On the occasion of Guru Purnima, we share a small excerpt from the Teaching Tradition of Advaita Vedanta penned down by our Founder, Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati.
A guru is important in gaining self- knowledge because the handling of prakriyas is involved in unfolding the truth. If one does not handle the prakriyas as they should be, one can only tell one’s disciples that Vedanta is a theory, that practice gives the experience of the self.
But when Vedanta is a means of knowledge, it is neither theory nor practice that will bring an experience of the self. The self, which is the content of all experiences, is consciousness by nature, anubhuti svarupa, and it does not become an object of experience, implying another hypothetical subject besides the self.