Need for a teacher for self-realisation

There is always debate between devotees on the issue of the need of a teacher for self-realisation and being one with God. Some say it is possible to reach the goal independently, without any help from any other person.

About our independence: we would not have been born, or survived, without being sustained by and being dependent on others for every moment of our lives. We achieved a body, and then filled the body with knowledge and understanding only with constant care from those around us. Beyond our human community, we depend on the trees to give us oxygen, the Sun to give us energy for photosynthesis that produces our food, and to the winds and insects to pollinate flowers that enrich our world.

Being so dependent, how do we solve the enigma of God, which the Guru Granth Sahib describes as: Formless, Shapeless, Colourless /He is beyond worldly attributes!

In the Jaap Sahib, an energetic rendition in Braj Bhasha, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Urdu, Guru Gobind Singh defines Him so: Self-created, Eternal, and the Doer:/Who can even tell your name?

How are we then to find this self-actualising experience, when it is beyond the mortal senses that we are equipped with? We need help even to learn the alphabet and arithmetic in school, and it would be logical to seek assistance from a friend, philosopher and guide when we set out to find that which is beyond our sensory perceptions. In such congregations of true teachers, there is no political talk, no call for money; He is the conversation, and His name is the only constant: How is the true congregation to be known?/ There, only His name is chanted.

For such a Teacher, Guru Granth Sahib says: I have churned the ocean of my body, and I have seen this unique fact:/The Guru is God, and God is the Guru, O Nanak; there is no difference between the two.