How Do You Worship?

deebrestin.com

In the midst of an esoteric lecture that I recently attended, the topic of worship was briefly touched upon. The most common conception of worship is a visit to church or doing some other form of ritualized prayer. These views are correct to a certain degree but they only describe certain forms of worship. However, worship is not confined to ritual alone.

Worship comes from the Old English word worthscipe which means, to give worth to something. This definition is consistent with why most people go to religious celebrations and festivals. These are events that devotees feel are worthy of their time and effort, and so they participate.

A religious ritual represents one's act of connecting with the Divine, therefore on a deeper level, to "worship" means one acknowledges the importance of this Divine connection. It's easy to get weighed down by everyday concerns, especially if one is living life in the fast lane. We always need to remind ourselves that we are more than just our job, our social position or our bank account. This is the purpose of religious rituals, but the ritual is not the end in itself. The purpose of the ritual is to bring the worshiper to a state of reverence towards the object of worship, in this case the Divine.

If one is unable or unwilling to retain this state of reverence outside the confines of the ritual, then the purpose of the ritual is defeated. It's even worse if, during the course of the ritual, the state of reverence is not attained due to distractions (e.g. texting or taking calls during the Mass or religious service). In such a case, it would be better not to perform the ritual at all. In serious occult workings, such as evocations, such lack of concentration can lead to disaster.

Esoteric spiritual treatises often state that God is everywhere, and everyone carries a spark of the Divine. If worship is a recognition of the importance of our Divine connection, then if one would truly worship God, one would always recognize the Divine in others. So to treat an employee fairly is worship. To love other people is worship. To deal honestly with others is worship. To act responsibly towards the environment is worship. There is no better way to recognize God than to acknowledge the presence of God in every aspect of creation. The Hindus encapsulate all this in the greeting, "Namaste!" ("I salute the divinity in you!"). In this case, true worship is a celebration of life itself. It is not something that can be confined to four walls alone.

But just as there is an exoteric aspect to our worship (the part where we deal with the manifested Divine), there is also the esoteric aspect of worship. The clues may be found in two passages in the Bible:

"But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." (Matthew 6:6, NKJV)

and

"But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24, NKJV)

To worship in Spirit and Truth. Our very essence is that of spirit, the Divine. And as I mentioned in one of my articles, truth is experiential. And the way that one experiences the truth (realization of God) as spirit is through meditation.

This is why in Matthew 6:6 one is advised to "go into your room and shut the door." Many meditative techniques involve stilling the mind and directing one's attention inward, and to shut out the senses (shut the door) to the outside world. The "Father in the secret place" is a reference to the blue pearl, gateway to the Higher Soul and the inner realms. The physical correspondence of the blue pearl is the pineal gland.

As we can see, worship is not something that is isolated from how we live our life. Worship is an unbroken strand from spirit to manifested reality. Meditation allows one to worship in Spirit, and experience one's Divinity. When one expresses that Divinity by living out the teachings in daily life, then one's worship becomes a worship in Truth.

We may not always live up to those lofty ideals, if at all. But if the prerequisite to spiritual awakening was perfection, then no one would be able to start at all. Everyone was a beginner once, even the saints. The tools of one's unfoldment are not found in musty old tomes or in isolated temples. We can find those tools within ourselves when we commune with God, and are reflected to us in our own surroundings and how we interact with the ones around us. By giving worth to these things then we start to worship God in the truest sense of the word.