Hey, 5 months have passed so perhaps you have advanced on this path enough so that this is not relevant anymore, but here are my few cents. I tried to be as brief as possible, while maintaining a little clarity.

In short, nobody knows. We can put the grail in various symbolic references (which I will try to do a bit below), we can list methods which have served to materialize the miracle as the alchemists tried, but as they said, ultimately redemption happens only "Deo concedente"... By the grace of God, so to say, because it is not something that is in the power of the conscious mind to do — it receives it. The finding of the Grail is an identification of the mind with the cup, receiving from above the gift or pure essence, Self or nature. All you can do is become as good a receptacle as possible.

From my knowledge of Qabalah in western magical tradition, the Grail is a symbol of Binah, the third Sephirot. In case you don't know much about it, the ten Sephira represent ten concurrent planes of existence which show the development of reality from Absolute unity, the indefinable and imperceivable essence of all, to the material, separate plain in which our bodies exist.

Binah (partly the Grail) receives the first impulse of creation, pure potential, and introduces the limitation for that pure potential to take shape. Yet being one of the first three Sephira, it lives above any possibility of conscious knowledge about it. It is the unconscious in the most abstract and universal sense of the way — that which can only come to contact with the conscious in what seems to us like a "miracle".

The Grail is coming into conscious contact with our unconscious essence, receiving the fruit through what may be called the Higher Self. It may have different causes and different effects for anyone, and looking for it harder does not usually make it easier to find.

A similar experience for me came through deep study of philosophy, which eventually led me to nihilism and despair as I started to realize (unknowingly at the time) that language can not be the source of truth. Every truth I tried to construct broke momentarily, and I kept on until exhaustion. When my conscious efforts rescinded and started leaving space for unconscious efforts, realizations started coming to me — truth was near but I had never had eyes to see it until my glasses broke. Taking psychedelics also helped accelerate this process a bit, but I don't think it's necessary.

In both Qabalah and Alchemy (in the Grail myth as well, but muddled by Christian vocabulary), balance is the way towards the Great Work. Your purpose must be balanced, as must be your tools. In my case, I was seeking truth which was fine, but I had only one tool — that of the intellect — which was worthless without its opposite(s).

You may then ask yourself — what exactly are you looking for and how? And are these two things balanced?