For Bahá’ís, the purpose of life is to know God and love God, and to progress spiritually.  Like most religions, prayer and meditation are primary tools for spiritual development.  Bahá'ís believe that prayer is conversation with God. Bahá’u’lláh says, “should a person recite but a single verse from the Holy Writings in a spirit of joy and radiance, this would be better for him than reciting wearily all the Scriptures of God.” He also said that brief and joyful prayer was better than long but wearying prayer.

Prayer is intended to help us get closer to God.  The highest form of prayer is to transform oneself for the better, to come closer to God, to give praise to God, and to prepare oneself for service to humanity.  Though both prayer and meditation are very important factors in deepening the spiritual life of the individual, with them must be accompanied by action and example, as these are the tangible results of the former that effect positive transformation.   In this sense He equates work as worship and service as prayers. 

Baha'u'llah has reduced all ritualistic forms of worship to an absolute minimum. The few forms that He has commanded are those associated with the daily Obligatory Prayers.   A Bahá'í faced with an issue would pray about it, meditate on what they should do, and then do it. Even if the action they take is wrong, they believe that God can use that action to help them discover what they should do. This reinforces the concept of the Bahá'í relationship with God as a dialogue.