What is Bhakti!

Gita refers to Samkhya-Darshana in chapter 2.

Thereafter in the next chapters, Lord Sri-Krishna tells to Arjuna that He was teaching him the same ancient yoga that was first of all taught to Vivaswan (Sun) by Him. Vivaswan taught the same to Manu and then the same was known by the kings.

In long time, by and by, it was lost to the next generations and the same I am now teaching to you,  O Arjuna!

In the coming chapters He says the aspirants of Truth are of 2 kinds.

One of them tries to know the Truth / Reality, and in this attempt fixes his attention on what is permanent and what is transient.

Then he slowly comes upon the realization that all other than consciousness is transient and he fixes the mind in the quest :

What is this consciousness apropos me? 

He then understands that 'me' is only a thought (vritti) like all other thoughts that arise and go away, but nevertheless very strong and binds the other thoughts so as to seem as if 'me' is some-thing permanent and everlasting.

Maturity helps him and he begins to see that truly he is the only immutable "Self" and the same as Brahman.

This is not an experience, conclusion, memory or emotion,  sentiment or even a feeling. 

This is but Realization timeless. 

Kapila Muni is said to discover this Darshana.

In all there are 6 Darshana and it is not some  philosophy or a philosophical thought, but literally a kind of apperception of Reality,  which may happen through the ways of Samkhya-Darshana, Mimansa, Nyaya, Yoga, Vaisheshika, Vedanta.

These six Darshana are the ways through which one can come face to face to Reality. 

This is not a method, and there is no "how" or a logic that could help. What matters is only the earnestness, sincerity, and maturity of mind when one has diligently meditated upon the point : what is that which is for ever and what is that which appears and disappears repeatedly.

Arjuna however couldn't be convinced by this Samkhya-Darshana of Kapila. 

So Lord Sri-Krishna told him :

लोकेऽस्मिन द्विविधानिष्ठा पुरा प्रोक्ता मयानघ। 

ज्ञानयोगेन साङ्ख्यानां कर्मयोगेन योगिनाम्  ।। 3

(chapter 3)

This way there are only two options if one has to know the Reality.

One is of Kapila, where ego itself tries to find out its nature and is ultimately exhausted in this very process.

There is another, where the ego is finally well  convinced that there is a Supreme Lord of the existence and surrenders / submits to Him unconditionally and in the effect is annihilated for good. Then again only the Supreme Reality reigns and the spiritual quest had reached its culmination. 

Bhakti is an intermediate state of being when one gradually weakens the ego and ultimately one is free from it. One can say this is liberation, end of the cycle of repeated births and deaths.

Bhakti or Bhakti-yoga is thus a karma / action, or the wisdom (jnAna).

This way Bhakti too is a Darshana (attitude), yet quite different than the six narrated above.

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