According to Osho, a guru’s role is simply to awaken your awareness—like an alarm clock for the spiritually asleep. Even paths that deny gurus still need someone to say so; people rarely wake up unaided. The true guru doesn’t demand imitation or methods, but compassionately provokes clarity, guiding step-by-step until self-reliance and direct seeing arise.
A guru is like an alarm that wakes you when you’re too sleepy to wake yourself; if you could do it alone, fine—but usually someone has to ring the bell.