Stages of the Guru-Student Relationship

In the beginning, when you first meet your guru and you are trying to receive teachings from that guru, it is necessary to surrender your ego, to surrender your expectations. If you do not surrender your expectations completely, the guru will create a shock. The guru will create a situation to shake you, to help you give up and surrender your preconceived ideas. Such ideas are aspects of ego’s defense mechanism, a way to try to glorify the ego’s succession.

When you have learned to give up, to surrender yourself to the guru, there is a second stage of relating to the teacher. This stage of relationship is friendliness. Here, meeting the guru is like meeting with a friend. You have a friendly feeling for the guru, and there is a quality of warmth and wisdom. At that moment, you have to try to learn from your guru.

Finally, having learned from your guru, it is necessary to leave the guru. This is so because there is a very faint line between an egoless and intuitive admiration of the guru and an admiration based on hero worship and personality cult. When you get to that point, you are supposed to leave the guru. You are supposed to go away and work on yourself. 

Chogyam Trungpa
from Milarepa; Lessons from the Life & Songs of Tibet’s Great Yogi