Bhakti: pure, devotional, loving service to God.
The great medieval theologian, Rupa Goswami, defined bhakti as pure, devotional, loving service to God that is free from any selfish desire, including impersonal moksha – the merging of the soul with Brahman – and desires for personal profit, in this life or the next. Such love for God, he wrote, frees one from all suffering, bestows good fortune, and fills the heart with an inexplicable joy. It is rarely attained, and is so powerfully attractive that it even attracts God Himself.
His nephew, Jiva, continued his work by writing books on the theology and practise of bhakti. In one book he writes of eleven essential practises of Bhakti. I reproduce it here with the addition of a few notes of explanation.