The problem of Divine Grace, the will of God and Enlightenment

How's man to change his selfish nature and become unselfish by his own will?

Enlightenment can happen in 3 seconds or can take 30 years to happen or might never be realised in someone's lifetime despite them seeking it with devotion, which begs the question, why does it seem that some people become enlightened effortlessly while others put in alot of devotion and spiritual discipline before becoming realised and others never become enlightened or realised despite their devotion towards the same?

How's man to follow the will of God using his own will which is naturally selfish, how is he to turn his selfish nature into a unselfish nature by his own will?

In theology they will say one cannot become enlightened by their own will or their own doing, enlightenment is only possible through divine grace that is the power granted to an individual by God to help them naturally follow his will which is the Being's natural purpose. Then why is divine grace granted to some individuals and not others, is it because they did not accept God's grace? But again, they were not in a position to receive grace because they cannot do that by their own will.

Then isn't their inability to follow the will of God as a result of God not granting them his grace to help them follow his will? Does that now mean that man is incapable of following the will of God by his own will? The invisibility of God is his self forgetfulness. This arises because man views himself as separate from God not releasing that he himself is getting in his own way by pretending that there's someone greater getting in his own way.

All of this is akin to the problem of desire in the quest to become enlightened and attain nirvana (liberation) in buddhism where the cause of human suffering is identified as desire and the individual is supposed to stop desiring in order to get rid of their suffering. But soon the individual finds that they now develop a desire to stop desire and they’re stuck, and they’re advised to stop desiring only to the extent they’re able to stop desiring.

All this arises because the individual tends to think of himself as something separate from the whole that we call the universe, the assumption that there is a doer separate from the organism that can “do” something gives the impression that we can try to achieve or attain enlightenment when all along their no one to attain anything because that someone or that image we hold of a separate someone from the whole isn't there.

The moment we realise there's no separate us that can attain or achieve enlightenment then we become enlightened, we realise that we've always be there all along and there was nothing to attain really. Enlightenment is fundamentally coming off the idea of a separate us that we hold, it is the realization of what we are not and therefore what we are; imagine yourself coming across a wall and a gate somewhere along that wall and after getting through the gate to the other side of the wall you look back and suddenly you don't see that wall or the gate anymore!

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