A guru is someone who dispels darkness, someone who opens the door for you.

Sri Ramana was an immense spiritual dynamo who could use his power and his presence to eradicate the false ideas his visitors had about themselves and then show them the reality of who they truly were. This is the role and function of the true guru. To dispel the darkness of individual ignorance and reveal the true abiding state of what remains when that ignorance has vanished.