After the degrees of the presence of the heart have been understood, it is better and of greater importance for man to seek to remedy the soul (nafi) and, were he to fall short of all these levels, at least aspire to realise some of the levels,for without this his acts of worship would fall below consideration in the holy court and be unacceptable.
Let it be known that the source of the presence of the heart in any act of the acts, and the reason for and cause of the receptivity of the soul to it, is this, that the heart encounters that act with sublimity and considers that act important. What has been said is clear, and we shall clarify this matter further with the following example: If a sultan were to receive you with great ceremony in his own intimate gathering or formal assembly, pay you special attention, and bestow his benevolence upon you before those gathered, since this situation is important to your heart and because the heart regards this to be important and of great magnitude, your heart would immediately be present in that court and you would record with perfect delight and joy all the details of the assembly, the address, movings, and pausings of the sultan, and your heart would be present throughout your entire time in the court and would not be inattentive even for a second. In contrast to this, if someone who does not hold a situation of importance, and who considers his heart to be insignificant, were to address you, you would not find your heart present during conversation and you would take no notice of what he does and says. From this it is clear what the cause is for the lack of the presence of the heart during acts of worship and the heart’s inattention. If we were to give the same importance to our intimate communion with God the High, the bestower of blessings, as to conversing with a feeble, ordinary creature, we would not be careless, neglectful, or forgetful. It is entirely clear that this simplistic attitude and negligence arises from weakness of faith in God the High, the Prophet, and the traditions of the folk of the house of infallibility, and this negligence arises from a simplistic attitude to the court of lordship and the holy rank of God. The bestower of blessings has invited us to intimate communion and His own presence through the language of the prophets and nearmost ones, through the holy Qur’an itself, and He has opened before us the doors of discourse and intimate communion with Him,and yet despite this honour we do not adhere to the courtesies due to His presence even as much as to a conversation with a weak and feeble human.
In fact, each time we enter into prayer, which is the door to all the doors of the presence of lordship and the presence of His court, it is as though we are setting aside time for, and becoming occupied with, various thoughts and devilish ideas, and it is as if prayer is the key to the store, or the abacus for calculation, or the pages of a book One should not consider this to be anything but weakness in faith and certainty (yaqiri)} If a man knows the consequences and shortcomings of this simplistic attitude and understands the heart, then, of course, he will seek to reform and remedy himself.
If man does not regard something to be of importance or of great magnitude, gradually he will reach the point where he neglects it. The abandonment of religious acts causes man to forsake religion. We have explained the details of this matter in our commentary on al-Arbaln.Were a man to understand the importance of the acts of worship and the divine rituals according to the heart, then, of course, he would turn away from such negligence and such a simplistic attitude and would be dragged out of his heavy slumber. O dear one, give a little thought to your own situation, respond to the tradition of the folk of the house of infallibility, peace be upon them, gather your strength, and through contemplation and meditation with all your being understand that these rituals, particularly prayer, and more specifically the obligatory acts of worship (fara’id), are the source of happiness, the life of the hereafter, the well-spring of perfections, and the capital of the life of that realm.
Taken from ‘The Mystery of prayer’ by Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini