What is Devotion?

— Sadhguru, Isha Foundation

Devotion is a beautiful thing but it can very easily become deception. If you are overwhelmed by something or someone, you naturally become devout, but if you try to practice devotion, it creates problems because the line is very thin between devotion and deception – it will lead you into so many kinds of hallucinations.

But if you just recognize one thing, you will naturally become a devotee: the cosmos is very large. You do not know where it begins or where it ends. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies. In this vast cosmos, this solar system is a tiny speck. If the solar system disappears tomorrow, it will not even be noticed in the cosmos. In this tiny speck of a solar system, planet earth is a micro speck. In this micro speck of a planet, the city you live in is a supermicro speck. In that, you are a big man! This is a serious problem of perspective. It is only because of this that there is no devotion in you.

If you cannot imagine the vastness, the Hubble telescope has brought in all kinds of fantastic pictures which are on the Internet. Just look at the pictures and see how endless it is. Or go out at night, switch off the lights and look at the sky. You don't know where it begins or where it ends, and here you are a micro-super-micro speck of dust, spinning on a planet, not knowing where you come from or where you will go. It will be very natural for you to be devout.

With all our science, we have not figured even a single atom in its entirety. We know things in bits and pieces, we know how to use them but we do not know what it is. If you realise this, if you observe everything, a leaf, a flower, an atom, a bird, an animal, an ant, you cannot understand one thing in its entirety. Then you will bow down to everything. Even an atom is beyond your grasp. That is the nature of creation. If you pay attention to the nature of creation, how can you not be a devotee?

Devotion does not mean you have to be a temple-going, pooja-doing, coconut-breaking person. A devotee has understood what his place in the existence is. If you have understood this and are conscious of it, you will walk as a devout person. There is no other way to be. It is a very intelligent way to exist.