One can realize God through intense renunciation. But the soul must be restless for Him, as restless as one feels for a breath of air when one’s head is pressed under water.
A man can see God if he unites in himself the force of these
three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man,
the husband’s attraction for the chaste wife, and the child’s attraction for
its mother. If you can unite these three forms of love and give it all to God,
then you can see Him at once. ...
‘The other day I told you the meaning of bhakti. It is to
adore God with body, mind, and words. “With body” means to serve and worship
God with one’s hands, go to holy places with one’s feet, hear the chanting of
the name and glories of God with one’s ears, and behold the divine image with
one’s eyes. “With mind” means to contemplate and meditate on God constantly and
to remember and think of His lila. “With words” means to sing hymns to Him and
chant His name and glories.
‘Devotion as described by Narada is suited to the Kaliyuga.
It means to chant constantly the name and glories of God. Let those who have no
leisure worship God at least morning and evening by whole-heartedly chanting
His name and clapping their hands.’ (Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa)
Generally speaking, persons endowed with the capacity to
investigate the truth of things, lift themselves from the evils of instinctive
life by their own discriminative power. They need no teacher for this. While
even lower creatures are capable of looking after their own welfare to some
extent, human beings, endowed with intelligence and discrimination, can surely
be their own teacher, for they are capable of achieving the ultimate good
through observation and inference. The human being has one more possibility;
the wise ones among them can realize, hidden within oneself, Me, the infinite Being,
endowed with all powers, by becoming masters of the science and technique of
spirituality. — (Bhagavad Gita 11.7.19–21)