The Love of Devotion Quotes

“A balanced inner calmness radiates from a peaceful centre. It neither craves others' approval nor rejects others' presence. It neither pulls towards nor pushes away. It has a reverent attitude towards life and all its inhabitants.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Don’t feel bad about feeling bad. Don’t be frightened of feeling afraid. Don’t be angry about getting angry. There is no need to give up when we are feeling depressed. Nor should we be dismayed at the grief which often accompanies the outgrowing of anything which needs outgrowing. We can be glad that our soul is speaking to us and pushing us onwards. We frequently need to persevere with a period of inner turmoil before the dust can settle and be swept out the door.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Dancing, at its best, is independence and intimacy in balance.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“When there is no tension between the inner beingness and that which is being expressed, there is grace.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“If we become aware that someone is sending thoughts of ill will in our direction, we do not argue with the apparent reality of malice. To do so would give it more substance. We remove the personal sense of ourself and the other person.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Life is energy and, as such, it belongs to all, reaches all, and blesses all.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“We do not engage in idle or intentional gossip which undermines someone else's integrity or which spreads the seeds of fear by talking unthinkingly about illness, disasters, and all the other fears which run rampant in the world.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Fear cannot capture us, criticism cannot harm us, and pride cannot make us fall.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Courage is the starting point of everything good. To love another is to automatically feed the fire of courage. We cannot be humiliated when we are fighting for someone or something we love. We will not give up when we are fighting for loved ones. As we evolve, our loved ones extend out from our family to include all of humanity. Courage and confidence will grow over the years with practice and self-awareness. We are never alone. God will help us. Such is the courage which gains respect from others. More importantly, we gain respect for ourselves.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“It is not possible to be seduced by the lure of ego-gratification or intimidated by the tyranny of imposters when we know that we are as the angels. We are loved beyond comprehension. So, we must claim our rightful inheritance and live with the confidence of protection.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“We are all One. The beauty in one person is shared by all. The life path of one individual blesses everyone. The expression of Life neither originates within a single human, belongs to that person, nor remains within the personal boundary. Life is energy and, as such, it belongs to all, reaches all, and blesses all.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“We may talk lightly but never carelessly. We keep at bay the flow of common, ignorant thought which runs its damaging course through the pathways of ordinary human conversation.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“One has to beckon the spiritual warrior inside oneself whenever it is deemed necessary for the task at hand. Courage is the fuel. Healing is the direction. Forgiveness is the balm. Love is the atmosphere Divine.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Food for the ego is poison for the soul.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Love is more than loving another person. We love the quality of love itself. We start to live in an energy field of love. Although this encompasses specific people, one who has learned to cultivate a loving presence loves regardless of the presence or absence of individual people. It is the love of being loving.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“To forgive oneself does not negate the need to undo mistakes. True forgiveness desires to make things right. Making things right is not equivalent to guilt. The need to undo mistakes cannot be replaced by guilt. In fact, being immobilised by guilt is an avoidance of fixing things up. It makes one powerless and gives one an excuse to remain passive and negligent. To continuously feel guilty over wrong doing is both ego-confirmatory and ineffective in correcting bad karma. Guilt is the initial spur to action. Then we act in order to correct both our thoughts and the karma, and we leave the guilt behind.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“We become the prayer we pray.
