Question: How can silence be so powerful?
Bhagwan Sri Ramana Maharshi: A realized one sends out waves of spiritual influence which draw many people towards him. Yet he may sit in a cave and maintain complete silence. We may listen to lectures upon truth and come away with hardly any grasp of the subject, but to come into contact with a realized one, though he speaks nothing, will give much more grasp of the subject. He never needs to go out among the public. If necessary he can use others as instruments. The Guru is the bestower of silence who reveals the light of Self-knowledge which shines as the residual reality. Spoken words are of no use whatsoever if the eyes of the Guru meet the eyes of the disciple.
Question: Does Bhagavan give diksha [initiation]?
Bhagwan Sri Ramana: Mouna [silence] is the best and the most potent diksha (initiation). That was practised by Sri Dakshinamurti. Initiation by touch, look, etc., are all of a lower order. Silent initiation changes the hearts of all. Dakshinamurti observed silence when the disciples approached him. That is the highest form of initiation. It includes the other forms. There must be subject-object relationship established in the other dikshas (initiations). First the subject must emanate and then the object. Unless these two are there how is the one to look at the other or touch him? Mouna diksha (initiation is silence) is the most perfect; it comprises looking, touching and teaching. It will purify the individual in every way and establish him in the reality.
Question: Swami Vivekananda says that a spiritual Guru can transfer spirituality substantially to the disciple.
Bhagwan Sri Ramana: Is there a substance to be transferred ? Transfer means eradication of the sense of being the disciple. The master does it. Not that the man was something at one time and metamorphosed later into another.
Question: Is not grace the gift of the Guru?
Bhagwan Sri Ramana: God, grace and Guru are all synonymous and also eternal and immanent. Is not the Self already within? Is it for the Guru to bestow it by his look ? If a Guru thinks so, he does not deserve the name. The books say that there are so many kinds of diksha (initiation), initiation by hand, by touch, by eye, etc. They also say that the Guru makes some rites with fire, water, japa or mantras (sacred syllables) and calls such fantastic performances dikshas (initiations), as if the disciple becomes ripe only after such processes are gone through by the Guru. If the individual is sought he is nowhere to be found. Such is the Guru. Such is Dakshinamurti. What did he do? He was silent when the disciples appeared before him. He maintained silence and the doubts of the disciples were dispelled, which means that they lost their individual identities. That is jnana and not all the verbiage usually associated with it. Silence is the most potent form of work. However vast and emphatic the sastras (scriptures) may be they fail in their effect. The Guru is quiet and peace prevails in all. His silence is more vast and more emphatic than all the sastras (scriptures) put together. These questions arise because of the feeling that, having been here so long, heard so much, exerted so hard, one has not gained anything. The work proceeding within is not apparent. In fact the Guru is always within you.
Source: Be As You Are
This is from Ramana Maharshi.
Everyone will be misled by it. No exceptions. Why? The foolish mind has decided silence is not speaking. Silence are many types and many depths. It is not the silence you know of.
As to Awakening of Shakti Maharshi is deriding different Awakening rituals. He is not deriding what Vivekananda had or what Ramkrishna did
Guru within you : it is not the ego conscious that you may identify with. It is the place where ego is destroyed.
Bhavin