It has been said that the Short Path is absolutely necessary because the ego on the Long Path cannot by all its own efforts attain enlightenment. The higher individuality must come into play, and that entry onto the scene is called grace. This does not mean an arbitrary intervention, favouring one person and repulsing another. It comes by itself when the proper conditions have been prepared for it, by the opening or surrender of the self, by the turning of the whole being to its source. This openness, surrender, or passivity to the Other is not to be attained by quietening the thoughts alone. The mind is open then but it has to be opened to the highest, directed to the highest, aspiring to the highest. Otherwise, there is the mere passivity of the medium, or of the thought-reader, without the divine presence.
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life > Chapter 5 : Grace > # 201
