Naropa: Looking for the master

At some stage in our path, we may feel the need to look for someone who can understand our personal situation, and help us to advance to a further level of development.

In the west, we can join many so called "brotherhoods", or "mystical" orders or any of many esoteric groups. Usually, behind these organizations we find a hierarchy of so called "masters", who usually only look for their self-interests and to preserve their little niche of "power" and authority among the members of the organization. It is really difficult to find any genuine master trying to help you to develop and progress, and this is the same, I guess, in the east.

One thing is the Public image and propaganda of these institutions, and a different thing is the "reality" behind the mask. If you join one of these organizations, and you are HONEST and intelligent, you will probably quit after realizing the truth of the situation: You have been deceiving yourself expecting to find genuine masters teaching genuine methods, and you really ended up among bluffers and "pseudo-masters".

But this is not all negative: in this process, you will probably discover WHAT IS NOT A MASTER, and this is the starting point for getting rid of the flaws you have seen on the bluffers, which in fact are your OWN flaws.

So, after all, what seemed to be a sidetrack, in fact it was a "purification" process that allowed you to get to know yourself better.

As long as you keep wishing to find the genuine masters, you will meet better quality teachers according to your own level of advancement.

That is the real function of the aspiration prayers to the Lineage: to actively seek the contact with the genuine masters, who have established themselves on the Nature of Mind.

As it is said, when the apprentice is ready, the master shows up.

In fact, the real master is the AWAKENED MIND, which is always close to us, but if we are not able to SEE it, then we have to look for an external master to give us the pointing out instructions.