[paragraph continues] Divine Merciful Teachers for the guidance of man in his onward march of spiritual progress. These wise and disinterested Teachers who hold a Divine commission as spiritual instructors of the growing humanity can give utterance to nothing but truth. A true conception, therefore, of the lofty nature and the high functions of a spiritual Teacher will necessarily end in an utmost reverence and exalted love for Him, without which none can fully realise the truths taught by Him. To perceive a truth as fully as the Guru does, one should look at it from as many standpoints as the Teacher does; that is to say, the disciple's mind must be en rapport with that of the Teacher. A complete resignation on the part of the disciple to the will of the Teacher and an unbounded love for Him, a feeling of Bhakti or devout love to the Teacher, cannot but serve to remove the barrier which arrests the flow of wisdom from the Teacher to the disciple. Once the barrier is removed they come so close together that the truths which are stored up in the Teacher's mind will flow, as it were, in a continuous stream to the mind of the disciple through the conduit of complete sympathy opened by love. It is with such feelings of devotion and love that the disciple should approach the Guru. It may not be that the typical Guru, the Teacher who originally delivered teaching, is always present in the physical

body before the student's eyes. Still, when one wishes to learn anything from the accredited record of His teaching, one must image the true typical Guru and revere Him in the heart. The student should always devoutly turn his heart in an ardent and devout love towards the Great Personage that realised the truth and gave it out for the benefit of those who cared to avail themselves of it. What is generally called Revelation is a record of such teachings. Very often the truth thus taught is not recorded in a tangible form, it being handed down from generation to generation by mere word of mouth. The teachings, rather the traditions, thus handed down become mutilated and corrupt in the course of long ages and stand in need of interpretation by others who, having got an insight into the truth, can supply omissions and sift the genuine teaching from the accumulated accretions of ages. These disinterested visible custodians of the records and their interpreters, who are, as it were, the representatives of the Teacher or Teachers who gave voice to the truths preserved in the form in which they have come to us, should also be revered and loved as teachers in proportion as they approach the typical Guru in point of wisdom and moral excellence. But a thorough realisation of the nature and position of the typical Teacher united with an abiding devotion of love towards Him is necessary if the disciple would avoid the

many pitfalls of errors that beset him all through the line of his spiritual progress.