Philosophical Ramblings #12: What is Devotion?

March 17, 2026

A while ago I read the book Dynamics of Faith by Paul Tillich. The major aim of this book is to answer the question: What is faith? It proposes the answer: Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. I do not want to go into much more detail about what this means here; for that, I recommend the book.

But let’s say we accept this definition. Let’s say we have something in which we have faith, an ultimate lens through which we see reality, be it God, science, or something else.

One question that one can ask oneself is: what do we do with this information? That we have faith is, for now, just a descriptive fact, a description about me. But given this information, how should I act? How do I act upon faith?

One guiding principle that stands in close relation to faith is devotion, and maybe we can use this to guide parts of our actions. But what is devotion?

Here is one story I heard that showcases what devotion should not be:

For instance, years back, during the early courses I gave in India, a very old lady came from Burma to attend a course. She took the course very seriously. She practiced very seriously, understood the technique properly, worked properly, and got wonderful results.

When she went back home, for one year she continued to practice morning and evening. She continued to apply this technique in her daily life, and again she got many more benefits. After one year she came again to get more and more established in the technique, in Dhamma.

But she had an interview with me and told me that she had a fear in her mind.

“What fear?” I asked.

She said she comes from the Bhakti cult—the cult of devotion—and this is Gyan Marg, the path of wisdom. “Although this will take me to the final goal, I understand that,” she said, “but I fear that I don’t want to lose my devotion. My devotion must remain. I fear that by practicing this technique I will lose my devotion.”

I told her, “Oh no, don’t worry. Your devotion will become stronger.”

“Oh no, no, sir,” she said. “With this kind of technique there is no place for devotion.”

She would not understand. So I asked her, “All right. Do you really have faith in your God or your goddess? Do you really have confidence? Do you really have devotion?”

She replied, “Traditionally we are in this cult of devotion. We have so much devotion, so much faith, so much confidence in this God or that goddess.”

Then I questioned her: “Do you make promissory offerings?” Back in India it is very common to make promissory offerings. What is a promissory offering? Suppose somebody in the family is sick. The head of the family—the mother or father—will go to the temple, bow down to that god or goddess, and say: “Please cure my son or daughter. And when he or she is cured, I will offer you sweets—five rupees worth of sweets.”

I asked her, “Do you make such promissory offerings?”

“Oh certainly,” she said. “This is very common.”

“Then you don’t have faith in your God,” I told her. “You don’t have faith in your goddess. First you say: cure my son or daughter, and only then will I offer five rupees. You don’t even have five rupees worth of faith in your God or goddess. You won’t offer these sweets beforehand. First my son must be cured—then I will give.”

This is commercial devotion. You give first, then you take—give and take. There is no real devotion in this. Blind devotion does not help.

And this is what happens in the name of devotion: you are always expecting something. This God should do something for me. That goddess should do something for me. This enlightened person must do something for me. This saintly person may do something for me. Always expecting something.

Expecting something is not purity.

~ Goenka Dhamma Talk, Day 7

And another Story

God—we have so much devalued Him. This is what happens when devotion becomes blind devotion. You forget to draw inspiration from the qualities of the one you revere, and you forget to use that inspiration to develop those same qualities within yourself. When this happens, devotion becomes harmful.

Someone may say, “I am a great devotee of Jesus Christ.” Wonderful. Such a saintly person—a prince among saints. But whether someone is truly saintly or not is measured by a real yardstick: what kind of mind this person carries, especially at the time of death.

Consider the mind that Jesus carried. He was tortured to death—crucified. Even while being tortured, there was not a trace of anger, aversion, or hatred toward those who were torturing him. There was only love, only compassion.

“They do not know what they are doing,” he said. Ignorant people—may they not be punished for their bad deeds. They are so ignorant. Only love, only compassion. That is a truly saintly person.

Now if someone says, “I am a devotee of Jesus Christ,” but does not develop even a little love, compassion, and goodwill toward others, then that devotion is blind devotion.

Someone once came to me and said, “I am a devotee of Jesus Christ because I accept that he was the Son of God.”

So what if he was the Son of God? As if Christ needs a testimonial from you, and then he would be very happy—“Look, these people have given me so many testimonials that I am the Son of God.” What sort of understanding is that?

Are we mad? What are we doing?

Is there any doubt that he was the Son of God? After all, what is God? Truth is God. Love is God. Compassion is God. Purity is God. And here is a person who is a product of truth, love, compassion, goodwill, and purity. Of course he is the Son of God.

Those qualities are important. If we try to develop those very qualities within ourselves, then yes, we are good devotees of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, it becomes blind faith.

And blind devotion does not work.

~ Goenka Dhamma Talk, Day 7

So what, then, is devotion? We are truly devoted to some person or thing only if this person has some saintly qualities about them, for example, being very compassionate, full of love, or possessing great wisdom. But it is not enough to merely recognize that this person possesses these qualities; it must also inspire us to try to cultivate and develop these qualities within ourselves.

Imagine yourself far in the future becoming some sort of saintly figure, and now you have a large crowd of followers. What would you rather want them to do: be able to recite all your teachings by heart and proclaim all the facts about your upbringing and the good deeds you did, or would you rather have them develop the qualities that made you a saintly person?

For me, the choice is clearly the latter. What do I care about the facts they know about me, or the beliefs they hold about my life, if they do not develop the qualities that I valued so deeply and made the center of my life?

A person \(S\) has devotion to an object or subject \(C\) if and only if \(C\) has certain admirable qualities \(Q\), and \(S\) is inspired by these qualities \(Q\) and cultivates them within themselves.