Devotion, Worship, Loyalty

Bhagavan Das · Confusing Words Series · 13 pages

From Bhagavan Das's The Science of the Emotions, and one of the more finely graded analyses in this series. The primary distinction is between two paths rather than two feelings: true devotion is characteristic of the aspirant on the Path of Renunciation, pseudo-devotion is found on the other path, and worship is found on both. Devotion is separated from worship at the outset on the ground that, though at first sight it appears to make a tie between an inferior and a superior, that is not in fact what it does. Loyalty and fidelity are then placed as lesser grades of the same emotion, and Shelley is quoted on the devotion of the moth for the star.

The second half turns to the opposite of devotion and is the more original part. Irreverence, profanity and flippancy are analysed not as absence of feeling but as compounds: incipient fear together with a desire to belittle — the belittling done in order to remove the element that causes the fear, and so to gain for oneself the consciousness of increase set against the diminishment of the other. The closing pages give suggested reading, the list of other commonly confusing words, and separate further reading on devotion and on the emotions generally.

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