Love and worship. People so confuse the two. I love you, I worship you: very different. Many people are looking for someone who will worship them. That means they are looking for someone to objectify them. Love is not based on subject and object; worship is. In worship—and by worship I mean idealizing an object, not practicing sacred ritual—there is always the Other. With love we are moving to union. Our motive and action are selfless. Very different. Worship tends to deal in contracts: “If I love you, you must fulfill my wishes”.
In some ways worship is an immature form of love; it is beginners’ love. When I adore someone, what am I adoring? My idea of the person. I am not really seeing and loving them. So I objectify, project and love/worship; this puts me in the realm of knowing not you, but my idea of you. I decided about you; I do not know you. And my decision is better than you. This is selfish and not in any way in relation with the person other than as a screen on which I can project. Whether it is a person or God, worshipping can fall into the category of “all about me”.
When we really love, the goal is union within. Can I experience who I really am in your presence? If I have to overcome all kinds of obstacles to do that, then we have a problem. At the beginning of a romance it is all about love, this all-powerful feeling, and that is all that matters. Both parties feel it. Then that feeling begins to disappear and we return to normal. The love is gone and all is as it had been. We then look for ways to get the feeling back. The only way is to do what we were doing inside ourselves, an internal activity of which we were unaware. It has to do with selfless surrender, letting go. Out of the head, into the Heart. The Heart moved us.
In some ways, shaktipat has a similar process. The Guru transmits the shakti into the disciple, and the disciple begins to have a very different experience. It will recede, and then the disciple will want it back. What were we doing internally? That is the practice that brings us to love, not just to worship
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