If Vaishnavism is so popular and wide spread in India, the credit must go to Sri Ramanuja, who took advantage of the ecstatic outpouring of the south Indian mystics, the Alvars, and produced a highly logical philosophy of knowledge soaked in devotion as the easiest means of God-realization.
Always discriminate -- your body, your house, the people around, and the world are all unreal like a dream. Always think that this body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.
-Swami Vivekananda