We’ve all heard stories of disciples who go to extraordinary lengths to get teachings from Masters. There’s the well-known tale of Milarepa, the Tibetan Mahasiddha whose Guru, Marpa, made him build stone houses, tear them down, and rebuild many times over before agreeing to teach the faithful disciple.

The kriya yoga folks love to tell the story of a certain aspirant who climbed the Himalayan mountains seeking teachings from the immortal Babaji. When the determined devotee finally found the Mahasiddha and his band, Babaji ordered him to jump off the side of the mountain, a deadly deed that was accomplished without the slightest hesitation. Babaji then asked his disciples to collect the mangled remains of the aspirant. Declaring the young man to be worthy, Babaji brought him back to life and permitted him to stay and learn.

While most of us might choose to delay enlightenment a few thousands lifetimes rather than go to these lengths, less extreme tests of our commitment to self-realization are a usual feature in the lives of students of Tantra.

In the Tantras, we are admonished to test a teacher thoroughly before “signing on,” e.g. taking initiation. However, once we choose a teacher, it is our turn to be tested before the deal is sealed, and also at many other stages of our spiritual path.

Every teacher has her or his own methods, and the methods are usually subtly suited to aggravate the reactivity of the student. The teacher wants to know if you are capable of opening, and committed to growing, or not.

One of the most common forms of testing is simply to refuse to give teachings, sometimes over and over again. Asking once almost never works.

Persistence, proper timing, and respectful method of approach are indications of the energy, discrimination, and general capacity that students bring to a situation.

If we are anxious about getting teachings in the same way we get anxious about acquiring the next new techno-gadget, our timing and mode of approach will invariably be off.

If we meet a teacher we respect and recognize as important to our self-realization, but we give up after asking for teachings only one time, the opportunity may pass us by. If we are timid, or not really motivated, we won’t ask at all.

Teachers are keenly aware of all of these indications and will respond accordingly.

A phenomenon I’ve noticed here in the U.S. concerns students who make a declaration that someone is their teacher, or who actually formally ask someone to be their teacher. These actions are then followed by a total or near-total cessation of effort.

Having showed up at the doorstep, they expect the teacher to invite them in, offer them a cocktail, serve them a seven course meal, and tuck them into bed afterward.

The real situation is quite the reverse. Once you recognize someone as your teacher, whether it be for that week or the next 17,000 lifetimes, that’s when you should be ready to work, and work hard.

If you ask for teachings and get them, be prepared to follow-though with everything you’ve got.

You are 100% responsible for your realization. A teacher cannot liberate you. Any teacher who personally promises you liberation should be abandoned, and quickly. A teacher can only give you tools for self-realization and the opportunity to taste, through the gateway of his or her own being, the natural state. The rest is up to you.

We tend to treat teachers as servants or saviors. Please note that we call on both servants and saviors to do the work we don’t want to do or aren’t capable of.

A Satguru (true teacher) is the highest form of servant. But that teacher serves the unfoldment of all of Reality. Pouring energy into a student who is not working, or not receptive, is not good for the whole, and it depletes the teacher.

A Satguru will love you beyond anything you previously thought of as love, but this will not save you.

Rudi expressed his distrust for students who stared at him all “goo-goo eyed” with supposed love.

The head of my lineage warns of “stickiness” between student and teacher. Stickiness is when either a student or a teacher, or both, use the relationship to satisfy emotional needs.

Teachers will often test students and challenge them to relinquish any “stickiness,” by making them go away.

One of Chogyam Trungpa’s students got a little too attached to his unusually close relationship with his teacher. So Trungpa “fired” the student from his special post as Guru’s right-hand man. When asked for an explanation, Trungpa reportedly said “When students get too fat, you have to pop them like ticks and shoot them out into space.”

OUCH.

In Chasm of Fire, Irina Tweedie writes of the day her teacher ordered her to leave India and return to Europe for three years. He issued this command in a very stern and cold manner. As she turned back to look at him one final time before she left, he was sitting, drooped over disconsolately with his head in his hands.

This is the love of the Satguru.

Here in the U.S., students largely do not know how to relate to a teacher. We expect a teacher to spoon feed us liberation. Or we are timid and think it’s improper to ask for teachings again and again. And we often mistake the world-class compassion of a true Guru because it doesn’t look or feel like our baby version.

If we lived in a culture of apprenticeship, we would have more knowledge of how to relate to Gurus. But we live in a culture of consumerism, so we have to learn how to be apprentices to Reality, rather than consumers of information and material.

In the end though, Tantrik sadhana proves itself by opening us to natural gratitude and true understanding of our place in the process of unfoldment.

OM Shanti,

Shambhavi

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