The Meaning and Essence of Worship

There is an inherent urge within every human being that drives towards the worship of his or her Creator, the Source of his or her being. This is because the human being is an intuitive perceptive spirit from its origin. As such the worship of God should be as natural to us as the air we breathe. But as with many things that are not limited to Matter, we have formed a wrong concept of worship because we mostly depend on our intellects to guide us, even in matters that transcend the material spheres.

Indeed, as pointed out in the Grail Message “It can safely be stated that man has never yet understood, much less practised, the worship of God, which should be absolutely natural to him”.  “…for neither begging nor thanksgiving belongs to worship. Worship means reverence!”¹ Worship is an intensely personal intuitive experience. It is an automatic affirmation of God by the conduct of our lives. It means to live and experience in the perpetual consciousness of the presence of God surrounding us in His Will.

Unfortunately, for many of those who believe and are serious about the worship of God, the concept and practice of worship is limited to periods spent in a place designated for it such as temples, churches, mosques, or synagogues. In these places which are held more or less sacred, they conduct what they generally define as service or worship of God. But these activities do not fully represent either service or worship.  Service by definition means to work, and the true service of God requires one to produce works that correspond to what he expects of us as human spirits.

Neither do they correspond to worship. The essence of worship is reverence for the Creator, the owner of Creation. The worship of the Almighty Father lies in knowing and obeying His Will which is anchored in His Creation, and this may only be achieved by individual experiencing of Creation. The Will of the Creator is manifest as the immutable Laws on which the mechanism of Creation runs and so we can only worship God through the proper understanding of Creation and by aligning our own volition to that of the Creator.  Through Creation the Lord speaks to us because Creation is His language which we must strive to understand. Only then can we adjust our lives in harmony with the workings of Creation.

The human spirit who thankfully receives the power of the Creator flowing through us all, and joyfully transforms this into up-building activity in matter stands aright in Creation. Since this power has been used in the Will of the Creator it remains pure and so can return to the Creator, through the same human being that has acted as a station in the path of the Light. The flow of this radiation power through us in both directions gradually lifts the individual to higher and purer realms as he/she matures in the experiences he/she goes through.

If on the contrary, the human spirit does not use the power flowing through him in the Will of God, he defiles its purity such that it becomes impossible for the darkened radiation power to return to the Creator. It is drawn off into further distances away from the proximity of the Creator, to centres of darkness and evil. Being connected with his work, this takes the individual that small bit further away from his Creator, making it even more difficult for him to intuitively perceive with clarity and a vicious cycle may develop. Unless such a man consciously decides in his free will to change, he cannot receive any help from outside and he will gradually sink away to darker regions.

Our activities must be in harmony with the Will of God, if we are to remain relevant in Creation. Since the Will of God manifests in creation as the Divine Laws or the Laws of Creation, we can only practise the true worship of God if we have a precise knowledge of Creation and its laws. This is the purpose of our existence here on earth, in the World of Matter – to learn and adjust to the Will of God. We were meant to achieve this simply by being and living consciously as spiritual beings in Creation.

Our failure, the often-invoked fall of man, introduced manifold difficulties and obstacles. It is a special act of Grace and Love that the knowledge of these Laws was granted in the word of Truth, sent through various messengers to all peoples and finally by the Son of God, Jesus. It is a testimony to Divine Love that despite our rejection and murder of the Son of God, the Father still permitted that at the most critical turning point, just before the World begins to go into decline, the Word will be brought by the Spirit of Truth ². And we were all admonished to remain alert for His coming.

No one can be a part of the Kingdom of God unless his or her worship of God is faithful and true. Worship in all simplicity means striving with our lives, day and night in all our activities – thought, word and deed, to live and adapt to the Will of the Creator. Worship for us therefore means to live, to experience; An automatic consequence of existence for a spiritual being that has come to ego consciousness.

Obeying the Laws of God in Creation is the essence of worship. The purest worship of God lies only in deeds that are aligned to His Will. In willingly submitting ourselves to the Laws in Creation that embody His Will, we prove our veneration for His wisdom. “The worship of God in your life and in your experiences consists solely of keeping the Divine Laws. This alone ensures happiness. So shall it be in the coming Kingdom, that of a thousand years, which will be called the Kingdom of God on earth!” ¹

Worship should be the pivot on which our lives revolve. We should approach our Creator with our work and in our leisure, in our thoughts and in our words, in our homes and in public. In what we read, what we eat, how we dress, how we conduct ourselves and indeed in every single facet of our being. Not just on Sundays or Festive holidays.

