Worship ...

What is worship?

There could be so many definitions. I am not talking about any celebrity worship but about the worship of God.

In Sanadana Dharma (known as Hinduism, these days) there were two types of worship. One was distinctive to us; offering to fire through Homa. Here idol has no importance. This system requires skills and hence performed only by those who had/have that set of skills. It wasn’t meant for the common man. They, the common man depended on places of worship, like temples.

But one thing is common among all religion (for the time being , for convenience of writing, I am including Hinduism too in the list of religion). Worship at places of worship – Churches, mosques, synagogues…

So, what are the ways to worship? Or how should one worship? Sanadana Dharma/Hinduism gives a clear idea about it. This can be followed by people from any faith. The only change one should adapt is to stick to their place of worship and scripture etc.

There are 8 (main) ways to worship God. These suggestions are passed on to us from 7000-10000 years ago . I am not going to explain these things in detail.

1. Shravanam – (uses ear) Listening to prayers, scripture related talks (I don’t mean those kind of talks where the talker says ‘our religion is the only one leading to truth and others are fake ones’ lets forgive such folks for their ignorance), listening to chanting of mantras or names of God etc

2. Keerthanam – (uses tongue/mouth) here, it the worshiper who is doing the chanting and prayers. Singing devotional songs too comes under this category.

3. Darshanam – (uses eyes) statues of Jesus/Mary kept in churches, the idols in temples, some symbols used by some other religions etc falls into this category. These are used to ‘see’ or make some impression in our mind (at a higher level, the worshiper may not need any picture or symbol)

4. Smaranam – (uses mind/brain) this is just remembering the God in our mind. We usually do this before eating. The thanking or expressing gratefulness to God before sleeping is also one way of swaranam.

5. Vandanam – this is bowing our head or any other form of expressing respect.

6. Archanam – offerings. This can vary from flower to agricultural produce (by farmers) to candle to money to….

7. Samarpanam- mainly helping with a good heart/intention. This also is kind of offering but it has some difference. Donating eye, giving food to poor, sponsoring orphans…similar kind of good deeds comes under samarpanam

8. Sevanam – it is said that ‘manava seva is madhava seva’ which means serving the humans/needy is serving the God. But this is not limited to humans. Serving of plants and animals too (well, all Godly creations) falls under this category.

So, at any point of time, any time of the day, we can worship God, if we really want to, even while working (there is another saying ‘work is worship’; if done with devotion)