Devotion

The other day I was asked to write a blog about devotion. It inspired yesterday’s blog entitled ‘tradition.’ At first glance, the connection between the two may seem minimal or at the very least abstract, but is it really?

What are you devoted to? And why? You may be devoted due to nothing more than tradition. Perhaps you were raised to be a particular religion, and that is good enough for you. You could be devoted to many things for that same reason.

For example devotion to God, country, spouse, friends, and in fact anything, can be explored in this manner. For example, do you pick your friends? or do they pick you? Where then, does devotion really come from? What is it, really?

Tradition offers a construct, a framework, that supports life assuming your relationship with it is healthy. This was addressed in yesterday’s blog. Tradition then directs the focus of at least superficial devotion. However, true devotion, of course, comes from a deeper place within the heart of your being. It cannot be dictated. It blossoms from within. It may have been discovered through tradition, but it cannot be dictated by it.

Inner turmoil results when your superficial devotions do not conform to your deeper truths. Integration of life emerges when you live wisely within the world of tradition, all the while staying true to your inner self, your inner devotions.

It is an integration of heart and mind, depth and surface. When that is lived, tradition rises up to support your inner being, your evolution. When it is not lived, your inner being becomes buried beneath the rubble of a no longer applicable tradition. This is a time as confusing as it is delicate. Tradition is to be honored. It serves to uphold you. However, times change, people change, your relationship with all things change. Integration does not mandate passivity, or abandonment of self. The only constant is the quiet depth of the ocean of your being. True devotion begins and ends with devotion to that. All else changes.

These words could easily be manipulated to justify many inappropriate things. They are not to be taken lightly or as an invitation to turn you back on current commitments and traditions.

It is an invitation – no, it is an appeal – to look within and structure your life in devotion to the abstract, ungraspable truth that dwells there. It is felt. It is not logically derived.

Yet to be lived, it must be embraced in a reasonable manner. All else in life must be navigated wisely and honorably, but navigated in the name of the highest truth, which is the divinity that dwells within you, eternally untouched by any rules, codes, laws, or traditions.

It must also be navigated in honor of the fine fabric out of which the exquisite texture of life and tradition is made.