Imam explains and sheds light on the subject through his works as following:
If we are acting like the polytheists we are causing harm to ourselves, because:
Lo! Allah is independent of (all) creatures. (3:97)
He does not need our worship, our service or our obedience. Any disobedience, polytheism and two-facedness on our part will not cause any harm to His Empire, but as He is —the Most Merciful of the merciful—, His boundless mercy and compassion, and His perfect wisdom require of us the pursuance of the right path, and for this purpose.
He made clear the difference between good and evil, beautiful and ugly to us and warned us of the perils and hazards to be met on the road of human perfection and the path of true felicity.
We are indebted to God Almighty for this great guidance and we have to show, with all humility, great respect towards Him in our worships, our devotion and our supplications, whose importance we cannot comprehend unless we gain another-worldly vision.
As long as we sojourn in this narrow physical world, confined to the limits of the sequence of time and shackles of space, we cannot comprehend the infiniteness of the realm of His power, and we cannot even thank Him in our prayers and supplications for His guidance.
Never let the idea enter our mind, that by our service and devotion we are doing some favor to His prophets, His chosen servants, and the great ulama of the Ummah. They are our benefactors, who have taken the charge of leading the Ummah towards felicity and deliverance, and who have accepted the responsibility of our emancipation from the darkness and shadows of ignorance and misfortunes, taking us towards the realms of light and joy and greatness.
What a great responsibility they took upon themselves, and what horrible pains and troubles they underwent for the sake of our instruction, in order to deliver us from those obscurities and darknesses, that were the result of vain beliefs and compound ignorance, and the chastisements that were to befall us as a result of our bad habits and villainies.
They wanted to save us from those hideous forms and dreadful figures in the other world that would be the outcome of our wicked deeds, and they helped us to reach the regions of light, joy and comfort and the spheres of serenity and composure, whose image our mind would fail to visualize.
This physical world in spite of its vastness is so limited and narrow that we cannot imagine a heavenly hour with our this-worldly vision.
Our vision does not possess enough power to behold the magnificence of that world, which has been described in the speeches of the holy prophets of God, especially in the all-embracing revelations of the Khatim al-nabiyyin (Seal of the prophets), who perceived those truths through Divine revelations, saw them, heard them, and then asked us to acquire them.
And we, like recalcitrant children, disobey the commands of the wise, and even do not pay heed to the dictates of our own reason, always being more than ready to oppose the Divinely guided ones. And those sanctified pious souls, out of the love and kindness that they possessed for the creatures of God, did never fall short of their duty, did never appeal to our meaner and baser faculties by bribing them to attract us towards heaven and felicity; they never tried to make us yield through intimidation or force.
They did not either demand any remuneration or reward for the services they rendered. The remuneration asked by the Prophet (S) kindness for his kinsfolk, which is not really a payment for his services, is also meant for our own benefit, being the brightest of our achievements in the next world.
Imam further says Know that the real King of kings, the true Giver of real bounties, has bestowed upon us all these favors.
He created all these things for us and prepared them for us even before we came into this world.
He made our food a balanced diet and acceptable to our weak stomach-a patron and servant who serves us with an instinctive and natural love.
He created for us suitable climes and weathers and has bestowed upon us all other seen and unseen favors here and in the other world, and after piling up all these gifts for us, He asks us to keep our hearts pure for His occupation, so that we ourselves may be benefited from His presence.
In spite of all these warnings and cautions we still do not obey Him and do not pay heed to His words and do not act according to His wish.
What an act of gross transgression. With whom are we trying to wage a war, the consequences of which we will have to face? Any slightest harm cannot be caused to His Kingdom, and we cannot exclude ourselves from His reign of power either.
Our sense of indebtedness to them in fact serves ourselves and we are benefited more from it than they are.
How are they benefited by the righteous acts of poor beings like us?
In what way will our sincerity and obedience do them any good? In what way do you and I consider our humble selves benefactors of the guides of the Ummah, from an ordinary faqih to the great Prophet (S) and God Almighty? All of them have in their own right fulfilled their function of guiding us and showing the right path, for which we are indebted to them and even a fraction of it we cannot pay back in this world.