This article appealed to me,because i see this happening rampantly and i’d not read about this subject in thier literature yet. It has 4 parts.
There are also related articals on the page at the left hand side.
I was not dissapointed by reading the whole thing through.
Why Are People Leaving Traditional Religions?
If you already knew something, would I need to tell you it?
If you already had something, would I need to give you it?
Isn’t “worship” itself a mode of repetition?
Isn’t it an endless affirmation?
What does it ever achieve?
You see what happening rampantly? Isn’t this really merely an advertisement for the Jehovah Witnesses? Isn’t it dishonest to proseletize posing as philosophy? What are you asking? Of course you can worship you own way. Who’s stopping you? Certainly not anyone here.
The answer is Simple. You CANT worship God in your own way. Don’t let the article and over the top rationalizations steer you away from the meat of the question.
If God does exist, and if God made creation, and if God sent a prophet on His behalf.
If any of those if are correct then God has a preference and this will also speak to a preference in Worship. Now in the ultimate sense you can worship any way you please, but under the interpretation of your question this cannot be done wrong without incurring wrath for failure to follow God’s Will.
So, now that we have established that if God were real, then by virtue of Creation having a very tight method of checks and balances then Obviously the Creator values some specific methods.
The next step is to find a method that is Most Pleasing to the Creator. This also does not mean to guarantee that 2 different methods are contrary to the pleasing of the Creator, but it does imply that there are some possibilities of 2 different methods of worship being equally valued, equally hated, or 1 liked and the other 1 not liked, in the view of the Creator.
Kneel down and praise an ass. That is the best way to worship God, if you must. (See: The Ass Festival, Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
God never asked to be worshiped, as far as I know he only asked that the Truth be accepted.
“When the truth is found to be lies…”
Doing service to God in whatever way you like is not correct
Dr. Nikhil asked: How to avoid attention towards bliss? People are attracted to bliss and not to God, if God does not give bliss to them.
Swami replied: Veda describes the concept of bliss in the AnandaValli. Certainly you must discuss about the subject of bliss. You must avoid the attention of attaining the bliss by yourself. But you must concentrate on the service to God that gives bliss to Him.
This means that doing service to God in whatever way you like is not correct because God does not require your service in any way like a human being. One has to render the service in whatever manner God likes it. The service should be for the pleasure of God and not for the requirement of God because God has no requirement.
Even pleasure is not necessary for God because He is the infinite of ocean of bliss (Naanavaaptam… Gita). He is only testing the devotion of the devotee regarding its quality and magnitude of intensity. God always asks the devotee to sacrifice the item with which he has the strongest bond. If the devotee succeeds in this test, God is not pleased for attaining that sacrificed item, but God is pleased for the love in the attitude of total sacrifice towards Him.
For example God came in disguise to Saktuprastha ( a devotee), who was without food for several days along with his family in severe draught. In that situation the strongest bond will be naturally for food to save the life. He got somehow a little food and he was ready to eat it along with his family. God came in human form to test him. The guest asked for the entire food to eat. Saktuprastha gave the entire food and proved that God is more valuable than life. The human form of the God in such situation with such extreme abnormal behavior gave a hint about God. Here, God is pleased not due to the food offered by him since God has no hunger. Here, God is pleased only towards the attitude of total practical sacrifice through this incident.