A swāmi belonging to Sri Ramakrishna Mission had a very interesting conversation with Sri Bhagavan in the course of which Sri Bhagavan observed:
(ignorance) is the obstacle for knowing your true nature even at the present moment.
D.: How is one to get over ?
M.: Yā na vidyate sā avidyā (What is not, is ). So it is itself a myth. If it really be how can it perish? Its being is false and so it disappears.
D.: Although I understand it intellectually, I cannot realise the Self.
M.: Why should this thought disturb your present state of realisation?
D.: The Self is One, but yet I do not find myself free from the present trouble.
M.: Who says this? Is it the Self which is only one? The question contradicts itself.
D.: Grace is necessary for realisation.
M.: In as much as you, being a man, now understand that there is a higher power guiding you, it is due to Grace. Grace is within you. Isvaro gururātmeti (Isvara, Guru, the Self are synonymous).
D.: I pray for that Grace.
M.: Yes, yes.