"There is a subtle egoistic joy in teaching because the moment you teach someone, without saying anything, you have become higher: you know and the other does not know. This has created great trouble for human beings.

"So many false teachers go on appearing…perhaps it is the greatest crime in the world to teach things which you have not experienced. But what are your bishops and cardinals and popes, imams and shankaracharyas? – just a long line of false teachers. They don't know what they are saying. They may be quoting the right scriptures, their words may be coming from right sources, but it is not the sources and not the scriptures – it is the man who speaks that is the ultimate criterion of whether what he says is true or not.

"One great master, Naropa, has repeatedly said one thing: 'Don't listen to what I say, listen to me! It does not matter what I say; what matters is what I am.'

"A true teacher speaks out of spontaneity, experience, awareness, his own realization. The false teacher is very learned; he knows all the scriptures, he quotes them beautifully and he can easily deceive people. In fact it is very difficult not to be deceived by such a person, because you don't know how to judge. He is speaking the right words, but his right words are just like a gramophone record. You cannot make a gramophone record your master; what it is saying is absolutely true, but there is no one inside. It is just a dead record.

"Your memory is also a dead record. Teachers teach through memory, masters teach through awareness, intelligence; hence it is possible to find inconsistencies and contradictions in masters – in fact, they are bound to be found. This can be used as a criterion: if somebody is continuously consistent, he cannot be a master. He is only repeating things mechanically.

"The master has to respond each moment, and each moment is different. The master never answers the question; he always answers the questioner – and the questioners are different. The master is not concerned whether what he says is in tune with the scriptures, tradition, convention, or is against."