Tantric practitioners are not really worshipping a guru because of his personality, his achievements, his charisma, or his reputation. It’s nothing personal at all. A tantric practitioner has to see everyone as the guru. Not only that, a tantric practitioner has to see everything as the guru’s form, every sound as the guru’s voice, and every thought as the guru’s mind. So eventually all your idealizing, sycophanting, and ass kissing of a guru will mature so that you will do that to everyone, even those who irritate you the most, and everything that enters your consciousness. When that starts to happen, you are beginning to subdue and outshine appearance and existence instead of existence and appearance subduing and outshining you, which is probably what is happening in your experience of phenomena now.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book The Guru Drinks Bourbon?

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Further quotes from the book The Guru Drinks Bourbon?:

• The quest for a guru
• Seeing a student’s potential
• The whole purpose of the outer guru
• Merging with the guru’s mind
• Practicing Dharma requires sacrifice
• Devotion is supreme
• Advice on selecting a guru
• No one can please everyone
• Samsara
• Experience is like a mist in the morning
• Gurus Don’t Fish for Devotion
• Why can’t the Guru be perfect?
• Your decision is now taking the lead
• The moment there is devotion
• Controlled by circumstances
• Sooner or later, you will have to check
• Open-minded guru
• Famous unintentionally
• The very essence of the Spiritual journey