WORLD SCRIPTURE
A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts
CHAPTER 16
Worship
This chapter is devoted to prayer, meditation, chanting, and various
rituals through which people worship God, seek God's presence, and find
their connection with Ultimate Reality. Through prayer, chanting the
name of God, worship, and ritual, a person lifts up his or her heart to
God and opens to receive God's guidance, succor, and inspiration. Through
meditation, a person may contact and realize the Ultimate Reality that
resides within, or make the heart properly receptive to the Transcendent
God. We conclude with a section on the limitations of ritual, when it is
not accompanied by a sincere and loving heart or when it becomes an end in
itself.
Worship is not a matter of practices alone. True worship should be
accompanied by a proper attitude of faith by which the soul opens itself
to the divine Presence which longs to make itself known. It should also
be complemented by humility and acts of sacrifice and self-denial by which
selfishness and egoism, the chief impediments to self-transcendence, are
destroyed.
