Because of the intention and the audience toward which that paper was directed; for the purposes of this writing we will reverse the intention and point it toward the use of the seeker.
As you read through this, each of these statements is something to consider as it relates to your own approach and intention. In addition, these statements point out some of the qualities of the Real Teacher. By paying attention to them and to his or her actions (and what is behind them if you can) you will better be able to discern if you are in that presence. You may also wish to consider IF you are able to even discern his point of view, and whether what you think you "want" is important or has any relation to real learning.
[When a potential student approaches,] his first intention is to see if his thoughts fit in with mine and if my thoughts fit in with his.
It seems that thousands of people are every day in the spiritual pursuit. One day they go to one thing, another day to another. Just like one goes to many different theatres, everything new and sensational.
Among dogs, there are some who follow anyone, whoever gives them a bone is their master, and if another gives them meat, they leave the first one and follow the other. And there are some who follow only one master, who obey only one, and even sometimes sacrifice their life for him. It depends upon the breed, the heredity.
It is better to give pupils no tendency to discuss our sacred teachings. The pupil has to give up all preconceived ideas before starting on the spiritual path under the guidance of a teacher.
A child must therefore be taught from the beginning, that it is not as he sees just now, but when he will see differently, he will find the same thing different. All that one can do for another is to give him one's own experience. If a person happens to know a road, he can tell the other man that it is the road that leads to the place he wishes to find.
The one who asks a question becomes stronger than the one who is put in the position of answering the question. There are many clever people who will ask you a cross question to get out of you a certain answer which they expect to come from you. Then they hit against it, for in this way, they prepare a ground for a battle. They question in order to cover the restlessness of their minds, scratching their own hearts. Since many of them believe in themselves, they cannot believe in another, so their question remains always unanswered.
If he is very intelligent and materialistic to excess, he will have an influence even on your self-confidence [he warns the growing Teachers-in-training]. An unbeliever has the power to shake the belief of the believers.
[There are kinds of people who seek, many are not really seeking learning. Of them,] there is one of the wrong kinds who is only following the teacher for the satisfaction of his intellectual craving, and so long as the teacher has the food for his intellect he will be content; the day when the teacher's idea does not fit in with his intellectual ideas, he will have difficulties. There is no other side of the teacher that will appeal to him except one, and that is the teacher's intellectuality.
And there is another of the same kind who is curious, who wants to find out what phenomena can be traced in the doings or in the life of the teacher, if there is anything wonderful, if there is anything curious. If he can satisfy his curiosity, so long he will stay, and the day when his curiosity is not satisfied he will become discontented.
And the third kind is a victim to the teacher's influence. The teacher's influence is so strong that he is attracted to that influence as something is attracted to the magnet. He himself does not know why he is drawn to the teacher, yet he cannot help being drawn, because he is a poor victim.
And there is a fourth kind who wants to be a mureed because it is a good pastime to be able to get somebody's advice in trouble. That is all he is concerned with. Neither is he for God nor for Truth nor for evolution.
[But when there is a real seeker, the scope and extent of guidance is broad.] Never think therefore that a spiritual teacher is too superior to interest himself in the material needs of his pupils. One may not think that by helping in a mureed's worldly affair, nothing spiritual is accomplished; for once in the spiritual path, every material and spiritual thing one does, only leads him to the spiritual goal. Wise parents pay serious attention to their children's little demands.
[The teacher] should not make the pupil uncomfortable when he is at fault but allow him to notice his mistake himself. The teacher will not tell him that he is wrong, but show him what is right. The teacher will bring up the good side of the pupil's nature and deny and ignore the weak side of the pupil's nature. But the good side must not be brought before him in the form of flattery. When he realizes that there is something lacking, that is the occasion for the teacher to add that which is lacking.
When the child tries to move about by its own free will, and tries to keep away, then the attention of the mother to some extent becomes released. This does not mean that the mother entirely gives up the care of the child; it only means that she allows the child to have its way to some extent, and feels sorry when the child falls and hurts itself. If the child falls, it will try her; but she does not prevent its falling.
If he cannot walk, then if someone gives him a hand, it is making him dependent, but it is helping him.
With every goodwill to help the pupil, one must not spoil him by making him too dependent.
