When the thirst for liberation and the revelation of one's reality is acute, a strange and mysterious force in Nature will begin operating. When the soil is ready, the seed appears from somewhere! The spiritual Guru will be alerted and the thirst will get quenched. The receiving individual has developed the power to attract the giver of illumination. That power is strong and full. Therefore, naturally the splendour that can confer the illumination will get ready to bless.

Readers! Though Gurus of the common type have increased in numbers, there is available for man, a Guru far more supreme and far more compassionate than any or all of them. He is no other than the Avatar of the Lord. He can, by the mere expression of His Will confer on man the highest consummation of spiritual life. He can gift it and get man to accept it. Even the meanest of the mean can acquire the highest wisdom, in a trice. He is the Guru of all Gurus. He is the fullest embodiment of God as man. Man can cognise God only in the human form. The Bharathiya Spiritual Stream has been declaring, over and over again, that adoring God in the human form is the highest duty of man. Unless God incarnates as man, man can never hope to see God or listen to His Voice. Of course, man may picture God in various other forms, but he can never approximate to the genuine form of God. However much one may try, man cannot picture God in any form except the human. People can pour out wonderful discourses and talks on God and the nature and composition of all that exists in the Universe. They may satisfy themselves, asserting that all accounts of God descending in human form are meaningless myths. That is what the poor ordinary eye can discern. This strange inference is not based on Jnana. As a matter of fact, Jnana is absent in these assertions and declarations. What we can notice in them is only the froth floating on ego waves.

"Koham? Who am I?", "Why this feeling in me, that I am the doer?", "What is the nature of consciousness that I am the enjoyer?", "Why be born, and die at last?", "How did I deserve this life?", "Can I be liberated from this Samsar, this series of entrances and exits". The attempt to discover answers to these questions is what the rishis of old designated as "Thapas". When the intellect of the individual ripens into this steady inquiry, he enters the path of 'thapas'.

This is the first step. As soon as man has ascended this step, the Sastras or the collective wisdom of seekers enshrined in sacred texts, welcome him. The Sruthi, or the Vedas, directs him to 'listen, ruminate, and practise' the axiomatic counsel of the sages. They assure him that he will attain the goal of release, and free himself from the delusive fascination for the visible world, portrayed for him by his own mind.