When we die, the only thing we can carry forward into our next birth is the link between the Jivatma & Paramatma, between you and the deities. If we can establish the link with a deity through Diksha, mantra siddhi & prema bhakti, the deity will take full responsibility of our present & future lives. The deities are beyond our karma. There is nothing else we can carry forward with certainty into our next lives. We then have the Dharmic obligation to consciously return everything we have taken in this life before we leave, be it wealth, material, knowledge, wisdom or love. Everything must be returned without expectation as an offering to the lotus feet of the divine. This is what we call as true Seva. There is a two-fold approach to our Swadharma. There is a material world & there is a spiritual world.

To preserve our life, we need to master the material world. There are plenty of teachers in this phase. Whoever teaches us, whether parents, school teachers, art teachers, sports or gym trainers or mentors, are considered Material Siksha (Learning) Gurus. To realize ourselves, we need to master the spiritual realm. In this phase, there can only be one Guru, A Diksha (initiation) Guru, who can take us to the Devaloka. But there is also a transitory phase between the material & the spiritual realms. As we ascend the material world, our sense of embodiment & perception becomes amplified. The experiences & expression of all our desires, joy & pain begin to feel much more intense. We need to learn to regulate the energy of expression.

It is the phase where we outgrow our learning. Or we find that all our learnings are beginning to fail us. But it is also the phase where we haven’t found a Diksha Guru. For a sincere Sadhak, this phase generally happens between the age of 26 to 40. The shift can be rather drastic. It is the age where the Ahamkara has experienced the pain of life & the Atma begins to consciously seek something beyond. They are still young enough to change their life & path but old enough to make their own choices. They still have, although limited, the health, time, energy & space to turn their lives into a Sadhana. They need personal guidance, a sanathani teacher who is more available to them than a Diksha Guru who has to attend to large purpose of a Sampradaya and thousands of disciples around the world.