According to the general meaning and Mahatma Gandhi’s meaning of worship without sacrifice, we can realize that this sin is happening everywhere in the world due to unwilling or fake sacrifice in worship of humankind in society and religious services, for example, Today robbing others has become a tradition in the name of religion, social and political duties or family duties. All our ills are created by and continue through our ignorance, which is shaped in our educational, religious, political, social, and commercial institutions. While all other institutions, except religious institutions, do not claim to serve others but openly serve their own interest against the Law, religious institutions and teachers are often the greatest hypocrites for they claim to serve God and the creatures when they really are serving themselves, their own lust, greed, ego, pride, and vanity due to their total ignorance of God. Those are the problem in worship in present time.
Gandhi wanted people to be honest with their worship because he saw that a lot of threats to religion and society are not from the atheists but from the dogmatists. Lots of social insecurities come from dogmatists that have their own religions, but they do not follow their religious principles or they misunderstand. Gandhi was a religious man that advocated the concept of Ethical Religion, and he conducted religion in its original concept. He always walked his worship out. He believed that there is no Religion higher than Truth and Righteousness. Gandhi viewed life in the wholesome activities.
As we have known that worship without sacrifice is one in the list of the 7 deadly social sins thought by Mahatma Gandhi, and it is happening everywhere in the world due to unwholesome activities in worship of humankind. Stephen Covey in his book Principle Centered Leadership says about this sin, “Without sacrifice we may become active in the church but remain inactive in its gospel. In other words, we go for the social façade of religion and the piety of religious practices. There is no real walking with people or going the second mile or trying to deal with our social problems that may eventually undo our economic system. It takes sacrifice to serve the needs of other people – the sacrifice of our own pride and prejudice, among other things.
Whether we like to believe in God or not, it is important and mandatory that we believe in morality, in nature, in ourselves, and in peace, love, and joy. No one will deny this even in their ignorance, and yet we are hardly taught this in churches, families, educational institutions, or social or cultural institutions. Religious organizations have become empires replacing old kingdoms according to their wealth, power and followings. God is subordinated to their religious leaders, whose pictures, statues, or glory is sung in delusion. Humility, love, and faith hardly exist in religious orders though outward pomp is everywhere.
Worship is just like a principle. To obey a principle or rule, sometimes we have to make sacrifice aiming to fulfill one’s purpose or God’s purpose to bring harmony or seek the truth or else. That's what the natural man can do to takes self-control; it takes a mind that is on God, to worship God in an acceptable way, and that requires SACRIFICE.
Worship is not just showing others what we do in appearance, nor merely about how many times a day we say our prayers or read our religious book or sing the songs, but in how we integrate the life of our religion, belief into our own and live out our lives on the streets, and in our homes, and in our workplaces, in our classrooms, in board rooms, and in our daily interaction with others. Like what Mahatma Gandhi once responded to Christian missionaries “When you stop standing on the street corners and merely talking about how good Christianity is and start living it among the “untouchables”, you will have more converts that you can cope with.”
True religion is based on spirituality, love, compassion, understanding, and appreciation of each other whatever our beliefs may be — Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics or whatever; therefore it is worthwhile to worship with sacrifice aiming to get good results. Gandhi believed whatever labels we put on our faith; ultimately all of us worship Truth because Truth is God. Superficially we may be very devout believers and make a tremendous public show of our worship, but if that belief, understanding, compassion, love and appreciation is not translated into our lives, prayers will have no meaning. True worship demands sacrifice not just in terms of the number of times a day we say our prayers but in how sincere we are in translating those prayers into life styles. There is infinite love, joy, and peace. There are sufficient material things, clothes, food, and shelter if we will stop misusing or overusing it out of our love for the body, flesh, wealth, and perishable objects. God has created everything sufficiently for all of us to meet our every need only if we learn to live, and thus worship, through sacrifice.
Unfortunately, nowadays most people worship without sacrifice because they do not understand or misunderstand the nature of worship. These would bring them to unpleasing situation or violence. As we can see some people don’t value God. People are forced to worship God. They worship God because everyone else does that. For example, in Cambodia, many young people go to pagoda because their parents do that. Some people pretend to worship God because they want to take benefit from religion. The consequence of not obeying is not obvious in their concept. Of course, there is no legal punishment in society for worshipping without sacrifice, but a social sin, and it will be considered as sin as religion too and people will receive spiritual punishment according to each religion.
If we choose to worship, worship with sacrifice, sacrifice of love and selfless services.