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Personal Effort Needed in Spiritual Practice and the Action of the Divine Force · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The spiritual seeker starts out from the standpoint of the human
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  individual, the ego consciousness.
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  The process of spiritual development involves A
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  systematic shift of the standpoint to the divine
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  standpoint. This process does not occur
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  overnight and does not proceed automatically, but requires some
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  effort on the part of the individual.
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  Without this effort, the human nature remains essentially
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  unchanged, locked into the ego personality and unable to fully
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  integrate the higher powers of consciousness.
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  In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo devotes several
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  chapters to this process, the steps along the way and the
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  needed personal effort, both in terms of what it needs to be and
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  the rationale for such effort. Quote The personal effort
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  required is a triple labor of aspiration, rejection and
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  surrender. In proportion as the surrender
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  and self consecration progress, the sodic becomes conscious of
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  the divine Shakti doing the Sadhna, pouring into him more
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  and more of Herself, founding in him the freedom and perfection
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  of the divine nature. The more this conscious process
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  replaces his own effort, the more rapid and true becomes his
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  progress. But it cannot completely replace
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  the necessity of personal effort until the surrender and
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  consecration are pure and complete from top to bottom.
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  Note that a Temasek surrender, refusing to fulfill the
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  conditions and calling on God to do everything and save one all
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  the trouble and struggle is a deception and does not lead to
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  freedom and perfection. He goes on in this same text to
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  outline the nature and detailed steps of the aspiration, the
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  rejection and the surrender. It becomes quickly obvious that
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  as long as one still is based in the ego, there is a need to tune
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  the aspiration to the higher powers, to remove the
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  obstructions and static in the reception of the higher forces
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  into one's being and to then allow those forces to act to
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  transform the mental, vital and physical aspects of the being.
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  Sriorabinda writes quote. It is not possible to get rid of
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  the stress on personal effort at once and not always desirable,
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  for personal effort is better than temasek inertia.
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  The personal effort has to be transformed progressively into a
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  movement of the divine force. If you feel conscious of the
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  divine force, then call it in more and more to govern your
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  effort, to take it up, to transform it into something not
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  yours but the Mother's. There will be a sort of
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  transfer, a taking up of the forces at work in the personal
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  Attar, a transfer not suddenly complete but progressive.
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  But the psychic poise is necessary, the discrimination
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  must develop which sees accurately what is the divine
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  force, what is the element of personal effort, and what is
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  brought in as a mixture from the lower cosmic forces.
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  And until the transfer is complete, which always takes
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  time, there must always be as a personal contribution, a
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  constant consent to the true Force, a constant rejection of
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  any lower mixture. At present, to give up personal
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  effort is not what is wanted, but to call in more and more of
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  the Divine Power and govern and guide it the personal endeavour.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo, Basis
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  of Yoga, Chapter 2. Faith, Aspiration Surrender,
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  pages 28 to 29.