God is not to be reached by the weak. Never be weak. You must be strong; you have infinite strength within you. How else will you conquer anything? How else will you come to God? At the same time you must avoid excessive merriment, Uddharsha, as it is called. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other. Let the mind be cheerful, but calm. Never let it run into excesses, because every excess will be followed by a reaction.
These, according to Ramanuja, are the preparations for Bhakti.
- Swami Vivekananda
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga/The Preparation
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