GRACE
Remembrance: Effort first. Then Grace makes it happen.
Remembering that ‘I am not this body’, ‘I am Atma’ etc will not happen at the time you need, e.g. during a conflict or when you react, or when you are down, etc. Arulaal thaan adhu varum. Without Grace it will not come. Grace is there, but you have to earn it. It is like a person who is in jail for a life sentence. He wants a pardon, and the pardon is there. But he has to work hard for it while in prison, that too for several years. For Mahaprabu also, he could not remember it by effort. It was by Grace alone. But only God knows how many janmas of all kinds of effort went in. You have to keep trying to remember, keep on trying and one fine day when you have given up, then Arul comes in the form of the Guru, coming down to work for you, to help you get the Grace. Then you have surrendered. Everything before is effort by the Ego. That effort is always short lived since ego has expectation, which always ends in frustration, so you will give up. (SC, thinking: how many techniques and attempts have failed!) Only after you surrender, the real work starts. All efforts before that are preparation.
The ego wants to be without ego! This is ego-effort. But one day that ego also will drop. That will only come with Grace.
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