This role of a spiritual teacher or guru is often misunderstood in the West.
For one thing, we lost the ancient system of studying under one teacher for many
years to learn a craft like carpentry or masonry and we are not used to this
system anymore. There is a lot of confusion about spiritual teachers as well;
some people seem to believe that they will take over the entire responsibility
of a disciple's life, making the pupil more like an obedient mindless puppy. But
nobody can take over our own responsibility in life (see the page on karma). Even if we
leave some decisions over to someone else, we are still responsible for our
actions, including shifting the decision to someone else.
As Sogyal Rinpoche warns in The Tibetan Book of Living and
Dying:
"The West has become a heaven for
spiritual charlatans. ... without the guidelines and criteria of a thriving
and full-fledged wisdom culture, the authenticity of so-called "Masters" is
almost impossible to establish."
We need to be realistic about spiritual teachers: if we want to learn
something, a teacher is needed, or is at least very useful. How far would we
have come with learning to read and write without a teacher? A spiritual teacher
is for spiritual matters: you do not normally ask your mathematics teacher for
advice on language.
In the Tantric system, a guru is essential for the practice.Having a
spiritual teacher and practising "guru devotion" was even a secret practice for
a long time. More information on a tantric guru can be found on the tantra page.
We need help on the spiritual path to guide us finding the right way.
Obviously the best person to accompany us as a tour-guide is someone who has
already successfully travelled the path. This person can help to quicken our
progress and avoid obstacles.
Why do we need an experienced guide? I like the following story with a
cynical undertone from Rama Krishna:
"Tapobana the Master, had a disciple who served him with
diligence. The master kept him solely because of this diligence and the
services he rendered, for he found the disciple rather stupid. One day, the
rumour spread throughout the whole region that Tapobana's disciple had walked
on water. He had crossed the river as if he crossed a street. Tapobana called
his disciple and questioned him. 'Is it true what people say? Did you actually
walk over the water?' 'What could be more natural?' answered the disciple,
'It is thanks to you, blessed one, that I walked over the water. At every step
I repeated Your Holy Name, and that is what upheld me.' Tapobana then
thought by himself: 'If my disciple can walk over water using my name, what
would be impossible for me, his master? If in my name miracles take place, I
must possess powers I did not suspect, and I must be more holy than I was
aware of. After all, I never tried to walk on water.' Without delay he ran
to the river bank. With unshakeable faith in himself, Tapobana repeated: 'I,
I, I .....' And sank..."
Before you decide to follow a spiritual teacher, it is extremely important to
check him or her: there are quite a number of cheats around... In the old Indian
tradition, teachers were often checked for 12 years or more before a student
fully entrusted a teacher the spiritual guidance. It is easy to follow people
blindly, especially the ones who are smooth talkers and are good salespeople.
The reason why gurus are getting such bad names is because people should not
have blindly trusted most of them to begin with! Do take your own responsibility
serious to check your own feelings, do you feel some personal connection, verify
if their behaviour concords with their words, are they putting more emphasis on
worldly matters than their spiritual path, see what the disciples say, and of
course what other teachers think.
Zasep Tulku Rinpoche summarises the essence:
"If you are only studying Dharma for the sake of study, sake of development
of your understanding of Dharma, if you are only studying Dharma
intellectually, just intellectually on intellectual level, then I don't think
you need a guru-disciple relationship. And also you can study with all kinds
of teachers. It's like going to university. You study with different teachers
or professors, and you go on, you move on. But if you wish to commit yourself
to the path, then it is necessary, because one needs to know how to accomplish
the realization, how to practice the Dharma."
QUALIFICATIONS FOR A SPIRITUAL TEACHER OF BASIC
PHILOSOPHY
1. Proper ethical behaviour - a guru should not harm others but try to
help 2. Single pointed concentration 3. No self-grasping or
egoistic thoughts 4. Having love and compassion as main motivations to
teach 5. Realised emptiness, at least have a proper intellectual
understanding 6. Perseverance in teaching 7. Wealth of
scriptural knowledge 8. More learned and realised than student
9. Skilled speaker 10. Given up disappointment in the performance
of the students
If possible try to find a guru who possesses all these
qualities, but at least the first 5. This may be difficult enough to find.
Just like a teacher requires certain qualifications, so should a disciple
fulfil some criteria. A proper disciple should consider him/herself as a
patient, the teacher as a doctor, the Dharma as medicine and one should take the
medicine: practice. Like His Holiness the Dalai Lama says: "There is no
substitute for hard work"
A proper disciple should avoid the so-called 3 faulty attitudes:
- being like an upside down vessel: refusing to learn and
scepticism - being like a leaking vessel: forgetting everything and
showing no interest - being like a polluted vessel: being very prejudiced
and believing to know everything better than the teacher
A proper
disciple should fulfil the 3 requisites:
- lack of prejudice, being open-minded - intelligence and a
critical mind: not blindly following orders - aspiration: wanting to
practice and experience results (not just scholarly study)
As Lama Govinda writes in A Living Buddhism for the West:
"If a chela (disciple) is accepted by a Guru, he has to approach the
teacher with trustful openness and devotion; these are the two basic
conditions without which spiritual guidance is impossible. It is just here
that many Western chelas make it hard for themselves, because they cannot
bring themselves to bow to their teacher, and become upset when their
prejudices and opinions are criticised. Even when they profess to love the
teacher, they defend their position and defend their standpoint. ... A
true guru is not concerned with imposing conformity of thoughts and feelings.
He wants to arouse personal recognition and experience in the chela - not to
teach him, but inspire him. But he also wants to liberate his chela from the
attachments to opinions, prejudices, and dogmas - and this is often a painful
process."
But, as Lowenthal and Short comment in Opening the Heart of
Compassion:
"While respect for and openness to the teacher are important for
our growth and freedom, blind devotion fixates us on the person of the
teacher. We then become confined by the limitation of the teacher's
personality rather than liberated by the teachings."
This is not an easy to answer in general, as every individual is different.
However, it is often said that when a disciple is ready, the teacher will
appear. If you cannot find a teacher, see if you fulfil the above requirements
for a proper disciple, and work to improve your own attitude. Depending on your
own karma, you may need to do quite a lot to find the right guru. Perhaps
you are impatient and expect too much overnight, then doing self-study and
questioning yourself what you really expect from a teacher may help.
