Devotion versus science in terms of the development of consciousness? Devotion is defined as love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause (Oxford dictionary). This definition does not limit devotion to a religious context, but it does beg the question of what are we devoted to.
The Vedas and the Upanishads are the earliest East Indian tests that explain the source, course, goal, and nature of consciousness both human and universal. Ayurvedic science, medical and astrological, is derived from the Vedas. The Vedas also describe different levels or states of consciousness. They also explain the impediments to universal awareness, the factors which shape the ego and confine our awareness within it.
While Vedas and the Upanishads lay down a theoretical framework for such study, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras analyze and prescribe a practical methodology for achieving that objective. This methodology can be used to gain freedom from self boundaries, or Enlightenment. If we consider freedom from self boundaries to be a non-dual experience of the creation, one we do not exist as separate from, we find a level of consciousness that is connected, safe, and affirming. The feeling associated with this unified non-dual consciousness is Love.
We must gain experience through practice in order to learn anything. No matter how much we have studied and learned, mastery comes through the application of knowledge - it is the way we become the teaching.
Many of us become devoted to a God, a religion, or a philosophy without establishing a methodology to gain the experience of it. It is why I sometimes say that the practice of a meditation technique is more important than the worship of the goal. Practice allows you to become while worship demands that you remain separate.
So, if you are devoted to living in Love, or as One with the Divine, make sure that you remain devoted, not to the goal, but to the path to get you there. Make sure that you find a teacher that can help you move beyond your sense of self through a practice and an understanding. They will show you how science and devotion partner to bring you to the Divine.
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