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― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“The commitment to forgive everyone, in all situations, without exception, including ourselves, is an intensely transformative commitment. The nature of forgiveness is such that it cannot be pretended or intellectualised. It is a practice which involves deep surrender to God and sincere humility. Surrender and humility are the two qualities which will advance our evolution most significantly. The practice of forgiveness brings quietness, stillness, peace, and happiness. If we want to be happy, we must be willing to let go of that which is most painful to us. The ego will put up a vicious fight, reminding us of how justified we are in holding onto all those things. The ego gets its life force from such resentments and so it is hardly going to co-operate with its own demise. However, with a sincere desire for happiness and peace, one finds the ability to let things go. The end result more than compensates for any temporary discomfort.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Intention is everything. Is there love in what a person says or is there underlying ill-will in their words? Intention will determine the destined outcome of any situation. The same kind words from one person can be a healing balm and from another, a sweet poison. The same harsh words from one person can be malice and from another, save a life. The intention behind the words, action, or thought is always what makes it weak or strong, effective or ineffective, healing or harmful.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“We are loved by the Divine, loved into existence. That, in itself, is enough to reassure each one of us of our inestimable worth.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“We find love by being loving.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“The country does what the city cannot. It quietens the mind and brings simplicity into one’s life. The city does what the country cannot. It enlivens the mind and brings culture into one’s life.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Of all the qualities that make for a happy, healthy life and a progressive spiritual path, forgiveness is one of the most basic and important. Genuine forgiveness is not a common attitude of heart. It requires too much honesty and too little ego for the average person. It is a deep and solitary process known to the individual and God. Its ramifications are highly beneficial and, sometimes, miraculous. To have an ongoing practice of forgiveness is to extend one’s health, beauty, and agelessness; ever increasing one’s ability to face life with freshness and energy as one grows in wisdom and loses the burden of resentment. If one learns to become aware of hidden resentments and releases them then one will glow with lightness all through the years. The passing of years will have minimal effect as it is the accumulation of hurt, not the passing of years, which ages people most rapidly.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Although we each believe our thoughts are specific and personal, our thoughts, fears, and desires are typical to all egos and commonly shared. In this way, it is relatively easy to read the thoughts of most humans with just a few subtle cues. Thoughts tend to run along the same worn tracks leading to the same worn conclusions. Combining this knowledge with an understanding of the types of thoughts that individuals at different levels of consciousness gravitate towards will, with experience, lead to becoming a most astute mind reader.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Life is naturally going to have ups and downs, comings and goings, pleasures and hardships, joy and pain. Let us be kind to ourselves, understanding that we are here to learn. And let us be kind to others, knowing that peace is the ultimate prize of life and nothing is worth more. Simply to side with peace is to disempower the ego's hold. In so doing, the natural, beautiful, and healing rhythms of life have a chance to start singing their sweet song in our listening ear.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Our spiritual heritage is brothers with linked arms, not brothers in armament.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“In many cases, under the guise of righteousness or entitlement or supposed care for another’s well-being, people will seek their own perceived victory. It may be driven by the desire for money, power-seeking, or jealousy. Silent but poisonous jealousy compares itself to another, comes out worse, and then seeks to undermine the other in order to make itself feel better about its own mistakes and shortcomings. Of course, in most people, all this is entirely unconscious and rarely acknowledged. They are ugly qualities and few will face and seek to eliminate them. What seems sweet to the ego is poison to the fulfilment of one’s soul and to true happiness. If people knew this, they would not be so tempted to betray that which is truly good for short-term gains which have the smell of sickness and duplicity.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Those in the habit of continuous prayer know that everything is an opportunity for communion with God and inner consciousness work.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Every thought and every deed is forever recorded in the invisible history of life and cannot help but come back to us in kind. In fact, that is how we evolve. We pay for our mistakes by suffering. We are rewarded for our progress through added happiness. It is not that God punishes or rewards us. It is the natural and inevitable working of life, the unavoidable consequences that will always return to us. We do not have to punish our so-called enemies. We do not have to punish ourselves for our own mistakes. Our own resulting suffering is enough punishment and will ensure our eventual progress. Self-healing is based on a willingness to understand our own vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and then to forgive them all. If we knew better, we would do better. There is an inbuilt innocence intrinsic to our nature as part of our human existence. It is the child within which causes us such problems and refuses to grow up. We acknowledge the truth about God’s child, the higher innate innocence of all beings.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“It is enough to be oneself, do what we can, like what we instinctively like, reach for what is within our grasp, and practice what is within our hearts. There are always many behind us and many before us. To look either way too much will only make us proud or hopeless. We are who we are. That is enough, and God asks nothing more.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion