Devotional Practice

I'm changing my mind about devotional practice. I'm seeing devotion through the lens of a provisional way of investigating the illusion of separation. Even rituals may be pointers to the illusion of separation. Nobody in my Sunday School class ever taught me that. I'm 70, and I'm just now learning this.

• Devotional practice can be a form of close attention to the present moment. In my experience, most people use it as a form of separation from what is being devoted to. I don't want to be separated from experience by a ritualistic practice.
• On one level, devotional practice is a form of separation from what is being devoted to. On another level, it can be a way of seeing that the separate is an illusion.
• Devotion can be a term applied to close attention to the present moment. That feeling of being raptured into the present moment is a form of devotion.
• Devotion is a label pasted onto flowing processes. It is a living experience.
• Devotional love can become possession. Devotional Reverence can become idolization. Devotional Attachment can masquerade as love. Devotion can become fanaticism. But they don’t have to.
• After all this, I feel like devotional practice is provisional. It is a way of seeing how the separate is an illusion and that we are ultimately connected.

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