Vivekachudamani 14

adhikarinamasaste phalasiddhirvisesatah | 
upaya desakaladyah santya smin sahakarinah || 
(Sankaracarya's Vivekachudamani 14) 

 Ultimate success in spiritual endeavors depends chiefly upon the qualifications of the seeker. Auxiliary conveniences such as time and place all have a place indeed, but they are essentially secondary. 

The Lord is satisfied by the development of the transcendental qualities of the living entities and not by the artificial performance of sacrifices and mystic yoga. In other words, unless one is fully qualified to become a pure devotee of the Lord, one cannot expect to be liberated from material entanglement. 

The lives of Hanuman, the Alvars and Nayanars of southern India, Chaitanya, Vallabhacharya, Meera Bai, Kabir, Tulsi Das, Tukaram, Sri Ramakrishna are a few examples of perfect devotion. Their lives prove that with effort, faith, and discipline, man can transcend his own limitations and reach out to God through his own character, expressing his devotion through acts of self-negation and self-surrender and obliterating all mental and emotional barriers induced by his ego and his desire to perpetuate himself. In other religions like Christianity also, in the lives of exemplary people like Saint Therese of Lisieux, we see the true power of devotion and its healing, transforming and transcendental quality when it is wrought in the furnace of virtue and faith. 

True devotion is a straight and simple practice that ordinary people cannot practice without adequate effort and preparation. The Bhagavad Gita enumerates the various qualities of a true devotee in Chapter 12 and 18 which are reproduced below. The verses are self-explanatory and hence no explanatory note is provided. 

adveṣṭā sarva-bhūtānāṁ 
maitraḥ karuṇa eva ca 
nirmamo nirahaṅkāraḥ 
sama-duḥkha-sukhaḥ 

kṣamī santuṣṭaḥ satataṁ 
yogī yatātmā dṛḍha-niścayaḥ 
mayy arpita-mano-buddhir 
yo mad-bhaktaḥ sa me priyaḥ 
(Bhagavad Gita 12.13-14) 

One who is not envious but is a kind friend to all living entities, who does not think himself a proprietor and is free from false ego, who is equal in both happiness and distress, who is tolerant, always satisfied, self-controlled, and engaged in devotional service with determination, his mind and intelligence fixed on Me – such a devotee of Mine is very dear to Me