Real teacher Vs False teacher

We come across many teachers – some real, interested in our welfare, and some in their own. Buddha gives a nice simile to differentiate between these two categories of teachers.

In a discourse named “two ways of thinking” (MN 19: Dvedhavitakka Sutta), Buddha explains two paths in front of a person. One that leads to endless pain and the other that leads to freedom from all pain. 

In the beginning of his own spiritual journey Buddha considered these two paths and finally chose the latter since he knew the shortcomings of the former. But many people are not as fortunate as Buddha. They need some Guru to show them the right path. But one needs to be careful in choosing the right Guru.

The simile that Buddha gives is as follows.

Suppose there is a lush  grass land with plenty of juicy grass. And there is a herd of deer that would happily graze the grass. Now, let us say that there is a hunter who comes to know about this. What does he do?

The hunter first closes the safe path through which the herd can escape. Instead, he creates a false path that leads to a male and a female decoy. The deer get sexually attracted to these decoys and move into the trap. Once they enter the trap, they have no way of escaping since the safe path is closed by the hunter. Finally, they end up being caught by the hunter.

Buddha says that the grassy land is like the world full of sense pleasures. The deer are the worldly people who get attracted to these pleasures and benefits. The hunter is the false Guru who misleads them for his own benefit. He employs promise of various worldly benefits and uses smart talk as the decoys to lure these ignorant people. He speaks using clever words and spreads ignorance. And the gullible people fall prey to the trap he has laid.

On the other hand, a kind hearted person would open up the safe path for the deer so that they can escape this trap. He is the real Guru who offers the path of right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Moving on that path, these innocent people would ultimately escape the miseries which they otherwise would have got into.

As they move on this safe path, Buddha says that they go through various levels of mental evolution – which Buddha calls as Jhana (stages of Dhyäna or meditation) – that culminates in complete freedom from all miseries.

That is what a real Guru does. The other one merely misleads you into more and more misery.