An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

6.
Religious Triggers of Spiritual 
Experience
Many spiritual experiences, especially communal ones, are triggered dur-
ing religious services, worship or festivals. Others are solitary, the result 
of meditation or prayer. 
Worship
A recognition of the power of the divine moves many believers to a sense 
of humility and awe and thus to worship. Rituals have been performed 
over the centuries in all parts of the world. Statues have been raised, tem-
ples and places of worship built, works of art and music created, liturgies 
composed and devotion offered to the divine, however named. Through-
out the ages, whether in great ceremonies of public worship or in solitary 
silence, communication from those below to whatever is conceived 
to be the ultimate perfection beyond this world, have formed part of 
the human experience. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, head of the 
Russian Orthodox Patriarchal Church in Britain, goes to the heart of 
what it means to worship.
Worship to me means a relationship. I used not to be a believer, then 
one day I discovered God and immediately he appeared to me to be the 
supreme value and the total meaning of life, but at the same time a 
person. I think that worship can mean nothing at all to someone for 
whom there is no object of worship. You cannot teach worship to 
someone who has not got a sense of the living God; you can teach him 
to act as if he believed, but it will not be the spontaneous attitude 
which is real worship.
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Worship takes many forms, from organized Christian Sunday services 
to Chinese shoppers popping into the temple to light incense sticks on 
their way home. The Hindu path of devotion or 
bhakti
is described in the 

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Religious and Spiritual Experience
54
Bhagavad Gita
, part of the 
Mahabharata
. The many gods and goddesses 
of Hinduism are seen as manifestations of the divine. Special ceremonies 
and rituals are performed at altars or shrines, adorned with brightly 
coloured figures and offerings of food and flowers. Buddhism, not usually 
associated with bhakti, in the Pure Land Buddhism of Japan does become 
a religion of worship. By calling on the name of Amida Buddha, to bring 
to an end the ceaseless round of rebirth, one may enter the Pure Land 
and from thence attain 
Nirvana
. But this cannot be achieved through 
‘self-power’ (
jiriki
) but only through ‘other power’ (
tariki).
Christian worship may vary from the impressive rituals of high church 
services in the great cathedrals to informal celebrations. Worship may 
involve song, dance, lighting candles, processions and special clothing for 
those leading the proceedings. Charismatic services in particular fre-
quently lead to a feeling of uplift and communal spirit. At the heart of 
Christian worship is the Eucharist or Communion Service, where Christ’s 
death and Resurrection are commemorated. This is the experience of a 
newly ordained woman priest.
When I celebrated my first Eucharist last year, I was completely bowled 
over by the moment of the Fraction – which is when the priest breaks 
the bread. I broke the bread and then the choir started to sing the 
Agnus Dei – Lamb of God. As the music circled around me and I was 
breaking the bread into small pieces, it was as if all the suffering in the 
world was in the small plate at that moment and that it was both bro-
ken and transfigured with glory at the same time. The experience was 
of deep emotion to the extent that I felt close to beautiful tears. It was 
both pain and beauty simultaneously. 
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What is important is the inner response of the faithful. One of the most 
beautiful pronouncements on worship comes from a Muslim woman, the 
mystic Rabi’a of Basra,
O God! If I worship Thee in fear of Hell, burn me in Hell; and if I wor-
ship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I wor-
ship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not Thine everlasting beauty.
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