What differentiates a guru from a spiritual teacher? The guru offers themself as an instrument of freedom, liberation, awakening, enlightenment. Implicit in this is the assumption that the guru not only has first hand, embodied experience of what they offer, but also knows how to guide others to the same. Also implicit is the assumption of infallibility. The guru always knows. Gurus exist in many (Eastern) traditions. In each tradition the conceptualisation of the ‘goal’ and the means to realise it differs. Sometimes even to the extent of being contradictory of each other. Yet within them all there is a clearly stated and uninhibitedly implemented power dynamic


This dynamic is activated by the ‘chela’ simply in engaging sincerely with the guru. The guru has no choice but to accept them unless considered unsuitable, unready, unprepared. The guru acts as if they have a special spiritual status and a superior understanding of matters spiritual. The chela acts as much as possible in accordance with the injunctions of the guru. It is a power dynamic within which all the power of that dynamic is held by the guru. The effectiveness of the dynamic for the chela is a direct function of their ability to trust and surrender to the guru. From the outside this surrender can look like a submission, but it is voluntarily undertaken as an act of faith, in the guru.

This is a very dangerous game to play. Simply because the chela does not, can not know if the guru is genuine.

A spiritual teacher is someone who has something to teach that can help people to access and embody their spiritual nature. This is quite different from having incisive and inspiring things to say about spirituality and its implications. Although of course such things can be said in support of an experiential methodology being instructed. Nor is it necessary to have fully embodied their spiritual nature. It is enough to know, from personal experience, how the method must be implemented, and what the effects of that implementation are likely to be: not only in terms of access and embodiment, but also of likely difficulties.

A spiritual teacher is not a guru. Nor are they more wise, virtuous or valuable than any other person. They are a technician.

Given the danger inherent in the guru game, it is incumbent on any spiritual teacher not only to resist accidentally playing the role of guru, claiming special spiritual status or implying infallible authority, but also to make it clear that they are not offering themselves in those ways. Whether or not the message gets through is another matter.

The problem for the spiritual seeker lies first in not understanding these differences. Second, it lies in not understanding their own level of maturity and self-awareness. People usually tend to exaggerate both.

It is inherent in the guru dynamic that the chela surrenders completely, passing responsibility to the guru, who takes it. The spiritual teacher does not and can not assume responsibility for their students. Only for their own actions as teacher. The spiritual teacher is not an authority to the student except in the specifics of the methodology they are teaching. While the guru may recommend or impose behavioural norms, such as eating and sleeping regimes, the teacher must not. If they do then they blur the teacher/guru distinction and invite a different and nonconsensual power dynamic into play. One from which it is not easy to escape, and within which everyone is compromised.


Anyone who has taken the role of the guru can no longer take the role of the spiritual teacher.


Neither the guru nor the spiritual teacher is a therapist. The spiritual path is about embodying wholeness. The fact that this embodiment is almost bound to be therapeutic does not make it therapy. Neither the guru nor the spiritual teacher offer to resolve peoples emotional or psychological problems. They offer two different approaches to disempowering the habits of resistance to life that cause ongoing suffering, regardless of clinical profile, although that profile must be taken into account as it surfaces. This means that the spiritual teacher must have a sound and effective understanding of core human psychology, and its relationship to spirituality. At the heart of this is understanding the nature and role of the sense of self, and its pivotal role in compulsion, addiction, neurosis and psychosis, without needing to know their clinical details.

Especially in the guru dynamic, but also more gently in spiritual methodologies, psychological and emotional self-confrontation and catharsis are almost inevitable. This being so, even without being trained in therapeutics, both guru and spiritual teacher need to be able to support and contain such eventualities. This is not the same as resolving the underlying issues.
The guru can do so, from their infallible status, in any way they please. Consent has been given: the guru is always in charge. Not so the spiritual teacher. They have not been given permission to play ‘god’ in the way that the guru has. They have a collaborative relationship with their students. There will of course be both power differentials and power dynamics within that relationship, but they will fluctuate in both intensity and direction, and be expressed in different ways and domains. The teacher is nothing more than a method instructor with no claim on any kind of moral or behavioural superiority, and with no need to accept any such being inferred or assumed by their students.

The third problem for the spiritual seeker is the need to take responsibility for their own experience. This requires a maturity they may not have, within which they may be unable to recognise or accept their immaturity, nor their unreasonable assumptions, hopes and expectations. In such cases, no matter what the teacher says or does the student will tend to, even if only sometimes, unrealistically and irresponsibly put the teacher on a pedestal they neither claim nor inhabit. This can only be a problem from which the teacher can not easily escape, but escape they must.

The guru chela relationship is one that can be, and usually is to begin with, one within which guru is parent chela is child. If both parties are sincere this can be enormously fruitful for the chela, who will, then eventually ‘grow up’ and no longer need a guru. This fruitfulness depends as much on the complete surrender of the chela, as it does on the unimpeachable authenticity of the guru.

The teacher student relationship is a collaborative one between consenting adults neither of whom requires the power nor submission of the other. Being adult the student takes responsibility for their own experience, ready to question, challenge and perhaps abandon the teacher according to their experience. Being fallible the teacher neither demands nor commands, but merely instructs an experiential method, with no attempt to impose anything, ideological behavioural. Nor can they try to persuade the student to remain, other than by the effectiveness of their teaching.