1) What is bhakti? There are a variety of definitions in Scriptures. "To relish the ras/bliss of God."

2) Cows graze first and then cud. Likewise, God can be relished. He is an ocean of bliss.

3) To experience god is devotion. Our bliss is directly proportional to the amount of love we have for God. The more our love/bhakti, the more our bliss. This process is endless.

4) A true devotee will never accept defeat. He will continue to love God endlessly, in the process gaining more and more bliss. Likewise, the God never tires of offering more and more bliss to his true devotees. The God, too, will never accept defeat.

5) Another definition of bhakti is that it is something that destroys ignorance.

5) Yet another definition is "bhavo bhakti"; to understand that we are all parts of God is bhakti.

5a) For example, a tree has various parts: roots, branches, leaves, trunk, etc. Each part has its own role, and serves the whole (tree). Lack of even one part makes the tree incomplete. If a part doesn't do its assigned role properly, the tree withers.

6) Likewise, we are all parts of God. We all have our roles to play. We've to serve God to get His grace and bliss. Bhakti helps us to ensure that all our thoughts begin to flow toward god.

7) By doing sadhana, our heart melts and flows toward God.

8) Bhakti is meditation imbued with love for God.

9) The word bhakti is derived from the Sanskrit word bhaj, which means serve/service. Bhakti means to serve God or to be in the service of God. Lord wants our love. That is all He is asking of us.

10) Once, Sanatan asked Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, "Who am I? Why am I suffering in this world?"

11) Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said: "All Scriptures emphasize only three things: 1) What is my relationship with God? 2) How will that relationship be established? 3) Upon establishment of such a relationship, what is the ultimate goal?"

12) To find answers to these all-important questions, we have to understand relationships, love, etc.

13) Wherever we love another person, we love for our own sake, for one's own happiness. Worldly relationships (father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife) are based on selfishness, and they are all temporary.

14) But relationship with God is permanent. God follows us lifetime after lifetime, in all of our lives, whereas the so-called family relationships merely last for one lifetime (say 75 years).

15) God is selfless. He doesn't want anything from us. He merely seeks love from us, nothing else, nothing material.

16) He just wants us to surrender so that He can give us all that He has.

17) We are all parts of God. But not in a physical way. Our souls are parts of the energy of God, like the sunrays. You cannot say sunray is part of Sun. Sunrays are part of the energy of Sun. Likewise, our souls are part of the energy of God.

18) God has three energies. The first two are Maya Shakti (material energy) which is inferior to other forms and Yog Maya (internal energy) which does contradictory things (like, for example, God is seated in our heart, but we can't see him). Yog Maya manifests in personal forms like Radha, Sita, Durga, Laxmi.

19) So which energy are we all parts of Maya Shakti or Yog Maya? Neither!

20) The third form of energy is Jeev Shakti; this is thatasth or borderline, like a river bank, which is partly land, partly water.

21) Once we establish a relationship with God, we get Prem: divine love.

22) Divine love is the essence of Yog Maya energy which comprises three parts: sat, chith, anand.

For example, butter is the essence of milk. And ghee (clarified butter) is the essence of butter. In other words ghee is the essence of essence of  milk.

Likewise, Yog Maya is the essence of God. And Prem is the essence of Yog Maya. Or, divine love is the essence of essence of God.

23) So God does not easily part with this essence of Himself; He does not grant bhakti so easily because once he grants bhakti, He becomes a slave of His bhakth.

God grants bhakti when He is certain that the devotee has become totally desireless.

24) Only one in millions gets that divine love. But anyone can aspire for it.

There is a process to attain divine love which is Supreme, above everything else, above even God Himself.

If you visualize a vertical flow-chart, at the very top would be Divine Love; under Divine Love would be God; under God: Liberation; and under Liberation: Gyaan.