Unlike some other saints who recognised and preached a diversity of equally valid doctrines for self / God realisation and as many valid paths to attain to those, Sri Sri Thakur suggested the realisation of the oneness of self and the supreme universal self (or Parabrahman) as the true and the highest goal of human life.

And the path leading to it, in the case of most aspirants, is one of true devotion for the perfect spiritual Master (Sadguru) who initiates them. Rendering personal Service to the Master and invoking his grace through prayers, chanting and simple meditation are the chief modes of spiritual practice for them. They will thus, not only acquire non-dualistic realisation knowing, for sure, that their Master is a realised soul (Brahmajnani) and trying to live up to his teachings, but also experience bliss due to intense love for him in course of time, when they are enabled to participate in his Leela (love play) for helping others to achieve self/God-realisation. Sri Sri Thakur pointed out that the path shown by Gouranga Mahaprabhu who practised and preached unconditional devotion and love for God was rather narrow, in as much as it was directed to Sri Krishna as the only God. In order to broad-base that path, Sri Sri Thakur suggested taking the Master as an embodiment of Sri Krishna (or any other deity whom the aspirant loved), in which case the guide himself becomes his goal.

In this way, Sri Sri Thakur convincingly formulated a reconciliation of the two apparently contradictory creeds, one due to the great Shankaracharya, the founder of the monistic school of Vedanta philosophy and the other due to Gauranga Mahaprabhu who advocated the principle and practice of apparent duality between the devotee and God. After all, Sri Sri Thakur pointed out that in the path of devotion and love the aspirant has to subdue or tame his ego adequately and hence he attains to the same stage as that of the monistic aspirant whose ego loses its identity on attaining to his goal. In the former case, the individuality of the devotee is reduced to a trifling, overpowered by personal God-consciousness, whereas in the latter the aspirant loses his self-consciousness in the ocean of impersonal universal consciousness.