The way of leaning upon a guide, or being carried by one, is a way which of itself can never lead to the goal. It can only lead in the end to the superior way of struggling to one's own knees again and again until one is strong enough to walk to the goal. The master must not stand in the way, must not direct attention to himself unduly and at the expense of seekers' own attraction to his central inner self. Sören Kierkegaard writes in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, "A direct relationship between one spiritual being and another, with respect to the essential truth, is unthinkable. If such a relationship is assumed, it means that one of the parties has ceased to be spirit. This is something that many a genius omits to consider, both when he helps people into the truth en masse, and when he is complaisant enough to think that acclamation, willingness to listen, the affixing of signatures, and so forth, is identical with the acceptance of the truth. Precisely as important as the truth, and if one of the two is to be emphasized, still more important, is the manner in which the truth is accepted. It would help very little if one persuaded millions of men to accept the truth, if precisely by the method of their acceptance they were transferred into error. Hence it is that all complaisance, all persuasiveness, all bargaining, all direct attraction by means of one's own person, reference to one's suffering for the cause, one's weeping over humanity, one's enthusiasm--all this is sheer misunderstanding, a false note in relation to the truth, by which, in proportion to one's ability, one may help a job-lot of human beings to get an illusion of truth. Socrates was an ethical teacher, but he took cognizance of the non-existence of any direct relationship between teacher and pupil, because the truth is inwardness, and because this inwardness in each is precisely the road which leads them away from one another. It was presumably because he understood this, that he was so happy about his unfavourable outward appearance."
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 6 : Student-Teacher > # 591
