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On Worship

What's the difference between prayer and worship?

The teachings of The Urantia Book on the subject of worship have depths that the human mind cannot fully comprehend. Worship itself--our most direct and intimate relating to God--is beyond our full comprehension. God and the dwelling of God within the mortal mind are a mystery. Nevertheless, each of us can truly say, "I can!" Our mind is a gift of God. One of our God-given capacities is the capacity to worship. There is even a special divine ministry to our mind, a "circuit" called the spirit of worship. Here is one of the key passages on worship:

Worship is the highest privilege and the first duty of all created intelligences. Worship is the conscious and joyous act of recognizing and acknowledging the truth and fact of the intimate and personal relationships of the Creators with their creatures. The quality of worship is determined by the depth of creature perception; and as the knowledge of the infinite character of the Gods progresses, the act of worship becomes increasingly all-encompassing until it eventually attains the glory of the highest experiential delight and the most exquisite pleasure known to created beings. (303)

People use terms with different meanings. The authors of The Urantia Book distinguish prayer and worship in many ways including the following.

Prayer	Worship
Seeks good for self or others	Has no element of creature request
Very important	Even more important
Sublime thinking	Superthinking

 

The book's first major discussion of worship is the section titled "True Worship" (pp. 65-66). This section includes the following thoughts.

Worship is for its own sake; prayer embodies a self- or creature-interest element; that is the great difference between worship and prayer. There is absolutely no self-request or other element of personal interest in true worship; we simply worship God for what we comprehend him to be. Worship asks nothing and expects nothing for the worshiper. We do not worship the Father because of anything we may derive from such veneration; we render such devotion and engage in such worship as a natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of the Father's matchless personality and because of his lovable nature and adorable attributes.   (65)

   Let's take a second look at that closing sequence.  We worship the Father as a natural and spontaneous reaction to

the recognition of the Father's matchless personality

and because of his lovable nature

and adorable attributes.

Observe that this sequence matches the sequence of Papers 1-3.  Recall the table of contents for these Papers.  One reason that this is a good idea is that there is a tendency for discussions of worship to seem to neglect the fact that worship is all about God!

The Universal Father

The Father's Name

The Reality of God

God is a Universal Spirit

The Mystery of God

Personality of the Universal Father

Personality in the Universe

Spiritual Value of the Personality Concept

The Nature of God

The Infinity of God

The Father's Eternal Perfection

Justice and Righteousness

The Divine Mercy

The Love of God

The Goodness of God

Divine Truth and Beauty

The Attributes of God

God's Everywhereness

God's Infinite Power

God's Universal Knowledge

God's Limitlessness

The Father's Supreme Rule

The Father's Primacy

It is helpful to mediate on those aspects of the divine nature that are most relevant to the situation in which you find yourself.  Philosophic thought and aesthetic experience can give rise to worship, but it is prayer, most of all, that is mentioned as the ideal preparation for worship.  Why?  Because the human heart is hungry.  Prayer expresses the needs of the heart and facilitates the consciousness of the flow of divine response.  When the heart is happy and full, then the gratitude arises which is just "one step away" from worship.

One of my favorite sequences of thoughts for worship derives from p. 196:

We worship You because

1. You are.

2. You are in us.

3. We are in you.

What Goes on in Worship?

To get clearer about these distinctions, let's review the dimensions of the human personality. On page 8 we find a brief description of each key concept.

1. Body. The material or physical organism of man. The living electrochemical mechanism of animal nature and origin.

2. Mind. The thinking, perceiving, and feeling mechanism of the human organism. The total conscious and unconscious experience. The intelligence associated with the emotional life reaching upward through worship and wisdom to the spirit level.

3. Spirit. The divine spirit that indwells the mind of man--the Thought Adjuster. This immortal spirit is prepersonal--not a personality, though destined to become a part of the personality of the surviving mortal creature.

4. Soul. The soul of man is an experiential acquirement. As a mortal creature chooses to "do the will of the Father in heaven," so the indwelling spirit becomes the father of a new reality in human experience. The mortal and material mind is the mother of this same emerging reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual--it is morontial. This is the emerging and immortal soul which is destined to survive mortal death and begin the Paradise ascension.

Personality. The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the morontial soul.

The soul feels values. Think of some experience of deeply satisfying truth, beauty, or goodness. Let yourself fill with gratitude to God.

Q. How do you know it's a soul response and not merely some emotional response?

A1. Our levels of experience are blended in human experience.

A2. As you grow, things will gradually and progressively clarify.

A3. The more you are oriented to supreme values of TBG, the more the response will come from your true, inner self: the soul!

Q. What if thoughts come during worship?

A1. Let them easily go as you return your attention to God.

A2. Some thoughts may be a gift from the Thought Adjuster. It's OK to let your mind appreciate these thoughts.

A3. Some thoughts indicate a problem that needs philosophic reflection and turning to prayer. When you are out of the worship attitude, do not pretend to be worshiping God. Simply commune or pray until you are ready to move beyond the sense of creature need.

This is the highest phase of worship. It is like shifting into another gear: "effortless attention."

It is not emotional. Wonderful feelings may often be the response of the entire personality to its communion with God. We do not let ourselves become self-absorbed with feelings. Worship is about God.

This phase emerges gradually as we grow (though with occasional sudden and wonderful surprises along the way).

There is an overall sense: I worship You! The assent (or decision-commitment) of the entire personality is to worship our Father. To worship is an act of will in the highest sense. Sometimes when we may be getting confused or wandering into mystical states it is helpful to restore this sense.

To repeat:

We worship You because

        You are;

            You are in us;

                    We are in you.