Worship

1. Worship means one's sincere acknowledgement of himself or herself as a servant and of God as the sole and true Object of Worship. It consists in a servant designing his or her life in accordance with the relations between a true servant and the True Object of Worship, in light of the fact that one is the created and the other the Creator.

2. Worship means one's thankfulness for the bounties bestowed, such as life, consciousness, power of perception, and faith. Neglecting the duty of worship is crude ingratitude.

3. Worship is a road to travel, opened by the Being Who commands us to belief. It is a set of good manners that He ordered us to observe, so that we could finally reach Him and obtain happiness in both this life and the next. Those who cannot find this way and acquire these manners cannot reach God, the Truth.

4. Worship is the safest way to reach the most unshakable certainty in one's conscience about the greatest truth, which is known only theoretically at the outset. In each station on this way, along which consciousness seeks certainty on the wings of reverence and respect, a person experiences a different taste of glimpsing the Beloved.

5. Some souls, shut off to the truth, spend their lives studying only certain theoretical matters. Even if they live in the enchanting company of the most eloquent, articulate tongues and the most fascinating expressions of the truth, they cannot advance even an inch toward it.

6. Worship is a blessed, growing resource that feeds a person's thoughts and deliberations of being good, righteous, and virtuous. It is a mysterious elixir that reforms the self's innate tendencies toward evil. One who engages in worship a few times a day by reflecting on Divine truths and remembrance of God, enters on the way to becoming perfect and taking shelter against the temptations of the carnal self.

7. Worship is developing our potential to be like angels so that we can be fitted for Paradise and control our bestial inclinations and potentialities. So far in human history, many people have surpassed angels by means of their worship, while many others have refused to worship and thus have sunk to the lowest possible level.

8. The most meritorious act or service of worship is knowing and loving God Almighty and benefitting humanity. If there is something more meritorious and commendable than this, it is seeking God's approval and good pleasure in whatever one does and, moved by the command to "be straightforward as you are commanded," always pursuing the truest and highest ideal in life. Criteria or Lights of the Way, Izmir 1990, Vol.3, pp.120–23

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