The importance of Bhakti as explained by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
It doesn't matter what kind of action you are engaged in.
You can be united with God through any action provided that, performing it, you
give up all desire for its result.
You don't want anything of God but still you love Him. That
is pure bhakti, love of God with no motive behind it. Prahlada had it. He
sought neither kingdom nor riches; he sought Hari alone.
A man may be united with God either through action or
through inwardness of thought, but he can know everything through bhakti.
Through bhakti one spontaneously experiences kumbhaka. The nerve currents and
breathing calm down when the mind is concentrated. Again, the mind is
concentrated when the nerve currents and breathing calm down. Then the buddhi,
the discriminating power, becomes steady. The man who achieves this state is
not himself aware of it.
One can attain everything through bhakti yoga. I wept before
the Mother and prayed, 'O Mother, please tell me, please reveal to me, what the
yogis have realized through yoga and the jnanis through discrimination.' And
the Mother has revealed everything to me. She reveals everything if the devotee
cries to Her with a yearning heart. She has shown me everything that is in the
Vedas, the Vedānta, the Puranas, and the Tantra.