What is the significance of the various forms of worship? How should we perceive them?
Devotion helps you attain the bliss of merging with the Divine most easily, by channelising towards Him the mental agitations, the sensory and emotional urges.
The various modes of worshipping the Divine in temples depict this concept. You will find various ceremonies, from ‘awakening of the Divine’ in the early dawn to ‘putting the Divine in bed’ late at night.
These ceremonies are intended to heighten and promote the devotional trends of the wavering mind.
Each incident helps sublimation of the approprie emotion, in a peculiarly charming manner. In the sublimity of that experience, the agitation of lower emotions decline and disappear.
The mundane and vulgar feelings of ordinary life become elevated to the status of worship and dedication to the Almighty Presence.
The Lord evokes in you, the emotion you associate with Him. When the Divine is conceived as the "Most Loved One", He manifests Himself as the nearest and the dearest and showers bliss!
- Dharma Vahini, Ch 10, The House of God.
The basic quality of devotion is the yearning to realize oneness with the Divine.
Source: radiosai.org