Bhakti bhakti yoga in combination with "karma yoga" and "jnana yoga", while the "Bhagavata Purana" expands on bhakti yoga, offering nine specific activities for the bhakti yogi. Bhakti in the "Bhagavad Gita" offered an alternative to two dominant practices of religion at the time: the isolation of the sannyasin and the practice of religious ritual. "Bhakti Yoga" is described by Swami Vivekananda as "the path of systematized devotion for the attainment of union with the Absolute". In various chapters, including the twelfth chapter of the "Bhagavad Gita", Krishna describes "bhakti yoga" as one of the paths to the highest spiritual attainments.
Bhakti movement concept of the Ultimate Reality as formless, without attributes or quality. "Saguna" Brahman, in contrast, was envisioned and developed as with form, attributes and quality. The two had parallels in the ancient pantheistic unmanifest and theistic manifest traditions, respectively, and traceable to Arjuna-Krishna dialogue in the Bhagavad Gita. It is the same Brahman, but viewed from two perspectives, one from "Nirguni" knowledge-focus and other from "Saguni" love-focus, united as Krishna in the Gita. "Nirguna" bhakta's poetry were "Jnana-shrayi", or had roots in knowledge. "Saguna" bhakta's poetry were "Prema-shrayi", or with roots in love. In Bhakti, the emphasis is reciprocal love