Let's revisit the idea that spiritual ongoing requires effort versus the idea that effort just enhances the problem, the ego-mind.
What if an effortless approach is a question of standpoint?
What does that mean?
That an effort is required to break free of ego-mind's gravitational field. Then, in that needed space, our transitional self can but be receptive to higher influences. That's the effortless part. Otherwise...
Otherwise what?
Otherwise the whole enterprise degenerates into ego-mind's pretense of spirituality, claiming it as its natural right. Efforts made in ego-mind's sphere of influence just dig a deeper hole for itself.