Stages of development of relationship with Guru

Chogyam Trungpa

(from "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" by Chogyam Trungpa):

It has been said that the first stage of meeting one's spiritual friend is  like going to a supermarket. You are excited and you dream of all the  different things that you are going to buy: the richness of your spiritual  friend and the colorful qualities of his personality. The second stage of  your relationship is like going to court, as though you were a criminal.  You are not able to meet your friend s demands and you begin to feel  self-conscious, because you know that he knows as much as you know  about yourself, which is extremely embarrassing. In the third stage when  you go to see your spiritual friend, it is like seeing a cow happily grazing  in a meadow. You just admire its peacefulness and the landscape, and  then you pass on. Finally the fourth stage with one's spiritual friend is  like passing a rock in the road. You do not even pay attention to it; you  just pass by and walk away. 

At the beginning a kind of courtship with the guru is taking place, a  love affair. How much are you able to win this person over to you?  There is a tendency to want to be closer to your spiritual friend, because  you really want to learn. You feel such admiration for him. But at the same time he is very frightening; he puts you off Either the situation  does not coincide with your expectations or there is a self-conscious feeling that “I may not be able to open completely and thoroughly.” A love-hate relationship, a kind of surrendering and running away process develops. In other words, we begin to play a game, a game of wanting to open, wanting to be involved in a love affair with our guru, and then wanting to run away from him. If we get too close to our spiritual friend, then we begin to feel overpowered by him. As it says in the old Tibetan proverb: “A guru is like a fire. If you get too close, you get burned; if you stay too far away, you don't get enough heat" This kind of courtship takes place on the part of the student. You tend to get too close to the teacher but once you do, you get burned. Then you want to run away altogether. 

Eventually the relationship begins to become very substantial and solid. You begin to realize that wanting to be near and wanting to be far away from the guru is simply your own game. It has nothing to do with the real situation, but is just your own hallucination. The guru or spiritual friend is always there burning, always a life-fire. You can play games with him or not, as you choose. 

Then the relationship with one's spiritual friend begins to become very creative. You accept the situations of being overwhelmed by him and distant from him. If he decides to play the role of cold icy water, you accept it. If he decides to play the role of hot fire, you accept it. Nothing can shake you at all and you come to a reconciliation with him. 

The next stage is that, having accepted everything your spiritual friend might do, you begin to lose your own inspiration because you  have completely surrendered, completely given up. You feel yourself reduced to a speck of dust. You are insignificant. You begin to feel that the only world that exists is that of this spiritual friend, the guru. It is as though you were watching a fascinating movie; the movie is so exciting that you become part of it. There is no you and no cinema hall, no chairs, no people watching, no friends sitting next to you. The movie is all that exists. This is called the "honeymoon period” in which everything is seen as a part of this central being, the guru. You are just a useless, insignificant person who is continuously being fed by this great, fascinating central being. Whenever you feel weak or tired or bored, you go and just sit in the cinema hall and are entertained, uplifted, rejuvenated. At this point the phenomenon of the personality cult becomes prominent. The guru is the only person in the world who exists, alive and vibrant. The very meaning of your life depends upon him. If you die, you die for him. If you live, you survive for him and are insignificant. 

Milarepa

However, this love affair with your spiritual friend cannot last forever, Sooner or later its intensity must wane and you must face your own life-situation and your own psychology. It is like having married and finished the honeymoon. You not only feel conscious of your lover as the central focus of your attention, but you begin to notice his or her lifestyle as well. You begin to notice what it is that makes this person a teacher, beyond the limits of his individuality and personality. Thus the principle of the “universality of the guru” comes into the picture as well. Every problem you face in life is a part of your marriage. Whenever you experience difficulties, you hear the words of the guru. This is the point at which one begins to gain one's independence from the guru as lover, because every situation becomes an expression of the teachings. First you surrendered to your spiritual friend. Then you communicated and played games with him. And now you have come to the state of complete openness. As a result of this openness you begin to see the guru-quality in every life-situation, that all situations in life offer you the opportunity to be as open as you are with the guru, and so all things can become the guru. 

Milarepa had a vivid vision of his guru Marpa while he was meditating in very strict retreat in Red Rock Jewel Valley, Weak with hunger  and battered by the elements, he had fainted while trying to collect firewood outside his cave. When he regained consciousness, he looked  to the east and saw white clouds in the direction where Marpa lived. With great longing he sang a song of supplication, telling Marpa how much he longed to be with him. Then Marpa appeared in a vision, riding a white snow lion, and said to him something like, “What is the matter with you? Have you had a neurotic upheaval of some sort? You understand the dharma, so continue to practice meditation." Milarepa took comfort and returned to his cave to meditate. His reliance and dependence upon Marpa at this point indicates that he had not yet freed himself from the notion of guru as personal, individual friend. 

However, when Milarepa returned to his cave, he found it full of demons with eyes as big as saucepans and bodies the size of thumbs. He  tried all kinds of ploys to get them to stop mocking and tormenting him, but they would not leave until Milarepa finally stopped trying to play games, until he recognized his own hypocrisy and gave in to openness. From this point on you see a tremendous change of style in Milarepa's songs, because he had learned to identify with the universal quality of guru, rather than solely relating to Marpa as an individual person. 

The spiritual friend becomes part of you, as well as being an individual, external person. As such the guru, both internal and external, plays a very important part in penetrating and exposing our hypocrisies. The guru can be a person who acts as a mirror, reflecting you, or else your own basic intelligence takes the form of the spiritual friend. When the internal guru begins to function, then you can never escape the demand to open. The basic intelligence follows your everywhere; you cannot escape your own shadow, “Big Brother is watching you." Though it is not external entities who are watching us and haunting us; we haunt ourselves. Our own shadow is watching us. 

We could look at it in two different ways. We could see the guru as a ghost, haunting and mocking us for our hypocrisy. There could be a demonic quality in realizing what we are. And yet there is always the creative quality of the spiritual friend which also becomes a part of us. The basic intelligence is continuously present in the situations of life. It is so sharp and penetrating that at some stage, even if you want to get rid of it, you cannot. Sometimes it has a stern expression, sometimes an inspiring smile. It has been said in the Tantric tradition that you do not see the face of the guru, but you see the expression of his face all the time. Either smiling, grinning, or frowning angrily, it is part of every life-situation. The basic intelligence, tathagatagarbha, buddha nature, is always in every experience life brings us. There is no escaping it. Again it is said in the teachings: “Better not to begin. Once you begin, better to finish it,” So you had better not step onto the spiritual path unless you must. Once you have stepped foot on the path, you have really done it, you cannot step back. There is no way of escaping.