You have to make an enormous effort to realize the Self. It is very easy to stop on the way and fall back into ignorance. At any moment you can fall back. You have to make a strong determined effort to remain on the peak when you first reach it, but eventually a time will come when you are fully established in the Self. When that happens, you cannot fall. You must have a lifelong commitment to establish yourself in the self. Your determination to succeed must be strong and firm, and it should manifest as continuous, not part-time, effort. For many lifetimes you have been immersed in ignorance. You are habituated to it. All your deeply rooted beliefs, all your patterns of behavior reinforce ignorance and strengthen the hold it has over you. This ignorance is so strong, so deeply enmeshed in all your psychological structures, it takes a massive effort over a long period of time to break free from it. The habits and beliefs that sustain it have to be challenged again and again.

Superimposition, Bhagavan tells us, is projection, the transformation of Brahman into the objects of the world or the remoulding of the light of the Self into the ego and I-am-the-body consciousness. Correct seeing (through atma-vichara and finally , jnana) removes false attribution and allows the real to be seen as it really is. Once appearances are exposed, no special effort is required. Bhagavan blames superimposition for the prevalent mistaken notion that the Self is bound, and thus in need of being liberated, like the woman he describes in T alks, who needs to find her ‘lost' necklace. When a friend points to the necklace round her neck, the woman shouts with joy at having ‘found it at last'. But, Bhagavan says emphatically , “In fact she never lost the necklace nor recovered it, [for it was there all along]. And yet she was once miserable and is now happy . So also with the realisation of the Self. The Self is always realised. Realisation is now obscured but when the veil is removed, the person feels happy at rediscovering the ever-realised Self.” 

(Talks §490) 

"O Mother, I have taken refuge in Thee. Teach me what to do and what to say. Thy will is paramount everywhere and is for the good of Thy children. Merge my will in Thy will and make me Thy instrument."

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

M.: Of what degree of unreality is [the world]? ...The answer is that it is a superimposition on the one Reality, like the appearance of a snake on a coiled rope seen in dim light. But the wrong identity ceases as soon as a friend points out that it is a rope, whereas in the matter of the world, it persists even after it is known to be unreal. How is that? The appearance of water in a mirage persists even after the knowledge of the mirage is recognised. So it is with the world. Though knowing it to be unreal, it continues to manifest.... It is like a man satisfying his dream wants by dream creations. The realised sage finally declares that in the regenerate state the [waking] world is found to be as unreal as the dream world is found to be in the waking state. In fact, wakefulness and dream are equally unreal from the standpoint of the Absolute. —Talks §399