The Divine laws express the Love and Goodness of the Almighty Father for His Creation and for all His Creatures including humanity. We also are embodiments of the radiant Will of God. We therefore, worship God when in our activities we express goodness, love and all the noble qualities we bear in our spirits as expressions of the Will of God. Through our activities we are to uplift and ennoble creation and turn this earth into a replica of Paradise, into a sphere swinging completely and unconditionally in the Will of God.

We worship God through our firm volition for what is good and the purity of our thoughts. It is only such activities, arising from our spirits, which generate joy and happiness that can ascend upwards in honour of the Most High, the Almighty Father that is reverence and the true worship of God.  To live in accordance with the Will of God demands the thorough knowledge of the workings of Creation and its laws. Only obedience to the Will of God can produce such works that ascend to His Throne.

The connection with the luminous height can only be kept open through intuitive activity in prayerful worship and so our standard of worship is also a measure of the alertness of our spirit in Subsequent Creation. Worship is not an outing for emotional satisfaction, social interaction or sublimation of worries by listening to motivational speeches or inducing ecstatic euphoria through music.

There is no better way to thank our Creator or to worship Him than in joyful activity in whatever we are permitted to do. In this way we offer the best form of prayer – spontaneous thanksgiving and worship; and this we can do with every moment of our life, whether awake or asleep, for the spirit never sleeps. “The real worship of God does not show itself in ecstasy, in murmuring prayers, in begging, kneeling, and wringing one’s hands, nor in blissful shuddering – but in joyful activity! In the jubilant acceptance of life on earth! …” ¹

Building of temples and places of worship dedicated in honour and for the worship of God and assembling there on designated periods is indeed very commendable. At best however, these may be regarded as joint hours of worship; for the true worship of God is with our individual lives, and is expressed through the correct experiencing of His Creation. Of course, joint ours of worship are great helps instituted under guidance from above to support our development, provided that during these periods, while inside these designated places, our spirits are open and can send forth our gratitude and thanksgiving to the Most High for His inconceivable goodness. The Lord Jesus emphasised this when he declared that where two or three are gathered in His name, He will be there in their midst.

We must understand, however, that these places of worship are products of our volition and not places we go to develop a volition. The building does not move us to worship, as many church goers and lovers of architecture believe, but the purity of our volition gives relevance to the edifices. We must always bear in mind that the place of worship is granted as a special help and does not represent the totality of the worship of the Almighty. These edifices only remain pure to the extent to which the human spirits involved protect it with the purity of their volition. It has been stated and rightly so that a Temple (or place of worship) is nothing but the people who worship in it. In these edifices we link our volition to affirm our faith and dependency on our Creator and so we must hold these in purity in our thoughts.

The high point of these dedicated places of worship is the altar where the presence of God is symbolically represented.  The more immediate symbolism for us as individuals, however, is that our bodies are the Temples of God and our intuitive faculty the altar. These we must also keep pure and perpetually open to the flow of Love and Power from our God, particularly when outside the temples and places of worship. With our spiritual intuition and our bodies, we must as individuals, honour and glorify our God. Only when our individual Temples are pure may we join in the whole, otherwise doing so is useless and may be harmful. Christ also emphasised this when He admonished, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift”³.

We must now form the right conception of the worship of our Creator which lies in deeds; through the purity of our thoughts, words and deeds in our daily activities. Indeed, the whole of this earth must become a large temple of God, where His Will is done at all times, and our intuitive perceptions must be the Altars therein, if pure and connected to the streams of Light from above. Through our pure volitions and deeds our lives will reciprocally be enriched.

Through the knowledge of the Divine laws in Creation and their application in our daily lives we truly worship our Heavenly Father just as it is done in Heaven. Not only when we are assembled in our churches or temples but with our everyday lives. We have now reached the time in our spiritual development, when all that we do must become worship for God.

The Grail Message is our faithful guide through the knowledge It mediates.                                                                                                                     

1. In the Light of Truth, the Grail Message by Abd-ru-shin. Vol. II Lect. 21. The Worship of God.
2. The Bible, New Testament. John 16:7-15
3. The Bible, New Testament. Matt 5:23-24