Passage 11

“One who learns by heart what is in a book and then gives lectures, like vomiting up food he has eaten, merely as if to thrill the people, cannot become a guru. Such people are heroes in lectures but zeros in sādhana and in being a guru. They will do as schoolteachers, but they are of no use for bestowing Bhakti and Mukti or for giving upadeśa. Whatever gain comes to a book that holds all subjects within it, just that much comes to such a guru, and the same to the disciple who takes refuge in him. Not knowing this, many sādhakas go to such people with verbal “magic”, to those skilled in word-gymnastics, become their disciples, and fall from both. Merely by having learning, merely by being renowned as a paṇḍita, merely by giving lectures, they cannot give the ‘alms of Jñāna’. That is possible only for embodiments of the Avatāra of God, for those born of a portion of the Divine, and for knowers of tattva by experience. Having a little experience is of no use; this is possible only for those who have complete experience. One who knows a little goes only that far and then becomes a Triśaṅku, belonging to neither. So one must go to those who have ‘complete experience’.”

“Only the disciple's qualities and marks must be looked at. His property and possessions, his power and honours, must not be considered at all.