RAISING OF UNDERSTANDING .

We are always in search of competent / perfect Guru but the intellectual Shankara charya is of opinion that not perfect Guru but perfect student is required to achieve perfect knowledge . knowledge is universal and pervading the whole creation / universe in the form of consciousness . now it is individual ability raised to this consciousnees . the more you raise your receptivity , the more you understand and realize it . विद्या ददाति विनयम् विनयाद पात्रताम our formal education gives us receptivity and the moment we have the receptivity knowledge comes to us without any effort or Guru or school . you can learn it from stones , plants , animals , say ; the whole nature there to your service to open all the secrets of this universe . it is said one rishi called Dattatreya had many Gurues including a prostitute . this approves the fact thatit is student who is able to have the whole knowledge of this universe provided he is good / competent recepter . so we should increase our hunger for knowledge and raise our receptibility . if one goes to sea , he can fetch the water with his pot that he has and not more than that . but on the other if you go to sea and live with it you can use the whol of the sea . this is what with knowledge . we have to raise ourselves up to the sea and the whole of the sea is ours . it is open to all . Guru is not needed .
The second thing that is importent is clarity in learning and not confussion . you have to delete much of that you have learnt wrong . when you feel that there is some confussion in learning , means you are lead to wrong track . there is no contradiction in knowledge i.e. pure knowledge . say what Vedant tells you or Qura'n or Bible Or any authority of knowledge is trust worthy and if you feel some problem it means your understanding is mislead or unable to follow or the meaning you draw is out of refernce . it is sure that the moment you feel no difference between what Vedas and Qura'n or Bible says . or say you will come to the same that is told by any living and non-living in this nature . each and all speak to you and the same thing , the same fact that is truth and TRUTH AND TRUTH and nothing else .
The moment you begin to feel unity in this universe ,know that your efforts are going to bear fruit. when you begin to feel with that you smile with a flower or weep with a unhappy child , or hungry with hungry , you are nearer the door of knowledge . right knowledge reduces the doubts and the wrong on the other side raise doubts . there are many such words and statements that clear all of our doubts in Vedant and leave no chance of any question to be raised or unanswered . such are - THAT I AM == THAT THOU ART == SERV KHALU IDAM BRAHM == ISHAVASHYAM IDAM SERVAM . सो अहम् अस्मि == तत त्वं असि ==सर्व खलु इदं ब्रह्म == ईशावाश्यम इदं सर्वं ।