There are things that we’ll do for as long as we live because they suit our nature. Every day, for example, I take some time aside from my work to look off into the distance and fall softly into woolgathering. It’s not something I plan, but it’s a regular practice nonetheless.
Devotion is something else. It’s a choice to commit to something that we don’t need to be attached to, a dedication to begin a new behavioral practice, or form a new relationship, and maintain our alignment with it. Devotion is the feeling that brings us to alter our essential nature in order to bring something new into the core of our identity, to define ourselves according to that thing, to shape our lives in loyalty to it, to make it the foundation of our being.
Devotion is not, however, always in alignment with truth. Sometimes, we devote ourselves to a person or cause, even though it isn’t authentic to us, because we want to believe that we could become truly devoted over time. Other times, our devotion is true, but the subject of our devotion is not.
We live in a world of rapidly increasing complexity, and we are often called to form networks of competing devotions, allying ourselves with multiple ideals at once, even though they involve obligations that are incompatible with each other. True devotion aligns itself with a single, central commitment above all others. True devotion, however, is rare, and subject to constant challenge.
