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Spiritual Progress: Personal Effort or Surrender to the Divine Grace · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We see in the legends about great yogic practitioners and
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  their struggles to achieve the spiritual results a variety of
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  approaches. Two major approaches have been
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  categorized as the baby monkey and the baby cat approach.
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  The differentiation involves the way the individual participates
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  in the process of spiritual growth and transformation.
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  The baby monkey approach involves substantial personal
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  effort. It is so named as observation of
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  baby monkeys show that they have to hold on tightly to their
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  mother in order to remain safe and get the support of the
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  parent in any situation. Whereas the baby cat approach is
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  characterized by the mother picking up the cat by the scruff
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  of the neck and carrying it where it needs to go, without
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  the kitten doing anything but surrendering to the mother's
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  action. In each instance, the action of
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  the divine grace symbolized by the mother monkey or mother cat
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  is required. Particularly in modern society,
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  people are very much accustomed to taking the initiative using
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  their mental will, their vital force, their physical prowess to
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  accomplish whatever they set their attention to.
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  We are very much oriented, therefore, to undertake the baby
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  monkey approach. This approach, however, has its
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  own drawbacks as it leads to a lot more struggle, effort,
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  discouragement and time than if the individual could find a way
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  to surrender to the Divine grace and let it to its work.
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  Achieving the necessary quiet in the mind and vital parts of the
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  being, developing the receptivity and ability to let
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  the grace do its work are challenges for the active and
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  energetic individual in today's world.
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  The other approach, the baby cat approach, has its own drawbacks.
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  Particularly in today's world, people tend not to have the
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  ability to distinguish between a true surrender to the divine or
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  following a teacher or guru blindly under the guise of
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  surrender and thereby potentially being misled.
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  Surrender does not imply A temasek giving up of 1's native
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  intelligence or abilities. It also does not imply that one
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  can simply discontinue all effort and get carried along,
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  unless the surrender is deep, all pervasive and true, such
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  that the divine grace actually can do its work unobstructed.
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  In the modern world, we would frequently find that a balanced
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  approach, incorporating elements of each at different times and
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  under varying circumstances may turn out to be the most fruitful
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  method, Triorobindo writes. Quote.
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  There are two possibilities, one of purification by personal
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  effort which takes a long time, another by a direct intervention
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  of the divine grace, which is usually rapid in its action.
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  For the latter there must be a complete surrender and self
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  giving, and for that again usually it is necessary to have
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  a mind that can remain quiet and allow the Divine force to act,
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  supporting it with its complete adhesion at every step, but
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  otherwise remaining still and quiet.
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  This last condition, which resembles the baby cat attitude
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  spoken of by Ramakrishna, is difficult to have.
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  Those who are accustomed to a very active movement of their
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  thought and will in all they do, find it difficult to steal the
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  activity and adopt the quietude of mental self giving.
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  This does not mean that they cannot do the yoga or cannot
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  arrive at self giving, only the purification and the self giving
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  takes a long time to accomplish, and one must have the patience
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  and steady perseverance and resolution to go through.
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  End Quote. Reference.
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  Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5.
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  Attitudes on the Path, page 123.