“It is inevitable, at certain stages of the inner journey, that the figure of the Master becomes charged with a symbolic density that borders on the sacred. It is not merely a gesture of admiration or an emotional response to gratitude. What takes root in that bond is a form of ontological resonance: a silent communion with someone who, at a decisive moment, knew how to translate confusion into guidance, disorder into direction, and short-sightedness into clarity. At that point, the mere presence of the Master not only illuminates—it reorders. Under their influence, we find direction, a channel, our will is refined, and meaning, previously scattered, takes shape. However, this same ability to structure experience makes them, when the time comes, an ambiguous figure. What initially acts as a catalyst can ultimately immobilize. There is no contradiction: the same gesture that awakens can later contain.
The bond that is established does not have the profile of naive dependence or the exalted tone of doctrinal fervor. Rather, it is an elaborate fidelity, rooted in a living memory of what that presence was capable of unleashing. But precisely because of its legitimacy, this loyalty can become the last refuge of a “self” that, having renounced everything else, still resists disappearing. Where there was once momentum, there may now be a pause laden with nostalgia. What functioned as a threshold then becomes a limit. And although the Master no longer operates from outside, his image remains active within, not as an authoritarian figure, but as a subtle echo, a glow. Even so, preserving that glow is tantamount to postponing the final leap.
Separating from the Master, even if it involves a highly symbolic break, is not an act of denial. It is, in truth, a more demanding form of continuity. The authentic Master does not seek to occupy the center of the journey, much less perpetuate his authority beyond his role. He points to the threshold, but does not cross it for anyone. Clinging to those who showed us the way becomes, at that point, an involuntary strategy to stop us, to stagnate us. As long as their figure retains its inner status, the journey remains unfinished.
In the most delicate stretches of the path, the Master ceases to be “someone.” Their presence dissolves into a form of quiet radiance, a residual clarity that persists when everything has been dismantled. But even that radiance—however faint it may be—retains structure. And where there is structure, there is separation: between the perceiver and the perceived.
Full realization does not tolerate fragments, it cannot bear parts or portions. It requires complete extinction: no subject to yearn for, no object to project, no trace of a journey. It is not a matter of rejecting but of letting go. The gesture does not point to negation, but to the closing of a cycle.
The Master is not abandoned out of indifference, but out of fidelity to his most radical impulse: to free us from all dependence, even that which is cloaked in gratitude. Only when he is no longer needed has his work been completed. And that conclusion does not mean loss, but consummation. Where his figure dissolves completely, his meaning is revealed in its fullest.”
Prabhuji
