I would like to share that although most of us are already beyond the point of choosing one’s teacher, it is very important to have faith in one’s teacher no matter whom he is. The reason is very simple: without faith, one can constantly question the teacher’s motives which in turn only handicaps one’s own work. It is absolutely necessary to trust in the teacher’s guidance – even when it greatly challenges one’s personal preferences, beliefs and point of views. The reason for this necessity is also simple: if one can trust the teacher in these circumstances, then one learns to trust in life itself. And after all we are all about the of living of real life!

Everything sends me back to myself: the boredom and the embarrassment to have to invest time in building steps outside on the pathway, while the administrative tasks keep weighing on me. Questioning even the doubts which can come me about the behavior or the tribulations of our teacher, my incapacity to communicate easily with certain members of the group, my incapacity to remember myself regularly throughout the day, etc. etc.
To what that sends back in me? What is affected in me? What do I tell? What do I project?
It belongs to me to be lucid about it. I can fail and then the group is a real blessing (sometimes painful as when we drill an abscess, but often in full discharge), but it is my work. Every moment. Not just during our meetings.
There is this trust in life there in which I surrender without any certainty as for the results. Just with the idea that it will arrive what I more need for my evolution. Of course, I don’t succeed in living this “surrendering” permanently: I have then to look deep inside of me to observe what is there: some fear very often, sometimes the greediness, and especially my powerlessness. I welcome that and the pain that goes with it. And my smallness.
Then the questions that I can settle on our teacher… yeah, it is a good opportunity to go to explore my cellar and the shadows that I feed there. No certainty. Just stay on the thread. In balance. With the confidence in the life and in the death, and go where the wind pushes me without trying too much to fork where I shall like taking refuge. And when this wind blows since my inside, then there, no question of opposing me. And at present I feel it crossing, sweeping my ideas, beginning to unstick certain naughty fears. I open, I am afraid, I open even more. And there I roar!

To me the teaching relies on a mutual understanding of not involving personality in the interactions (which I am not yet fully able to, of course). There can’t be any dispute within me as to what might be right or wrong in the teaching. Whatever he says or does, I need to make that into « the teaching » for myself. If I started to consider whether everything he does is right or wrong, good or bad, the teaching will not be effective anymore.

I wish to reaffirm the importance in the distinction between logical levels. The distinction is of the same order as the one made between “accepting what is” and knowing how to say “no” in certain situations (for example, when your neighbor plays the drums all night long or when a guy attacks a girl next to you on the subway). I can accept difficult situations; meaning I don’t think to myself: “This should be different. In an ideal world, this should not happen.” And at the same time, I can say “no” and send my fist into the guy’s face or call the police. Acceptance doesn’t mean passivity and resignation.
The acceptance, the welcoming is for the existential level, passivity or action is for the functional level.
I dare you to say no to our teacher on any number of things in functional life. Whether it is choosing which brand of vacuum cleaner, the type of oil to cook with, or what time breakfast should be scheduled doesn’t seem to object to the teaching; that doesn’t cast doubt on the teaching. This seeming paradox appears to me as a duty of sincerity. To face myself, rather than to turn a blind eye in the name of a pseudo-acceptance.
In any case, when these levels mix, it is up to each individual to sort things out for him(her)self. And of course, if something disturbs me, it is an opportunity to do my work.
But pay attention to the trap of turning a blind eye in the name of so called acceptance. Taken to the extreme, the question becomes: “what happens if my essential value invites me to say no to our teacher in some situation? What if I’m called on to disagree with the teaching?”
Buddha said: “if you find me on your path, kill me.”
When I’m disturbed by something I take great care to consider if the cause of the disturbance is created by personal interest. I take things in and, sometimes, I consult with others to get a better perspective. I presuppose that he does the same on his side.
And regularly, I say what I have to say, in all sincerity, even if it means setting me against him, because the sincerity towards myself is more important than the image which I can give to him. And, supernaturally, he thanks me for it regularly.
Be yourself! Dare to say and to be. Trust him in his capacity to hear you and to the group to refocus you if it feels that you are in personal interest.

For me, the teaching experiments through the group, where he does the work of the teacher, but I cannot separate the person from the teacher.
The aspects of him as a person are a part of data; I welcome the echoes in me with attention (without tension); the same for the other people of the group.
The sincerity in the group is a kind of treasure of which each person is in charge. It is this solitude-brotherhood that is so inseparable of the other that they are two sides of the same coin. Let us be very careful with this.

I meditated on some subjects since our last meeting and I would like to see if what I found is what we call “uncooked seeds.” It revolves around a projection which I formed around you, since our last meeting. I would be willing to explore that because that seems to me to be an obstacle on my way.
I was aware during our first meetings that sometimes I wanted to see only the kindness and the compassion in you; I saw you as a kind of god rather than as a man. But I notice now, having been next you in more informal situations (discussed about the washing machine, etc. :)), that this projection collapsed.

And an even more negative projection took its place.

I am very conscious of it. I am “claiming” my projections. My feeling is that I am not the only one in the group to make projections on you as well as projections on the Self (because you represented the Self for me at times). I understand now that the Self is infinite and shapeless and that he can take the shape of all kinds of projections!

Right, but the distinction between the imagination and reality is the subject about which we speak. 🙂

I have the feeling that you are going to make bad use of your power, that you are going to manipulate me and that maybe even you will deceive me. That instead of using your power for the good of everyone, you are going to use it for selfish purposes.

