Every person has a guiding force in life in the form of parents, guru, friends and mentors. While the parents help lay the foundation of life, the guru helps the person gain knowledge to build upon the foundation and the friends encourage achieving goals. What a mentor does is connecting the support of the above three and creating a path of success by the right advice and right guidance in the right time. It is not only to today’s modern times that this is applicable, but the importance of a mentor is depicted since the times of Ramayan, where Rishi Vishwamitr played the perfect mentor to Shri Ram.
To establish Dharma, the Almighty takes various incarnations and as a human in his Shri Ram avatar, he had set to lay down the principles of being an ideal human too. Knowing the purpose of the incarnation of Shri Ram, Rishi Vishwamitr helped Shri Ram glorify his ideals and bringing out the strength and virtues of Shri Ram in the perfect way and noting the world that their saviour had arrived.
A mentor guides not only in the right direction, but also gives him the necessary advice and implements which help the person achieve success in his path. Once Shri Ram proves his mettle in killing Tadaka, Rishi Vishwamitr is convinced that Shri Ram is indeed the worthy warrior who is capable of handling the advanced Astras and Sastras and gave them to Shri Ram. Rishi Vishwamitr knew that Shri Ram would use them only for the welfare of good, but not to show off his power as a warrior. It was the first step laid down by the rishi in declaring that the warrior who would save Dharma has arrived.
When the messenger from Mithila arrived at his doorstep, Rishi Vishwamitr knew his role in unifying Mata Sita with Shri Ram. On their way to Mithila, Rishi Vishwamitr utilises all the time to profoundly explain the intricacies of Dharma and make Shri Ram’s ideals even more strong. Rishi Vishwamitr was also the one who helped an innocent woman Ahalya by taking Shri Ram to Rishi Gautam’s ashram and initiating Shri Ram to give her life again. Rishi Vishwamitr glorified the kindness and compassion of Shri Ram through this incident to the entire world.
In the Swayamvar Sabha of Mithila, thousands of kings arrive to test their destiny. But as the patient preceptor, he lets all the kings to boast of their power and get defeated. When all knew it was totally impossible to string the bow, then Rishi Vishwamitr commands Shri Ram to do it, where Shri Ram not only strings the bow, but breaks it too. With this incident, Rishi Vishwamitr glorifies Shri Ram’s immense power as a lion among all the animals and puts a perfect foundation of the marriage of Shri Ram and Mata Sita.
There was never a time where Rishi Vishwamitr boasted about Shri Ram, but instead he let Shri Ram do his work with trust in him, which is the true quality of a mentor. Rishi Viswamitr was the perfect mentor who demonstrated that if the right way is shown to a good person, then he paves a big way for the entire mankind to follow it and establish goodness and Dharma in the world.