Believers in any faith can find unconditional happiness, peace, and joy in devotion to the God that they worship. The closer your relationship to God, the happier you will be. Practicing devotion helps you let go of your internal barriers to experiencing that closeness. Attachment to your self-centered desires creates those barriers. Devotion helps you turn your attention away from egoic obsessions and toward the loving presence of God.
Believers and nonbelievers alike, can find unconditional happiness by loosening their attachment to selfish interests. For believers, devotion to God provides a means of doing this. As your love for and devotion to God grows, your focus on your own self diminishes.
Higher Power
This chapter looks at devotion to “God.” When I speak of God, I am speaking of a “Higher Power.” A Higher Power is any creator, divine being, creative intelligence, or spirit that one may worship. A Higher Power may be central to a particular religion, or not attached to any religion. [163]
I use the word “God” because it is awkward to keep referring to a Higher Power. Just know that “God” also means any Higher Power, however a person may conceive of that power. I am trying to be as inclusive as possible.
The acceptance of the existence of a Higher Power is nearly universal among all people and throughout time. There is no agreement about what that Power is, or what its nature might be, but most of us seem to have felt its presence and believed in its existence.[164]
Looking for Strength Beyond Yourself
Previous chapters have stressed that we cannot look to the world around us, and our ideas about that world, to find lasting happiness. Our minds, which work with reason and the ways of the material world, are not up to the task of delivering lasting happiness to us. We need the help of something beyond the mind. We need to look beyond the world of cause and effect with which we are familiar. Believers can find in God the strength to go beyond the limitations of the mind and the material world. Through devotion, they can find lasting happiness.
Devotion
To come closer to God, Jesus said that you should devote yourself to Him with all of your heart, mind, and soul. This is a no-excuses message of devotion. The message of Jesus seems appropriate for any devotional practice. This kind of devotion is accessible to all believers but is extremely hard to realize. It is accessible because it is easy to understand. All you need to understand is that you should devote your entire being to God. It is hard because you have to be “all in.” To do that, you have to give up your attachments to your self-centered desires.
As we learned in Chapter 3, letting go of attachments to our self-centered desires is difficult. The mind may see any attempt at letting go as a threat to its very existence. The fear of letting go can present a seemingly solid wall between us and God. In effect, if we focus our attention on ourselves and our needs, we place ourselves ahead of God.
Even if our own needs and desires are synonymous with His plan for us, it is our single-minded obsession with ourselves that creates the barrier between humankind and God.
The practice of love and complete devotion to God can enable you to move through the wall that the mind has created. The thought of God is something very clear on which you can focus your attention, so you know where you are going.
Devotion, Not Bargaining
Religion today, as commonly practiced, is sometimes more about bargaining than devotion. It seems that there is a lot of attention given to chalking up points by doing good works in order to secure a pleasant place in the next world or lifetime.
Devotion is not bargaining. One practices devotion selflessly. If we rid our hearts of selfish motives, and we devote heart, mind, and soul to God, then anything we do will be devotional.
Nonattachment as a Key to Devotion
In large part, the message of devotion focuses on giving up attachments to selfish needs and desires. If you focus exclusively on yourself, your problems, and your desires, you will have little or no attention left over for God.
You can search the world over for something that will make you happy, but what happens in this world cannot bring you lasting happiness. True devotion to God, on the other hand, can allow you to experience the happiness that is already there.
It is very hard to let go of our day-to-day concerns, as the mind, focused mostly on itself, is incredibly demanding. It does not give up easily on its mission, which is to keep us fed, clothed, alive, and special. To let go of our concerns and devote ourselves to God takes a lot of faith and trust.
Charity
Charity is, in many ways, the twin of nonattachment. If we love ourselves, our possessions, and our lives above all else, it is hard to part with any of it, even if there is someone in need. On the other hand, a person who is not attached to what he or she has (be it possessions or reputation), is always willing to give freely of their time, energy, and goods to those in need.
As seen in Chapter 13, acts performed in the name of charity are not charitable unless they are selfless. A truly charitable person will always perform charitable acts. A selfish person, on the other hand, will always act selfishly, even while performing acts that appear to be charitable.
Love
A devotional relationship with God is also a loving relationship. Of course, this love is not limited to God. The Dalai Lama says:
…the main message of the Gospels is love for our fellow human beings, and the reason we should develop this is that we love God. I understand this in the sense of having infinite love.[165]
Humility
To be truly devoted, we have to be humble. As discussed in Chapter 3, as you turn your attention to the Source of happiness (which may be God), you turn your attention away from yourself and your self-centered desires. In religious and spiritual terms, this is the practice of humility. As a devoted person, your focus should be on God and away from yourself. Nowhere is this truer than in prayer.
Bringing True Humility to Prayer
Prayer plays a central role in devotion. I believe that its purpose is to move us closer in awareness to God. If you practice sincere prayer, focused only on God, with no thought of yourself and your needs, then you can truly quiet your mind and begin to hear God speaking to you.
