Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
There are many different feelings which have an influence upon us, and which give a feeling of joy, of exaltation, but there is no sentiment greater or more effective than the feeling of bringing one’s faults and weaknesses before God to ask for His pardon. To become conscious of one’s shortcomings, to be sorry for them, to repent of them, and to ask His forgiveness in all humility, no ethics, no philosophy can give a greater joy than this. It is the sincere devotee of God who knows best what feeling it is to humble oneself before God. The proud one, ignorant of the greatness of God, of His all-sufficient power, does not know what is this exaltation that raises the soul from earth to heaven. To be really sorry for one’s errors is like opening the gates of heaven.
from https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/archives/prayer.htm
The customs existing in all parts of the world of bowing and bending and prostrating are all devoted to the one Being, who alone deserves it, and no one else. There is beauty in these customs. Man is the most egoistic being in creation. He keeps himself veiled from God, the perfect Self within, by the veil of his imperfect self, which has formed his false ego. But by the extreme humility with which he stands before God and bows and bends and prostrates himself before the almighty Being, he makes the highest point of his presumed being, the head, touch the earth where his feet are, and thus in time he washes off the black stains of his false ego, and the light of perfection gradually manifests. Only then does he stand face to face with his God, the idealized Deity, and when the ego is absolutely crushed, then God remains within and without, in both planes, and none exists save He.
