Is the spiritual path filled with lot of stress until God's grace is completely attained?

[Dr. Sheshadri Thiruvenkadam (Balaji) asked] 

Swami rerplied: The feeling of stress as stress is the important point. You take lot of strenuous steps to get a seat in a school for your son. But you do not feel the stress at all. If you take the same strenuous steps for the sake of an outsider, you feel the stress. Therefore, stress is not the point but feeling the stress is the point. Since you have true love towards your son, you do not feel the stress. Since you do not have true love to the outsider, you feel the stress in the same quantum of steps. Hence, the true love is responsible for your success in the spiritual path to get the divine grace of God. Kannappa did not feel any stress while plucking both his eyes for the sake of the Lord. Dhrutarashtra knows well that Krishna is the Lord. But he would not give even five petty villages from his vast kingdom to the Lord! The lack of true devotion is responsible for the feeling of the divine service as a stress. The spiritual knowledge generates devotion. If the spiritual knowledge is true, you will have true devotion.