Prayer should not be petitionary — asking for what we want or need. Jesus said, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” [166] Not only does God already know what we need and want, but if we make ourselves and our needs the focus of prayer, how can we hear when God answers us? That is, if our attention is on ourselves while we pray, we are drawing our attention away from God. In doing so, we deny ourselves communion with God.
Do not make prayer be about yourself or what you need, for that is self-defeating. Approach prayer with humility. Ideally, your humility should be so complete that it is as if you are not even there. Take a look at the guidance on meditation, in Chapter 9. It does not speak in terms of humility, but about letting go of all thoughts as they come up and maintaining your focus on your object of meditation. Essentially, this is the way you practice humility. As thoughts of yourself come up, just let them go and keep your focus on God.
Humility Is Not Self Abasement
Humility does not mean we approach life or prayer with the thought that we are of little value, because that would be focusing on ourselves, and taking pride in our imagined humility. It is not by abasing ourselves or in acetic practices that we achieve humility. Instead, it is by not thinking of ourselves at all. It is by letting go of our incessant focus on ourselves.
Focusing on oneself as a humble person is obviously just another way of shining the spotlight back on oneself. In a sense, it is a way of exalting ourselves in our own eyes. Some go so far as to make a fetish of being humble. Their thoughts are, boringly, on nothing but their virtue and humility, and they exalt themselves over others who seem not sufficiently humble. This way of being is nothing but self-flattery, which draws a person farther and farther away from God.
If you have focused all of your attention on God, and away from yourself, then you are approaching life and prayer with true humility. As you remove your attention and awareness from yourself and your concerns, it will naturally move toward God. Anyone can practice this kind of humility, no matter how high or low he or she is held in the esteem of society. If you turn your thoughts toward God, this is true humility.
Acceptance
Acceptance of the way things are is a major key to unconditional happiness. The devotional path to acceptance and the elimination of self-centered desire is beautifully illustrated by the well-known “Serenity Prayer,” already referenced in Chapter 11. Here it is in its entirety.
God, give me the grace to accept with serenity
The things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
And the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other..
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardships as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
You Do Not Have to Take a Vow of Poverty
It might appear that a devotional practice would call for the kind of spiritual fervor that denies everything except God. We see this kind of spiritual practice in India, where it is common to see monks who have renounced everything in the world. They give up everything except a simple robe, some sandals, and a bowl for rice. They beg for their daily rice and devote themselves to meditation. There are also Christian orders whose members take severe vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Is this level of denial necessary to follow the path of devotion? Must one take a vow of poverty to have any hope of completing such a path, and finding closeness with God?
Spiritual aspirants can live normally, have relationships with other people, get an education, raise a family, and do all of the things that people have always done. As with those who practice the way of the Tao, of yoga, or Buddhism, there is no need to live in a cave in order to follow the path of devotion.
Instead, if you keep your heart in God, while your head is in the world, you will move closer to God every day.
Prayer/Meditation
The guidance on meditation, in Chapter 9, applies equally to prayer. I will not repeat this guidance here. I do want to emphasize, however, that your prayer (or meditation) should be regular. You should devote a special part of every day to prayer.
Your prayer should not be the thirty-second “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” kind of prayer. It should be a commitment of real time. This kind of prayer may not be something most religious people are accustomed to, but as with any spiritual endeavor, it is prayer and meditation that awaken one spiritually.
You may eventually work your way up to 40 minutes per day, which is the typical meditation period for devotees in yoga and Buddhism.
If you are going to commune with God for 30 to 40 minutes, then heed the advice in Chapter 9 on meditation postures. For example, if you want to kneel, use a kneeling chair so that you can maintain your body in balance. Remember, the posture itself does not matter. Do whatever works to keep yourself still and in balance for long periods.
I doubt that you need to worry about the classic kneeling posture you adopt in church. This is fine for two to three minutes, but it probably won’t work for long periods.
During your prayer, welcome God in with all of your heart, soul, and mind. Let God be your sole focus of meditation. Do that to the exclusion of all else. It is impossible to go through the rest of your day with attention focused on God, but during this time, you can.
You may say, but I have problems, and I need God’s help! It is true that you have problems, but Jesus says God already knows all about them, just as He knows every solution and doesn’t need your suggestions. So, you do not need to think about your problem and you do not need to ask for help.
Again, you may object, I cannot just forget about everything. What about my child who is sick, my husband who has lost his job, or the algebra test that I just flunked? What about all of that?
Just let these worries go during your periods of prayer or meditation. When you finish, they will be right there, exactly where you left them. Throughout prayer or meditation, just focus on God, and let everything else go.
Closer to God Every Day
With each day that passes, you will get closer to God. You will bring love and wisdom into your life. You will begin to feel God’s presence as you turn your attention more and more away from yourself and toward God. As you practice devotion, you will bring down the walls that seem to separate you from God’s presence.