Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga are not incompatibles like acid and alkali. The fruit of Bhakti Yoga is Jnana. Highest Love (Para Bhakti) and Jnana are one. Perfect knowledge is love.
Action, emotion and intelligence are the three horses that are linked to this body-chariot. They should work in perfect harmony or unison. Then only the chariot will run smoothly. There must be integral development. You must have the head of Sankara, the heart of Buddha and the hand of Janaka. Vedanta without devotion is quite dry. Jnana without Bhakti is not perfect.
(1) Jnana Yoga is like crossing a river by swimming. Bhakti Yoga is like crossing a river by a boat.
(2) The Jnani gets knowledge by self-reliance and assertion. The Bhakta gets Darshan of God by self-surrender.
(3) The Jnani asserts and expands. The Bhakta dedicates and consecrates himself to the Lord and contracts himself.
(4) A Bhakta wants to eat sugar-candy. A Jnani wants to become sugar-candy itself.
(5) A Bhakta is like a kitten that cries for help. A Jnani is like a baby-monkey that clings itself boldly to the mother.
(6) A Jnana Yogi exhibits Siddhis through will or Sat-Sankalpa. A Bhakta gets all the divine Aisvaryas through self-surrender and the consequent descent of Divine Grace.
In the Gita (IV-39) Lord Krishna clearly points out that Bhakti and Jnana are not incompatibles like oil and water. He says: “Sraddhavan labhate jnanam – The man who is full of faith obtaineth wisdom.”
“To this ever harmonious, worshipping in love, I give the Yoga of discrimination by which they come unto Me.” (X-10.)
“By devotion he knoweth Me in essence, who and what I am; having thus known Me in essence, he forthwith entereth into the Supreme.” (XVIII-55.)
A happy combination of head and heart is perfection.
Excerpts from “Practice of Bhakti Yoga” by Swami Sivananda