Does the guru literally come back lifetime after lifetime till the disciple is delivered?
So, as long as the disciple, all the disciples are not delivered, the guru comes back again and again.
Sometimes the guru has to go to the disciples. And the disciples do some wrong things also. Then the guru has to come back again and again.
Guru is both a person and a principle. It is not necessarily the guru has to oneself come again. The guru-tattva, the connection is not just the guru, it is also the guru-tattva.
The guru represents the guru-tattva. So it is not necessary that the spiritual master has to come. Some other spiritual master will come.
Like we had one of the tattvas, the spiritual master gave his life as a sage in Somgiri. And the next time when Chittamani spoke to him, Chittamani was in Somgiri's tribute work. He saw it as Somgiri's tribute work.
So it was not just Somgiri came again. But that particular voice of Krishna or the voice of the guru spoke to a particular person. So the important point behind the statements is to inspire the devotees to become more and more committed.
The important point is not whether that statement is really going to happen exactly the same. It may not happen. There is a rhetorical statement in the Japanese scripture.
And there is a particular purpose to the statement. So it is said that Lord Vishnu said in Narada, I am not present in Vaikuntha. I am not present in the heart of the devotees.
I am present in where the devotees are going to Somgiri. Now what does it mean? Is Krishna not present in Vaikuntha? Is Krishna not present in the heart of the devotees? Is he there in Vaikuntha? Point is that in these places, he is not accessible to all of you. But where the devotees are going to find him, he becomes accessible to all of you.
So it is that accessible to all of us has to be the statement. So often there are rhetorical statements. We should not dispute the rhetorical statements we get from it.
That does not mean that the rhetorical statements are not important. They do convey a very important point. And we should appreciate that important point.