve put in place of God/peace.
3. Lay them on the altar as offerings. One by one (or as a whole), place these things on an altar and offer them up to God. The gesture is release, not bargaining — you are handing over the need for them, symbolically emptying your hands.
4. Disappear into your Source. With your hands and mind empty of demands, let yourself dissolve into Source — experience, as imagery and felt sense, oneness with God and with everyone you love. Renard describes a state of “perfect oneness” in which everyone you’ve ever loved is present and nothing is missing or excluded.
5. Rest there. Stay in the union for as long as it’s comfortable — there is nothing to do, nothing to get. This resting is the prayer.
6. Close in gratitude. End with thanks for your true nature, e.g.: “God, we love you. We thank you for creating us to be exactly the same as you. There is no difference.” Then gently return. When: morning on waking and evening before sleep — the same receptive borderland states many traditions favour. (Sourcing note: the structure — white light, placing idols/wants on the altar as offerings, disappearing into Source, the closing gratitude, and the twice-daily timing — is faithful paraphrase of Renard’s True Prayer from Secrets of the Immortal and the Arten/Pursah instruction. Short phrasings approximate his wording. The metaphysics are reported as his, not endorsed.)

Gary Renard (b. 1951) teaches A Course in Miracles via his Arten-and-Pursah books and audio programs. True Prayer is his guided take on ACIM’s Song of Prayer supplement, which distinguishes petition (“prayer for things”) from true prayer (communion / “the ladder of prayer” leading to oneness). → ACIM lineage in.

The altar-of-idols imagery and the dissolve-into-Source experience are Renard’s accessible packaging, recorded with input from Cindy Lora-Renard’s meditation/sound work. It pairs with his forgiveness practices and morning surrender.

A Course in Miracles — the Song of Prayer — the direct parent: true prayer as communion, not petition.

• Centering prayer (Christian contemplative) — resting wordlessly in God’s presence, letting thoughts/wants go. Near-identical aim.
• Surrender / self-offering — placing wants “on the altar” mirrors Ignatian suscipe (“take, Lord, receive.”) and bhakti self-offering.
• Non-dual / unity meditation (Advaita, etc.) — dissolving the separate self into the ground of being.
• Loving-kindness / unity imagery — sensing everyone you love present in oneness.
• Gratitude practice — the closing thanks; a well-studied wellbeing booster on its own.

Turning it back into petition. The whole point is releasing the need for outcomes; sneaking in “.and please give me X” collapses true prayer into ordinary asking.

• Forcing the oneness experience. The unitive feeling comes and goes; straining for it creates tension. Let the imagery be enough; the felt union is a bonus, not a test.
• Skipping the body settle. Diving into the imagery while wired rarely works — give the white-light induction time to relax you first.
• Doing it once and judging it. Like all meditation, the benefit is cumulative; twice daily over weeks, not a single dramatic session.
• Using it to avoid life. Resting in “there is no difference” is restorative, then you return and act — it’s a re-anchoring, not an exit.