Sri Ramana Maharshi On Why Effort Is Needed for Enlightenment

Effortless and choiceless awareness is our real state. If we can attain it or be in it, it is all right.

But one cannot reach it without effort, the effort of deliberate meditation. All the age long vasanas (impressions) carry the mind outwards and turn it to external objects.

All such thoughts have to be given up and the mind turned inward. For that, effort is necessary, for most people.

Of course everybody, every book says ‘Be quiet or still’. But it is not easy. That is why all this effort is necessary.