The more man depends upon his own effort, the less God holds himself responsible for him.
Every person must answer your purpose according to the position you take before him. If you are a teacher to him, he will be your pupil, if you are his friend, he will become your chum, if you are his rival, he will become your competitor. Decide, therefore, fully well beforehand in what relation that person should be to you, and act accordingly to him. He should be closely attached, and yet detached, near and yet far.
If there be a distance, it must not be for the vanity of the initiator, it must be only if it were for the benefit of the pupil.
[A teacher] may need with certain pupils to keep an outer distance, but in order make up for the outer distance, he must come inwardly close.
[But of the things that he does,] Nevertheless, the teacher must not expect service and reverence. [From the point of view of the continuity of guidance]Do not do anything for your spiritual guide for what you may receive from him, nor must he do anything for you as a return for what you do for him.
[As a guide] If you are dependent upon others, some will try to make you more dependent.
[Some potential students may try to gain] The upper hand on a spiritual person who is kind and gentle and tolerant, enduring and forgiving, if he finds the least little opportunity of handling him.
[But this is part of the process to consider in a person who is starting out. One looks toward other more real actions for a real start. In this] A personality is first put to melt by the initiator, and it is only after the melting of the personality that something can be made out of it.
The way of the Sufi esoteric training is not only in prescribing different meditations and in giving philosophical studies, but it is in trying and testing a pupil, his sincerity, his faithfulness, his trust, his courage, his intelligence, his patience. It is weighing and measuring his sense of justice, his faculty of reasoning, probing into the depth of his heart. The confidence is tested when the mureed's patience is tried.
The initiator must see if the thread on the side of the initiated is thin and cannot endure the weight of the sacredness which belongs to initiation. Very often the thinness of the thread has a discouraging effect upon the initiator, and it demands a great deal of consideration and interest and sympathy on the part of the initiator to hold up something which is dropping.
One must not try the patience of the pupil by asking him to do too much. Sometimes I wait days, months, years to tell something I would have liked to tell a mureed, waiting for the time to come, waiting for the spirit of the mureed to have become ripened.
Thus to the pupil the teacher may often appear to be very unreasonable, very odd, very meaningless, very unkind, very cold and unjust. And during these tests, if the faith and the trust of the pupil do not endure, he will step back.
He will wonder why, when Murshid has always given me a hot cup of tea, why does he give me a cold drink. It is not that Murshid's sympathy is lacking, it is because you need at that time a cold drink; it is better for you. The method of Murshid is most subtle and fine and deep. It cannot be put in gross words of explanation. It is not like the religious path where the clergy or authority says "This is wicked according to this or the other law." With Murshid there is the delicacy of conscientiousness keeping the delicate feeling alive. The delicate feeling is this, that you may not allow the teacher to tell you something in words. You must understand his pleasure before he says it.
Even if Murshid appears to be displeased, it is not so in truth. [Once, after a silence, a mureed thought Inayat Khan had looked at her harshly.] "Imagine," he said, "how could I be angry at that time!"
Mureeds can come to me and talk to me, and behave in a way that they should not behave. Never for one moment do I allow myself to think that their devotion, their love, their sympathy is less. The parents never allow the relationship to be broken, even if their children happen to prove unworthy.
This link between Murshid and mureed is more delicate than a thin thread and at the same time much stronger than a steel wire. And the only way to preserve it is to keep that delicate feeling about one's teacher living in one's heart.
The teacher has two responsibilities: to look after his fragile spirit, and to look after the spirit of the mureed, which very often is asleep. And sometimes a conflict arises, so that the teacher is very often on the point of breaking his own spirit while wanting to maintain the spirit of his mureed. Very often it is that the mureed, without knowing, is holding the glass-like spirit of his teacher, and unconsciously is on the point of throwing it against the rock. [And so the teacher must be careful not to reach the] moment [when he] says: "Please do not throw it," [for then] the teacher has lost his spirit as well as the spirit of the mureed. Why has the teacher lost his spirit? Because the moment the mureed knows that the teacher's spirit is in his hand, and he can throw it in a moment, no more the teacher is a teacher in the eyes of the mureed. The mureed thinks that the teacher's spirit is stronger than the rock. But he does not know that in spite of the strength that the teacher has, it is more fragile than the glass.
