Acharya Prashant explains that one should constantly keep the image of someone they consider higher and respectable in their eyes. Since our eyes are physical, it is helpful to hang a physical picture of such a person. This person should be someone before whom you feel inclined to bow down. They can even be a fictional character from a novel. The purpose is to have someone whose mere sight awakens a yearning and desire within you to change. Simultaneously, their image should fill you with shame if you are not changing. This person should constantly be present before you like a challenge. The challenge is the realization of how far they have reached and where you have been left behind. They were also made of flesh and blood, born just like us, consumed the same food, water, and air, and walked on the same earth. One should feel a sense of insult when comparing oneself to them. We feel insulted over trivial matters, but we don't feel the greater insult of our own stagnation. In front of all these great masters, one should feel greatly insulted; their very existence is like a slap on our face. A constant sense of shame should remain, like the fresh marks of five fingers on the cheek. One should not make excuses by saying that these great beings were incarnations or enlightened, while we are small people. They were just like us; the only difference was that they did not accept remaining as they were. They believed that when a better life can be lived, one should live it. One must taste the heights, after which there will be no desire to come down. The one who goes up wants to go even higher. He narrates a story of a seeker who, upon learning that liberation is not possible without a Guru, spent his life preparing to be worthy of one. He was liberated without a physical Guru because his constant preparation to be worthy in front of a Guru became his spiritual practice. The comparison itself, the constant effort to be worthy, is what liberates.
