Śivasaṃhitā 5.215

The image of the guru’s words «withdrawing» (nivartante) having fulfilled their function is profoundly beautiful: the teaching self-dissolves when the disciple no longer needs it. The teacher’s words are scaffolding—indispensable during construction but removed when the building of understanding stands alone. The Self-luminous (svaprakāśa) that arises has no external cause: it was simply what had always been veiled.

Evam-abhyāsatas = practicing in this way, nityam = always/constantly, svaprakāśa = the light that illuminates itself (sva = own, prakāśa = light/illumination), nivartante = withdraw (ni-vṛt = to turn back), guro-girah = words of the guru (gir = word/song), buddhi-samartha = the capable intellect (buddhi = discriminating intellect, samartha = capable, competent).

This description of the guru-disciple as a capacitation process culminating in the disciple’s complete autonomy is radically different from models of perpetual spiritual dependency. The true guru works to make themselves unnecessary: their success is the disciple no longer needing their words because they have found the source from which those words emerged. This is the pedagogy of liberation.