Worship

Why is there no spiritual attainment in religion today? 

We perform our own kind of rituals, but we do not worship with love. Instead, we look at our watches and see that we have spent five or ten minutes. We do not concentrate on worship. Perhaps we have placed flowers, bathed the statue with milk, lit some incense, bowed our head, and our mind is satisfied. But this satisfaction is false. These actions are all right, but they will not change our fate.

Father What are your orders?

When we stand before our worldly father, we bow and ask, "Father, what are your orders?" He gives us some work, and we are to do that. When we go to a religious place, our Heavenly Father also gives us orders. He says, "My child, always tell the truth. Do not steal. It is wrong to criticize others. Do not deprive others of their rights. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do not covet what is your neighbour's." 

We may have gone to our Heavenly Father every day, offered flowers to Him, bathed a statue with milk, worshipped Him for ten minutes, but we have not obeyed a single commandment. It is amazing: We sit before Him every day but we still only do what comes to our own mind. We do not even come close to following what He says.

Place of Worship

We should be keenly aware that a place of worship is a school for the mind, a school for cleansing the impurities from our mind. But how do we behave in this school? We take the first primer in our hands but we do not read it. We bow our head and make some demands, but we do not obey the commandments. This means that we have been holding the same primer for many years, but we have never even once read it. How can we advance to the second book? The second book will only be given to us after we have obeyed the commandments in the first book.

In worldly terms, after a person studies, eventually he attains something. After twenty-five or thirty-five years, he passes his subjects and completes the course, and there after receives some employment. 

Why is there no such attainment in religion? 

Because we truly think that a religious school is only a place to bow our heads, and that by bowing we can achieve everything. But let me stress that there is no school anywhere in which we can attain anything by just bowing our heads. One can achieve something only through action.

Look at history: 

With whom was God pleased? To whom did God speak? 

To those who deeply loved God with open hearts. They saw God in the trees, in the land, in the skies. God spoke to them.

When we go to religious places, we offer cash to the religious authorities who say, "We will pray to God for you." But I don’t think He wants our money.

• God is not poor. 
• God is not a beggar. 
• God is so powerful that He is distributing wealth to the whole Creation. 
• He gives us breath, energy, clothing, employment, the very bed on which we sleep. 
• He is such a great Giver that His bounty has no limits. 

When a priest expects something from people and begs, it is a great insult to God, for he turns God into a beggar in the public’s eyes.

God is the Giver

God is not a beggar. God is the Giver. God is always distributing Light, distributing blessing. Simply offering money is not acceptable to God. Instead, 

The Gurus says, "God is hungry for love and devotion," 

God says, "Please come to Me with love, and fill yourself with My Love. If you can pay the fees of a poor student, use the cash in that way. If there is a widow in need, help her. If a person cannot purchase medicines, use this money to help him."

It is just possible that we have not achieved enlightenment because we have turned such a great Giver into a pauper. We just throw cash in front of Him, but He doesn't want it. We offer a little money and say, "I have done this, I have given this," but what can we do? This mind is His, this body is His, and this wealth is also His. What can we give to Him? The Gurus say, "Give your mind, body, and wealth to Him and obey His commandments, and only then will you attain something."

Worship from Heart.

When we are full of love, then we worship from our heart. 

When the saint Naam Dev was a boy, his father instructed him to offer milk daily to the statue in their home while he was away. Innocent Naam Dev did not know that his father always drank the milk himself after offering it to the statue.

So when Naam Dev offered the milk and the statue did not take it, he begged, "Please drink this offering, my Lord." 

The statue still did not drink the milk. Naam Dev persisted, "Do you want us to have a fight in our family? If you do not drink this milk, my father will be very angry with me." 

He kept pleading with the statue. Finally, the hand reached out from the statue and drank all the milk.

The father had been performing this ritual for years but had attained nothing. But when Nam Dev approached the statue innocently, in love, the Lord started drinking milk and speaking to him from the statue, because God is in every place.

We Simply Sit

We sit before God but we do not understand that we have to talk to Him. We just do our duty. We take some flowers, some little things, and after two minutes bow our head and go home. God must surely be laughing, 

"It is amazing! They must think I am just a formality. They do not obey even one of my teachings, and yet every day they ritually bow before me and then make a lot of demands. They serve little and demand much."

It is good to worship. But worship from the heart. If we stand before an image of a manifestation of God, we should use it to focus our scattered mind, to concentrate our attention on God. Eventually, the image will begin to move, to speak. Then that One will begin sitting inside us. When it lives within us, it becomes Light, and nothing else is left except Light. Then we will talk to the trees and the animals. 

God will speak to us from within our own mind, because it has become pure. The real temple of God is a pure mind.