by Swami Vivekananda

1. Bhakti-Yoga is a real, genuine search after the Lord, a search beginning, continuing and ending in Love. One single moment of the madness of extreme love to God brings us eternal freedom.
2. Bhakti is intense love to God. When a man gets it he loves all, hates none; he becomes satisfied forever. This love cannot be reduced to any earthly benefit because so long as worldly desires last that kind of love does not come.
3. Bhakti is greater than Karma, greater than Yoga, because these are intended for an object in view, while Bhakti is its own fruition, its own means and its own end.
4. The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and the most natural way to reach the great divine end in view; its great disadvantage is that in its lower forms it often times degenerates into hideous fanaticism. The fanatical crew in Hinduism, Mohammedanism, or Christianity, have always been exclusively recruited from these worshipers on the lower planes of Bhakti.
5. That singleness of attachment of a loved object, without which no genuine love can grow, is very often also the cause of the denunciation of everything else. All the weak and the undeveloped minds in every religion or country have only one way of loving their own ideal, i.e. by hating every other ideal. Herein is the explanation of why the same man who is so lovingly attached to his own ideal of God, so devoted to his own ideal of religion, becomes a howling fanatic as soon as he sees or hears anything of any other ideal.
6. In every mind, it is conditioned by its own peculiar wants. To men, therefore, who never rise higher than eating, drinking, begetting progeny, and dying, the only gain is in sense-enjoyments; and they must wait and go through many more births and reincarnations to learn to feel even the faintest necessity for anything higher. But those to whom the eternal interests of the soul are of much higher value than the fleeting interests of this mundane life, to whom the gratification of the senses is but like the thoughtless play of the baby, to them, God and the love of God form the highest and the only utility of human existence.
7. There is Bhakti within you, only a veil of lust and wealth covers it, and as soon as that is removed Bhakti will manifest by itself.
8. One way for attaining Bhakti is by repeating the name of God a number of times. Mantras have effect -- the mere repetition of words. To obtain Bhakti, seek the company of holy men who have Bhakti and read books like the Gita and the Imitation of Christ; always think of the attributes of God.
9. But theorizing about God will not do; we must love and work. Give up the world and all worldly things, especially while the "plant" is tender. Day and night think of nothing else as far as possible. The daily necessary thoughts can be thought through God. Eat to Him, drink to Him, sleep to Him, see Him in all. Talk of God to others; this is most beneficial.
10. Get the mercy of God and of His highest children; these are the two chief ways to God. The company of these children of Light is very hard to get; five minutes in their company will change a whole life, and if you really want it enough, one will come to you. The presence of those who love God makes a place holy, "such is the glory of the children of the Lord". They are He, and when they speak, their words are Scriptures. The place where they have been becomes filled with their vibrations, and those going there feel them, and have a tendency to become holy also.
11. Bhakti-Yoga does not say "give up;" it only says "Love; love the Highest;" and everything low naturally falls off from him, the object of whose love is this Highest.