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There is a process by which a real Spiritual teacher imparts his spiritual power to his disciple. The process is known as "Shakti-pata" or transmission of spiritual power. The teacher who is possessed to this power of transmission can give his knowledge of Truth or the knowledge of the way of union with the Divine to a deserving disciple in an instant without any effort whatsoever. Nay, he can transform his desciple into his own likeness, 
as the great Shankar declares in the first verse of his work, the “Vedant Kesari”. Tukaram, the great saint of Maharashtra, repeats the same idea in one of his Abhangas where he says, that the real teachers make their devoted disciples exactly like themselves in no time. A philosopher’s stone, he says cannot stand in comparison with the Guru whose greatness is beyond all measure. Jnyaneshwar, the crown-jewel of saints, declares in choicest terms the greatness of the real Guru in his “Bhavarth-dipika”, the great commentary on “Bhagwatgeeta” to the effect that, a man on whom the real Guru lets fall his glance or on whose head he places his lotus hand, be he however small and insignificant a being, is at once raised to a status equal to the Lord of the Universe himself. He who has the good luck of receiving spiritual teaching from a real Guru is at once freed from all dualities and is established in his own real self. The Guru gives and the disciple at once receives the “Mahavakya” or the great word of Vedant, and the same moment finds himself transformed into a living embodiment of the great word. Jnyaneshwar then proceeds to describe how the Lord, in the “Bhagwatgeeta, transformed Arjun, his greatest devotee, into his likeness by transmitting his power to him. The Lord extended his right hand with its dark-blue colour and the radiance of the bracelet round the wrist and embraced his loving devotee, Arjun, to his heart. The Lord intended to give him that transcendent experience of self where no speech or intelligence can enter and the embrace was a device for the purpose. Heart met heart and the content of the one was poured into the other and without giving up the dual form, Arjun was made one with “Shri Krishna”.
The realization of Brahma is never attained merely through a study of the shastras. It is the grace of the Guru that brings it. “Samartha Ramdas” states emphatically that no knowledge is possible without a real Guru. This is corroborated by the “Shastras” themselves. “Neither words nor a keen intelligence, nor any volume of hearing of spiritual discourses can make one realize the spiritual self”, say the Upanishadas – “It is only the grace of the Guru that brings that realisation”. Power of the nectarean glance of the Guru representing immeasurable streams of compassion finds a beautiful expression in the words of “Acharya Shri Shankar” in the following verse -
To whomsoever is brought the realization of the truth, “I am the Brahma”, by the ambrosial glance full of immeasurable compassion of the Guru, he is liberated while yet in this body with his mind freed from all delusion and doubt.
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