When does one find the final spiritual teacher?

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: I have observed that the mind gets coloured with the subject that I get myself involved into. Firstly it was Osho, Krishnamurti, Adi Shankaracharya, Rumi, and Ashtavkara. And now the subject is you (referring to Acharya Prashant).

Ever since I came in touch with you, I feel coloured with you. When will it happen that I will settle down in my real nature, the Source. Where am I going wrong? Where will my search end? What am I missing?

Request for your help.

Acharya Prashant: You are making a fundamental mistake.

You are treating the Teachers as colour-pots. You are treating them as ‘subjects’, by your own admission.

You say, “I have observed that the mind gets coloured with the subject that I get myself involved with.”

Teachers are not subjects. You do not read them. You get read in their light.

Do you get the difference? Please meditate.

You do not read a Teacher, you get read in the light of the Teacher. You get read. You read yourself.

If you say that you are using the Teacher to colour yourself, then the basic material is remaining the same. The poor Teacher is just the colour on the surface, and you are stubborn, insistent that you will not allow the Teacher to penetrate deep enough.

Colours do not change the clothes, or do they? Colours do not change the wall, or do they? Colours do not change the car, or do they? You ask that what is the mistake you are making.

This is the mistake that you are making.

You are continuing to have a ‘subject-object’ relationship with the Teacher.

And if you want to remain an ‘object’, it is imperative for you that the Teacher remains a ‘subject’.

And where there is an ‘object’ and there is a ‘subject’, there would always be a distance. The ‘subject’ and the ‘object’ cannot be one.

They determine each other, they work upon each other, they play with each other, still they maintain a distance between them.