To someone who felt devotion to figures of various religions without being interested in following those religions, and wondered if this was a valid approach.
The saints and masters are much greater than any religion–which by its nature is small and confining. Foolish people become devoted to a religion and substitute it for God. The wise love and honor the great ones themselves. Religions claim to be intermediaries between those great ones, but they are not. They are too small. As one who is essentially the divine Self you can directly communicate with the truly holy of any religion.
Anandamayi Ma used to tell this parable regarding sectarians and real devotees:
There once was a magnificent lotus blooming in a river. Beneath the lotus leaf was a large ugly fish that claimed it as his own, even though he had never seen the lotus flower itself, but just the dull underside of the leaf. He told all other fish who came near, “This is my lotus!” And he chased them away. But there was a little bee who daily came to the lotus and played among its petals, drank its nectar and even slept in it when it was tired. And the big fish never knew anything about it.
Be a bee.