What is a teacher?

We would not take swimming lessons from someone who cannot swim. Yet we seem all too willing to sit in church pews, satsangs, zendos, spiritual bookstores, and the like entrusting our spiritual growth to those who are as lost as we are - but sound better.

Anyone can put up a shingle and advertise herself as spiritually mature and able to teach. Yet of the tens of thousands of folks who do this worldwide… how many are really awake? The number is likely picayune.

We abrogate our own responsibility with the excuse that we do not know what to do and need guidance. So we seek a ‘teacher’ instead of what we more probably need - a good therapist. Thinking a spiritual teacher can help is it seems to me, just a delaying tactic. One calculated by ego to avoid Truth and instead learn techniques. And of course to render the wonderful (and false) feeling that we are making ‘progress’. Drowning whilst holding firmly to the belief we can swim… if only we try harder or learn a few more techniques.

The majority of spiritual teachers of this world who purport to know and to be able to guide do so by a combination of their own firm belief that they have attained something, and by their belief that they can guide others. They appeal to ‘lineage’, being verified by their own ‘masters’, and their ‘concern for our welfare’. Yet ego painted gold is still ego

Eventually it comes down to a willingness to leave all of this behind and see for ourselves.
As the mystic Oshiro Kazumiri said: "The reason people do not awaken to Truth, is that they expect someone else to show them the way. This is impossible."

By oneself evil is done
By oneself one suffers.
By oneself evil is undone,
No one can purify another.
-- The Buddha (from the Dhammapada)