A DEVOTEE, who is born with an element of Vishnu, cannot altogether get rid of bhakti.
Once I fell into the clutches of a Jnani, who made me listen to Vedanta for eleven months. But he could not altogether destroy the seed of bhakti in me. No matter where my mind wandered, it would come back to the Divine Mother. Whenever I sang to Her, Nangta23 would weep and "say, 'Ah! What is this?' You see, he was such a great Jnani and still he wept. Remember the popular saying that if a man drinks the juice of the alekh creeper, a plant grows inside his stomach.
Once the seed of Bhakti is sown, the effect is inevitable: it will gradually grow into a tree with flowers and fruits.
You may reason and argue a thousand times, but if you have the seed of bhakti within you, you will surely come back to Hari. (88)
23 The Master here speaks of Totapuri, the monk who initiated him into the practice of non-dual Vedanta, Him Sri Ramakrishna always refers too as "Nangta”, or the "naked one”.