An ideal guru can uplift the soul from from a bottomless and chalk out a clear path to be never born again, I.e., mOkSam (paramapadam). 2
Srimad Ramayanam - Importance of guru as enunciated by Rama
Aranya Kandam in Srimad Ramayanam is considered to be mOkSa kAndam as lot of personalities such as SaraBangar, Jatayu, Sahara get mOkSA.
The episode of Sabhari is quite important, 1
An ideal guru can uplift the soul from from a bottomless and chalk out a clear path to be never born again, I.e., mOkSam (paramapadam). 2
Sabhari was quite diligent in being the right disciple 3
Valmiki explains this with the following slokas -
कच्चित् ते निर्जिता विघ्नाः कच्चित् ते वर्धते तपः 4
कच्चित् ते नियमाः प्राप्ताः कच्चित् ते मनसः सुखम्
कच्चित् ते गुरु शुश्रूषा सफला चारु भाषिणि
1) कच्चित् ते निर्जिता विघ्नाः - Is your tapas happening without any hindrance?
2) कच्चित् ते वर्धते तपः - In order for the tapas to happen 5
3) कच्चित् ते नियतः कोप आहारः च तपोधने - In order to control lust and anger, food has to be controlled.
4) Why is this important? This helps in being disciplined in the larger pursuit of reaching the goal, mOksam 6
6) In order for all the above to happen, one needs an ideal guru, and once He comes into life, it takes a U-turn and steers towards paramapadam. 7
Jai Sriram.
