The Guru
"The highest form of grace is silence. It is also the highest spiritual instruction. All other modes of instruction are derived from silence and are therefore secondary. Silence is the primary form. If the Guru is silent the seeker’s mind gets purified by itself.
The disciples of Bhagavan have found that the silent instruction continues as before. Others who have never met him in his lifetime have been drawn to him and begun to follow the guidance. If this seems strange to anyone, it means that he has not understood what Bhagavan was in his lifetime, that he identifies the Guru with the body. It is sometimes asked how a Jivanmukta continues to guide disciples after death when he has merged in the Absolute, the Self of all. But the Jivanmukta is already consciously one with the Absolute, the Self of all, while still embodied. If this is not incompatible with initiation and guidance while he wears a body it is not afterward. Death makes no difference to him, no change in his state. There is nothing more to be acquired because he is that now; there is nothing to be lost because he has already completely surrendered the ego.
Question: Bannerjee asked Bhagavan what is the difference between Jivanmukti (Realisation while in the body) and Videhamukti (Realisation after death).
Bhagavan: There is no difference. For those who ask, it is said: A Jnani with a body is a Jivanmukta and he attains Videhamukti when he sheds the body. But this difference exists only for the onlooker, not for the Jnani. His state is the same before and after the body is dropped. We think of the Jnani as a human form or as being in that form; but he knows that he is the Self, the one reality which is both inside and out, and which is not bounded by any form or shape. There is a verse in the Bhagavata (here Bhagavan quoted the verse in Tamil) which says: Just as a man who is drunk is not conscious whether his upper cloth is on his body or has slipped away from it, the Jnani is hardly conscious of his body, and it makes no difference to him whether the body remains or has dropped off."
—Sri Ramana Maharshi, In His Own Words, Chapter 4 - The Guru, Pages 105-106
