Before my brother went India he had amassed quite a bit of papers with quotes he scribbled down in his sloppy misspelled style. He left them and now they are floating around my mother's house. This is one I stumbled upon and felt was especially nice. the paper did not say who it was quoting, and for a while I assumed it was Srila Sridhar Maharaja because it certainly uses his terms and style. But when I re-read it recently there are places where it's scratched out and re-written in different wording, which makes me think it was my brother who wrote it! Either way, it's nice.......
No matter what you maintain your position at all cost, even death. When there is an opening to surrender further take it and then maintain that position at all cost. Wait for the next opening patiently with a mood of tolerance. Real devotion is free from any energy or knowledge but that kind of devotion cannot be activated by the will of the conditioned soul alone. So until then energy and knowledge will be with one unavoidably. So as not to be swept away by them they must be accepted in such a way that what ever the clearest and finest conception of sincerity that one has is not distorted or degraded, or, so one’s desire to achieve the goal does not become lifeless. That is what it means to maintain ones position at all costs, that their hankering does not become weakened by the imagination reposed within worldly aspirations. So although energy and knowledge do not produce devotion, they cannot be avoided until devotion is awakened by the grace of an agent. Therefore they must be kept in subjugation to the dictation of ones hankering. That is called endeavor, and when the Lord or the devotees acknowledge that one has sufficiently struggled to maintain their finest position, then that precipitates grace, which is the deliverer of devotion.