When I asked a spiritual preacher to show me my Sadguru, he just smiled silently. What does it mean?

[Question by Dr. Sheshadri Thiruvenkadam (Balaji).] 

Swami rerplied: Recognizing the Sadguru is the essence of the whole spiritual effort. In a chemistry practical exam, you are given a salt [chemical] for analysis. If you ask the examiner for the name of the salt, he will just smile. Even if you are able to find out the name of the salt, you will not get marks for just writing the name unless the clear procedure of identification is mentioned. Your knowledge of the procedure is important. If somebody gives you the name of the Sadguru, you may follow Him for sometime. When the Sadguru tests your faith, you will run away from Him because your selection of the Sadguru was not based on your logical analysis, aided by the scripture. Therefore, the recognition of the Sadguru by logical analysis is important. Logical analysis will clarify all your doubts and your faith in Him will be doubtless and firm.

The knowledge given by the Sadguru to you is always confined to the next higher level from where you stand, so that you can climb upto that next step. The knowledge of the ultimate level is not expressed by the Sadguru immediately, until you complete the lower levels. Even a liberated soul assisting God (Sadguru) may serve your immediate requirement, but then you have to constantly change your preacher as you rise to the higher levels. Sometimes, there is a risk of meeting a preacher of a lower level, who will drag you down. If you meet the Sadguru once in your life, it is sufficient, because He gives you the total knowledge, analyzed from all angles. This total knowledge will remain in your self qualitatively, in a complete sense. It may be defeated initially due to its lack of quantitative strength. The ignorance that has come with you from several births and has quantitative strength, may win. But the qualitative concept of the total knowledge is never lost and in course of time it gains quantitative strength. You are sure to defeat the ignorance and reach the goal one day or the other. This is the greatest fortune of meeting the Sadguru once in several millions of births (Bahunaam Janmanaamante… Gita). The human birth is rare. The interest to reach God is still rarer. Meeting the Sadguru is very very rare (Mahapurusha Samshrayah—Shankara).