A spiritual aspirant must cultivate a definite attitude or relationship with the Divine. To begin with, he must love a particular aspect of God, or a holy Personality, intensely. Then he must learn to see the cosmic Being at the back of the Personal God, and then he should see the Absolute at the back of the Cosmic. The holy Personality, the Incarnation or the Personal God, should take us, step by step, to the highest knowledge. The realization of the Absolute, the Transcendental, proceeds always through the realization of the Immanent Divine Principle. No one can take a long jump and reach the Absolute without the necessary preparation, however great may be its appeal to the intellect. The more we succeed in creating within ourselves a cosmic outlook, the more we feel that there is neither man nor woman, neither subject nor object, but that all is the One manifesting Itself through different names and forms.

We must learn to see God alone even in all awful, terrible things, without ever allowing the awful, the terrible, to overpower our mind. He is even in all gross, impure, awful, and vulgar things, but these manifestations must never be permitted to affect our mind or to take possession of it. Unless we develop the cosmic perspective we cannot attain balance and calmness of mind.

To the extent we succeed in seeing the One alone, to that extent we forget all limitations and pairs of opposites, we forget the whole play of the phenomenal world. And we can for this if we see that everything else but God is insignificant and fleeting, of secondary importance, a mere shadow, an unsubstantial passing show. Unless we are able to rid ourselves of the temptations presented to our mind by the senses, and unless we are able to achieve the control of this unruly mind, it is not possible to truly turn to the Divine and make Him the pivot of our life.

Reference: Meditation and Spiritual Life by Swami Yatiswarananda (p.350)