[For example] The greater the teacher, the more delicate his temperament. The more transparent the heart, the more fragile. What I mean to say, is that by hurting a fly you might hurt Murshid, and that is the thing that many cannot understand.
In the path of discipleship the whole beauty of the way is fineness of manner between the teacher and the pupil. If one does not learn delicacy with one's teacher, with whom will one learn it?
There is never a possibility on the part of Murshid to remove a mureed from the current he receives, unless he himself turns his back to it. There is a stage where the teacher arrives at a point where not only he loves, but he becomes love, he turns into love. Then love alone can he stand.
No matter how undesirable my mureed be, no matter how opposed, I would never turn my back. I would not call myself a murshid if I would. If the connection can be separated, it is on the part of the mureed himself. And the day when the mureed will come in focus, he will find the same thing there as has always been, perhaps a little more, because the love that does not grow is dead.
[Not everything needs to be said.] It has been inconceivable to me to see to what extent some people in the western world could be outspoken. If it was honesty, I could not think for one moment it could be wisdom. What I found missing in the West is the tendency to keep veiled all that is beautiful.
[The teachers] goodwill and blessing must reach each and every one whose hand [was] once held in the sacred initiation.
The teacher must care: the teacher is born to care, it is his work. For the teacher lives for mureeds, his only object is to see their spiritual evolution. There must be no limit to the teacher's compassion, because that is the teacher's test. God is testing the teacher by giving him a difficult pupil. The greater the initiator, the more he will risk difficult mureeds.
[The teacher is careful what he says and does, for] The pupil must not be given a handle by which he could dispute and make the teacher commit an error, for once the pupil holds a mistake of the teacher, he loses his regard for his teacher. No word may be said that may be taken amiss by another person.
[Yet there are some false, or devilish teachers] The tendency of a devilish person is to rule. He wants to get a grip on any person in whom he feels interested. And he gets control of another most frequently by taking advantage of his faults. He draws the one he wishes to control into a ditch; and when he finds that his victim is dependent, then he stretches out to him his helping hand. But instead of lifting a person from the ditch, he would rather keep him there by the strength of his helping hand. If he lifted him up from there, it would be in order to make of him a horse and ride on his back, or a donkey to bear his load.
If people speak against [a teacher, he should] take notice of it, judge it, and weigh it in himself impartially, and correct himself. You may not partake of their poison by returning the same to them or even by keeping some memory of it in your heart.
The spiritual path is the balance of democracy and aristocracy. The aristocratic part is that the initiator sits on the teacher's throne and the initiated one stands in his place in all humility. And the democracy of the spiritual path is that the teacher raises him also to the same throne upon which he himself is sitting, and even higher if he can; for in raising the initiated one the initiator himself is raised high. Verily the greatness of God is brought to Him by the greatness of man.
[As a student one is] Trying every moment of one's life to think as Murshid thinks, to see as Murshid sees, to feel as Murshid feels and to act as Murshid acts.
It is hopeless when one says: "The teacher is a teacher, and I am what I am."
The pupil learns to give everything that he has so far given to the teacher: devotion, sacrifice, service, respect, to all, because he has learned to see his teacher in all.
[And when the student does this,] Do you know what Murshid feels: "Myself is coming before me"? His atmosphere becomes Murshid's atmosphere, his word Murshid's word, his glance Murshid's glance.
The teacher is much closer and much higher than all relations and connections in this world.
The times when I received were when through my devotion the heart of my murshid was moved, and those moments when the heart is open are like the key.
A teacher can elevate a soul much more by silent than by oral teaching. It is simply a reflection of the teacher's spirit fallen on the heart of the pupil.
There are two stages of advancement in the life of a mureed. One is that the mureed knows and understands what the Murshid says. Second, that the mureed knows what Murshid means.
Murshidship and mureedship is a journeying of two persons, one who knows he path, the other a stranger taken through the mist by the Murshid until they arrive at a stage where neither Murshid is a Murshid nor mureed is a mureed, though the happy memory of the journey through the path remains in the consciousness of the grateful mureed.
For the mystical teacher is not the player of the instrument; he is the tuner. When he has tuned it, he gives into the hands of the Player whose instrument it is to play.
