Digest Number 2653

[Guest guest]

vishweshwar wrote:

Namaste all family: at this start of Summer Navaratri, Shree Maa hasasked us to respond to this question:Is worship an obligation or a privilege?

 

Oh, vish, Oh Shree Maa ~ vish, thank you for bringing us this wonderful question from Shree Maa. I had forgotten about the thought and heart provoking questions that Swamiji and Maa sometimes asked the digest devotees.

 

To me, worship is a joy, a blessing, a privilege ... the only way I see it as an obligation is in the practice of making our worship a more integrated part of our lives. Some of the times I have been struck, smack! in the face, with the Presence of the All in All, I would stop where ever I was, sometimes in awe, sometimes in joy, sometimes in glorious thankfulness. One of these occasions I was driving my car past a corn field, and it just hit me, awareness of the Presence. I parked my car, ran over to the corn field, threw myself on my knees and thanked God/dess for everything, for being, for experiencing the Presence, for knowing in my heart the Presence ever and always IS. Sometimes this experience would reduce me to tears, and many were the times when I ended up on my knees in the mud, or in the sage grass (when I lived in Oregon), and knew every time the indisputable existence of God/dess.

 

The privilege is also in having the blessing of Swamiji and Shree Maa in our lives to show us how to worship appropriately according to the Sanatana Dharma. The only obligation I see is to have the interest and the perseverance to learn these methods and be even more able to worship in joy. Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars.