Question: If we are trying to go beyond the mind, is it only possible with Grace or is there something we can do?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to know that Grace is something we can never understand and will never understand unless and until we have realised God. Personal effort is also God's Grace. I have told you many, many stories about how seekers think it is all personal effort and later come to realise that it was all God's Grace. As long as we are not aware of God's Grace, His constant Grace, we have to use our personal effort as our own creation, own achievement. The best thing is to feel personal effort as our own achievement and then try to go one step higher or deeper. But if we don't accept it at the very beginning, if we don't make the effort, then we will not enter into any activities at all.

God has been crying for us as individuals to come out of the sea of ignorance. I wish to tell you that God's Grace is responsible for everything, but before we can feel it, it is always advisable to have conscious personal effort. If we don't consciously make a personal effort, then we will never be able to know what God's Grace is. Again, what conscious, personal effort is, we shall know only after we have realised the highest Truth. At that time we shall see that personal effort is nothing but God's hidden Grace. God's hidden Grace is our personal effort.