Devotion or Duty – which is the highest form of worship to God?

Latest QuestionsDevotion or Duty – which is the highest form of worship to God?
Spandana asked 8 years ago
1 Answers
Omkar answered 2 years ago

Devotion to God can be termed as to pray , visit holy shrines, sing in the name of the Lord, give charity to the needy, leading a simple life, read the Purana n the scriptures written by great masters and donating huge portion of ones hard earned money to perform religious rites.
 
Duty is the action manifested and the Devotion is the depth of faith laid down in the God for manifesting an appropriate action. Action is physical Devotion is a mental and emotional phenomenon. To be one with who you are and what you do is worshipping all beings and things in the universe. I do not know any higher worship.
 
Both, Imagine you are a Queen, you are going to dress yourself well, ornament yourself etc etc. Just because you know you are the wife of a King, you will do all this automatically. Similarly, once you realise you have God within you, you will automatically do all the right duties. You are separating God and you and your relatives. All are one, you need to See God In you first, and you will automatically behave with others appropriately.
 
 
Duty is in reality the work assigned and destined by the divinity. So this is the devotion of action, not indecision or inaction which goads, nudges to work and activity in our life and existence. In reality we are to integrate the yoga of work and yoga of devotion to fulfill the ambition towards realization of the Self, the inbeing God. Howsoever, knowledge, duty and devotion are all the integral companions which help us to navigate the canoe of life and existence and transcend beyond to see the God within us. Duty with Devotion is the greatest form of worship. You may ask how can we do both at a time ? It is said in our Indian culture Sarva karma bhagavath prityardham – doing the work to please god. Then it becomes worship. we generally cook food it is ‘bhojanam’ when you offer to god it becomes ‘neivedyam’. By this we can understand that work will become worship when you offer your work to God.
 
 
Devotion and Duty have its own importance but yet in my opinion i firmly believe that the duty (karmas) hold above everything else. As a human we have to undergo a Karmic Cycle. Performance in the world with the righteous karmas leading to a positive aura is more important. Yes if we believe in God we can definitely give a part of our time in devotion which helps in building a Positive Karma cycle. Since devotion also is a Karma.