To know God automatically influences all man's character, morale, ethics, and actions. The extent of this influence depends on the degree of one's faith; the stronger and more intense is one's faith, the greater the influence of this knowledge of God within one's being and the more it brings one's character under its dominion.

The influence and penetration of knowledge of God in man has levels and degrees, upon which will depend the differences among people from the standpoint of human perfection and nearness to God. Collectively, they are named veracity (sidq) and sincerity (lkhlas), that is, all these degrees are degrees of veracity and sincerity.

When we turn to God and worship Him, we are expressing "The only thing worthy of worship is the Essence of Unity, and I am utterly surrendered to Him." To thus stand and express oneself is worship and impermissible except when directed to God. But to what extent does this expression of ours have veracity? To what extent have we in this act let go the bond of surrender to other-than-God and become utterly surrendered to His Essence? This aspect of worship depends on the degree of our faith.

Not all individuals have the same degree of veracity and sincerity. Some advance so far that in practice nothing but God's command rules their beings; they have no other commander than God inwardly or outwardly. Psychical impulses and inclinations cannot draw them from this side to that, and no other person can subject them to his command. They permit their psychical inclinations just that scope of activity which conforms to God's pleasure, this being the road that leads man to his real perfection. And they comply with others' orders (father, mother, teacher, and so forth) to please God and within limits of what God has permitted. Some have gone further than this and have no object or beloved other than God.

They make God their true Beloved, and they love God's creatures according to the rule "Everyone who loves a thing, loves its traces, signs, and keepsakes as well" because God's creatures are the traces and creations of God, His signs, keepsakes, and remembrances. Some have advanced even beyond this and see nothing but Him and His manifestations (jilva); that is, they see Him in everything. They see everything as a mirror and the whole world as a house of mirrors in which wherever they turn they see Him and His manifestations. Their beings declare wordlessly:

I look on the plain, I see it as You,

I look on the sea, I see it as You,

Wherever I look, mount, vale, or plain,

I see it reveals the beauty of You.

Ali (upon whom be peace) said, "I saw nothing without seeing God prior to and along with it." What passes between a worshipper in the act of worship and his God that worshipper will enact in his everyday life, and so he will arrive at the stage of veracity.

For a real worshipper, worship is a contract, and the sphere of his life is the fulfilment of that contract. This contract includes two central provisions. One is to free oneself from the rule of other-than-God, from obedience to that rule, whether of psychical impulses and appetites or of beings, objects, persons. The other is utter submission to what God commands, contentment with that₃ love of that.

Real worship is a major, basic factor in the worshipper's spiritual education. Worship is a lesson to the worshipper: the lesson of liberation, free-spiritedness, sacrifice, love of God, love of God's command, love of, solidarity with, the people of the Truth, beneficence and service to the people. Islamic tauhid accepts no other motive than God. The evolutionary reality of man, the evolutionary reality of the universe, is to Him-ness; whatever is not directed to Him is vain and opposed to the evolutionary course of creation.

According to Islam, just as one must do one’s own work for God's sake, one must do the people's work for God's sake. It is sometimes said that to work for God means to work for the people, that the way of God and the way of the people are one and the same thing, that "for God's sake" means "for the people's sake," and that to speak of working for God minus the people is akhundism or Sufism. But this is wrong. According to Islam, the road is the road to God, period; the goal is God and nothing other. But the road to God passes among the people.

To work for oneself is egoism, to work for the people, idolatry, to work for God and the people, shirk and worship of two, to do one's own and the people's work for God, tauhid and worship of God. In the Islamic method of tauhid, tasks must be begun in the name of God. To begin a task in the name of the people is idolatry, in the name of God and the people, shirk and idolatry, and in the name of God alone, tauhid and worship of the One.