Switching emotions into bhakti or devtion, is not letting oneself carried away through emotions of any kind, because these bind oneself on a lower level; rather it would be better to chanelize them and take advantage of them, to jump off and fly to higher levels, through meditation. Whether ishtas, gods or gurus, all of them are nothing but just levels of consciousness. Guru is a word of two syllabeles Gu: means darkness, and Ru means light; so that which leads us from darkness towards the light or enlightment is called Guru, and usually it is the meditation on a mantra, which gives us those results. As said before, our individual soul, ishtas or gods, are just levels of consciousness. Levels, which can be lower or higher, it all depends on our own willing actions, how and what we do, whether conscioussly or unconscioussly. It is an universal law, each action has a reaction.
Some may object by saying, being motionless in the inner silence, or in deep meditaion is contrary to what is written above,but then that would be only on a physical level, because of course there is motion in the subtle spiritual realms, as long there is consciousness, there is motion, just like the difference between the waves of an ocean or waves (frecuency) of the radio or television. Existence by itself is motion. But just as some waves are pleasant, some are painful. Like for example, the waves that provoke tsunamis or earthquakes or the waves that bring coolness like a breeze. So it is our will that can take us to the lower levels or higher levels of consciousness. And it is only bhakti, which can take us in a shorter and a simpler way to the Highest.
