Unflinching Faith in the Spiritual Master
In reference to the bona fide spiritual master who is purely teaching us what he has heard from his spiritual master without any adulteration, addition, or subtraction, it is clearly stated in the Svetasvatara Upanisad (6:23): yasya deve parā bhaktir yathā deve tathā gurau tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ "Only unto those great souls who have absolute, unflinching faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master are all the imports of Vedic knowledge automatically revealed." Foolish mental speculators and envious so-called devotees say that we should not have such strong faith in the spiritual master. But when they say that we ask them, "Why then should we have faith in your words?" In other words, if we accept the truth that it is philosophically incorrect to trust our teacher, then logically we must also conclude that we cannot trust the person who teaches us no to trust our teacher. He is also giving us a teaching. If teachers cannot be trusted, we