Does it imply that you count on your pupils to stay “honest”?

My feeling is that I am not the only one in the group to have unfinished parental projections. Is dealing with that not a part of your work of teacher?

When I look in these images and these feelings, I see at the same time tracks of my relation with my father when I was young, and echoes with my own behavior. Besides, I see an obvious link with my own reluctance to assume roles of authority in life.

I was used to conceiving inner considering as essentially a kind of internal dialogue. For me the projections have a more visceral/emotional basis (closer to the original belief?). The separation of me/the other is fed by powerful feelings. Release oneself from these is all the more difficult as the feelings are so convincing. 🙂 This exchange with you pushes me in a corner without any hope of excuse stemming from my imagination.

Would you agree that projections do not always respond to being told to go to the rubbish bin?

Perhaps this exchange is a start, because it suggests that I trust you enough to tell you about these feelings of mistrust. It is a tricky place. For the most part I see how my tendency has been to discuss things with you in a fairly abstract way and to avoid the more “personal” content. So, my question is whether you are the right person with whom to work through these issues around power? It seems to me that any talk about going beyond the personality is premature, while these projections are still at large. I suppose that the way in which you respond, will give me some information about how to proceed from here.

First you need to identify projections as projections.

How about “helping”? Can a teacher help to identify projections?

Then what is the teacher for?

This seems like a catch 22. It seems obvious that projections will fall on the teacher and that these will invalidate the teaching for the student.

I say “I don’t trust you” and you say “I can’t be trusted” you give me back what I had given you. I had no other choice than to “eat” it (or leave).

I feel that this dialogue has been most helpful and that I have enough to keep going for now. The projection is a polarity and I can inhabit either end of the drama. It is a drama between the weak and the strong. At one end, it is the feeling of utter dependency and powerlessness and the fear of being dominated and hurt by those who are powerful. At the other end, it is a feeling of power and strength and a reaction of anger and disgust at the powerlessness and fear of the other. I see how this drama has surfaced again and again during my life in all sorts of ways. Now I see that this is not who I am, I am neither one nor the other, I am the self.

How about just simple confidence? I feel I have that in you, and that is enough.

Well this is precisely the situation and why I started this dialogue. 🙂 Are you suggesting that I assume that the sage (you) is somehow perfect?

And that all imperfections that arise (fears, doubts, anger, mistrust, etc.) belong to me (the ego) and are therefore to be ignored or discarded?

Is this the “complete surrender” that you talk of?

If so, to whom did you surrender in this way?

My experience is that my attention shifts between the self and the ego, but is not firmly established in the self yet. When I am the self, I have no doubt concerning the perfection of the self and that you (and everyone else) is the self, and I understand that the self cannot be taken advantage of because there is none other than the self. But the sage (you) is not just the self, he too has an ego with its own tendencies (karmas). Even though the sage (you) may be totally detached from this ego and fully established in the self, that does not mean that this ego is not capable of mischief in the world of non-reality. Is it your teaching that this all amounts to a distraction from the business at hand? That the work is to remain firmly focused in the self and that is all? That there is no need to try to ‘reform’ the ego, that this desire to ‘reform’ is yet another form of the ego’s ignorance? When we get together we remain focused in the self and refuse to allow the egos to claim our attention, indeed as the self we really don’t care what the egos get up to with each other, whether they are pure or impure, good or bad?

The teacher might ruin you. 🙂
Do you really think you could, if you wanted?

My question is not about uncovering the ultimate, it is about working with the relative. The focus is different. My understanding is that the ultimate is completely untouched by the relative, and yet the relative can obscure the ultimate. When the relative tries to take care of the relative, there is trouble; when the ultimate takes care of the relative things are ok. My gut sense is that to have a teacher is a precarious thing, and it is best to ‘do the job’ and then move on as swiftly as possible. Do you agree?

I mean move beyond any kind of dependency on the teacher. I don’t know if there is any point to the relationship continuing once the dependency is finished?

I agree. 😉

I read with interest this dialogue. I find it very clear about the role of the teacher and how projections from the student inevitably interfere with the teaching. For me, when in the beginning of the teaching I realized my own “unclean state” and how much I project in my life I understood at the same time that of course that goes also for how I relate to my teacher. The only thing I could do was to decide to always try to keep it as clean as possible. I think that is a decision each student has to make at this point, or else one may go astray. Also, if I consider internally the teacher it is impossible to see him clearly (I know this from considering internally my wife for decades so the only way to have a clue about if the teacher is “clean” or not is to be as clean as possible myself as in: if you shake hands with the teacher with unwashed hands, how can you then tell if his hands are clean?
What was said about projections appears useful to me. I can see how I have a tendency most all the time to project in my daily life; on people or on things/events. It is as if my “emotional attention” gets directed on someone/something, and when I notice this and then instead point back toward myself (or maybe I simply “un-point” is what I do) it is like a detachment occurs and I feel my Self again. It seems pretty central to me, as if it, gives meaning to the concepts I have about self-remembering and the “I am” that Nisargadatta speaks about. The feeling I have is that whenever I project I “loose” myself to the “relative”, or the “mechanical world”, because I am not able to keep myself “gathered”. And it appears that with the concept of “projecting” I am often able to avoid inner considering quite easily by means of just “checking where my attention goes”.
Currently, my practice is mainly: I put emotional focus back on myself when I notice I project, and I also try to keep my inner space non-personal(ized).