Course XVI - Teaching 1: Prayer is Love

Love and feeling must be brought into motion toward their summit since otherwise no soul power, idealistic dream or realization can be possible.
We would fail if we had to achieve just a great mission or to give a great idea, and we would lack the fit feeling to make it live, fructify and lead to a happy end.
Love for realization is the only thing that should crown the soul called to the mystical path. Nothing shall exist without love. Best ideas die if love does not instill life into them. Finally, best ideas die when there is not a constant flame keeping them alive.
Even mystical communities, where the only exercise of those who have left the world is to be perfect, would be deserts, “without form, and void”, if the living flame of love is not burning in them.
And this love, this lofty culmination of a feeling, is possible only when the individual being is constantly devoted to his loved object, that is, through prayer. Prayer is a basic stimulus channeling the emotional power of man toward the ideal he has chosen.
What is the first thing that any religious founder should teach, and in fact teaches to a group chosen to create his church, but prayer? What is the first thing that great mystics of east and west teach during their first meeting with an eager group for perfection?: Prayer
Spiritual Directors discover real miracles in the soul of faithful disciples who many times can transform their lives with this exercise alone.
A simple woman said to her Spiritual Director: “I like the spiritual path as a whole, but I do not understand one thing: What is the use of meditation? What can we obtain by sitting down apart and practicing spiritual prayer? Is not meditation a waste of time?”. Her Master replied; “Still you do not understand, but please, persist: Go on wasting your time”. After wasting that time in such divine way, this woman said she had channeled all his love to human beings toward the Divine by praying constantly.
Once, certain person saw in a vision a wonderful being climbing quite rapidly a ladder from earth to heaven –both earth and heaven with sublime characteristics. Interested in knowing about the life of this marvelous creature on the earth, he found she had been a humble woman who transformed all her actions into a flame of love turned toward God –this flame aimed at the bosom of the Most High, at the centre of her yearnings, and at that power that attracted her love. Her prayer had been the secret of her rapid improvement.