Rosemary and I don't usually use the word "devotion", so whatever this person means may be a little different to what I am going to explain here and they can talk to us in the interviews about it. The faith that we want here is a confidence type faith. We have faith in the Buddha/Dhamma/Sangha because we have already tested the practice, and seen for ourselves that we benefit. So that gives us confidence to continue. We have faith that if we continue, more benefit will come.
It is very simple in one sense for many of you, who have had a hundred interviews with me and Rosemary already, others of you have had only three, some six, more and so on. When you come to us in the interview, you ask us questions, you want to learn things and we give you answers. The answers were obviously good enough for you to come back for more. When you come to the interviews now with us, do you expect more? Yes. Most of you expect Steve and Rosemary will give you something more, because you have already gotten some good answers before. In that way you are walking into the interviews with a faith that you are going to get some benefit from that time. You have confidence in that way.
Now as to the word "devotion", that can be done in a lot of different ways, and it can be very blind. We are devoted to a person, we will help them regarding anything. The devotion of people to Jim Jones meant nine hundred people died needlessly. That was all wrong. That sort of devotion based blindly is not going to be of any benefit at all. It could lead to much harm. I won't say devotion is not of benefit at all, what I mean is it is unbeneficial if we are following someone who doesn't deserve our devotion. But if we are devoted to somebody who actually has helped us, who has proven that they are worthy, then that is not going to be a bad devotion. Because we have already tested them.
As long as they continue to prove that their level of wisdom, compassion and generosity are so high, as long as we see that they are giving us something, then yes, it is ok to be devoted in a sense that we want to help them, we want to give something to them, because of what they have given to us. That sort of devotion is based on a faith, which is based on testing and getting positive results. That sort of devotion would be all right.