Narrowness is not necessarily devotion, but often appears so.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
How can those claim to love the Creator who do not love what It has created? For God could never have become known had there been no manifestation. So those who do not find sufficient beauty to admire in God’s manifestation cannot pretend to love God. So, too, if someone limits their love to a single object, saying, ‘I only love this and there is nothing else I need’, surely they have not the right kind of love either. True love is limitless. Though it begins by being limited in such a way, yet it progresses and some day breaks out. …
Eastern people say, when someone loves another person intensely and does not care for anyone else, ‘There will be some mishap there some day’. There is always some breakdown, some danger waiting, some trouble in the future, when love is not allowed to flow freely and is limited. … If one tried to put the whole sea into a little jar, the sea would break it. The sea of love breaks its limited channel. To speak of the jealous God means that the unlimited force of love cannot allow its expression to be directed towards one limited object. That is why the love of God alone is the culmination of love, for love is as vast as God. Verily, love itself is God. … True love must have free flow; and to learn that free flow the teachers have taught us first to love from the limited, and thence to advance in love till we attain to the love of God, the Unlimited.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Chapter 9 – Love, Human and Divine )
The lovers of goodness love every little sign of goodness. They overlook the faults and fill up the gaps by pouring out love and supplying that which is lacking. This is real nobility of soul. Religion, prayer, and worship, are all intended to ennoble the soul, not to make it narrow, sectarian or bigoted. One cannot arrive at true nobility of spirit if one is not prepared to forgive the imperfections of human nature. For all people, whether worthy or unworthy, require forgiveness, and only in this way can one rise above the lack of harmony and beauty, until at last one arrives at the stage when one begins to reflect all that one has collected.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Narrowness is concentration of ego; devotion is concentration of heart. God is not the thought of humanity, and a strong voice or manner does not necessarily mean a strong will. That is to say, one may apply or employ external force yet the result may not be satisfactory. Being out of harmony with Nature, one cannot forever be successful. Devotees, losing their self in the Ideal, can never make this mistake.