See a gallery of 12 quotes on devotion.

  • The Sufis believe that every aspect of daily life has potential as a devotional practice. Every bodily movement has its source in the divine. Everything we do, everything seen or heard, tasted or touched, can be undertaken as a devotional practice. This level of devotion brings us into a new relationship with the ongoing creation as we realize that the entire universe is dependent upon the creative energy that vitalizes each and every moment.
    — David A. Cooper in Silence, Simplicity & Solitude
  • Devotion takes many forms: the solemnity and joy of prayer; the ecstasy of song, poetry, or art; the intimate connection between individuals in marriage, family, or community. It involves opening the heart fully to the presence of love and beauty, which brings a compassionate and reverent awareness of the Divine in all things. Through the lens of devotion, every aspect of creation is seen as purposeful, and hence received in gratitude.
    — LaVera C. Draisin quoted in Opening the Inner Gates edited by Edward Hoffman
  • The element of labor remains associated with the word 'avodah. A Hasidic master was asked about the young man who spent all his days in intense and heartfelt prayer. "Shouldn't he dosomething?" a visitor objected. "Surely he could do some work!" "But don't you see how hard he is working? replied the rebbe. "He's drilling a hole in his heart!"
    — Arthur Green in These Are the Words
  • Her garden is work because it is of devotion, undertaken with passion and conviction, because it absorbs her, because it is a task or unrelenting quest which cannot be satisfied.
    — Donald Hall in Life Work
  • Both piety and wisdom involve self-command, self-conquest, self-denial, strength of will, and firmness of purpose. But though these qualities are instrumental in the pursuit of piety, they are not its nature. It is the regard for the transcendent, the devotion to God, that constitute its essence.
    — Abraham J. Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity
  • An essential aspect of puja for Hindus is communion with the Divine.... Most often that contact is facilitated through an image: an element of nature, a sculpture, vessel, painting, or print. When the image is consecrated at the time of its installation in a shrine or temple, the deity is invited to invest the image with his or her cosmic energy. In the eyes of most devotees, the icon then becomes the deity, its presence reaffirmed by the daily rituals of honoring and invocation.
    — Stephen P. Huyler in Meeting God
  • So do devotions wholeheartedly, with a pure heart. By devotions, we mean chanting, making bows and prostrations, and presenting offerings. People often, particularly when they come to dokusan, prostrate mechanically. Some do it fast to get it over with so they can get on with the dokusan. They don't realize the true significance of these devotions. They aren't just formalities. They truly enrich and deepen our experience of the present moment.
    — Philip Kapleau quoted in Awakening to Zen by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Rafe Martin
  • Mysticism without devotion is like uncooked food, it can never be assimilated.
    — Hazrat Inayat Khan in The Inner Life
  • True devotion and commitment are never made with the mind. These qualities, which allow us to expand, to grow, and to bloom into our potential, are developed through the heart and the spirit.
    — Jamie Sams in Earth Medicine
  • For the person who is religiously or spiritually inclined, work even becomes a vehicle for devotion, a way of utilizing one's gifts and talents to serve others.
    — Marsha Sinetar in Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow
  • The analogy of the building of an interior temple, a temple of the heart, as a house for the Divine is a useful description of the work involved in creating the inner life, a living spiritual life.
    — Regina Sara Ryan in Praying Dangerously

More Quotes about Devotion