#devotion

She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when well sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be improper. Shirley was judged. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#empathy #expectations #expression #faithfulness #feeling

Every organized religion holds that certain behaviors, rituals, personalities, places, and/or books are sacred. These organized teachings are proper in their own place, but they are mere options for the one infused with devotion. To such a one, God is direct and spontaneous, providing him with an immediate source of guidance and direction. His relationship with God is not mediated through anyone or anything. (104) ↗

— Prem Prakash

#devotion #god #personality #religion #rituals

The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and most natural way to reach the great divine end in view; it's great disadvantage is that in its lower forms it oftentimes degenerates into hideous fanaticism. The fanatical crew in Hinduism, Mohammedanism, or Christianity, have always been almost exclusively recruited from these worshippers [sic] on the lower planes of Bhakti. That singleness of attachment (Nishthâ) to a loved object, without which no genuine love can grow, is very often also the cause of the denunciation of everything else. All the weak and undeveloped minds in every religion or country have only one way of loving their own ideal, i.e., by hating every other ideal. Herein is the explanation of why the same man who is so lovingly attached to his own ideal of God, so devoted to his own ideal of religion, becomes a howling fanatic as soon as he sees or hears anything of any other ideal. ↗

— Swami Vivekananda

#devotion #fanaticism #hate #love #love

I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#study #theology #theology

A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not. ↗

— Jane Austen

#devotion

Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else. ↗

— Charles H. Spurgeon

#devotion

That's my sweetheart in there. Wherever she is, that's where my home is. ↗

— Nicholas Sparks

#devotion

Why is it that when we talk to God we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic? ↗

— Lily Tomlin

#prayer #devotion

I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent devoted companionship of a dog that you can get from no other source. ↗

— Doris Day

#devotion

I belong to you. You could do anything you wanted with me and I would let you. You could ask anything of me and I'd break myself trying to make you happy. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#jace-s-letter-to-clary #devotion