[祈祷]Responsibility and Discernment in Choosing a Spiritual Teacher
Before following anyone, you need to first examine that person to determine whether he or she is actually competent and possesses the prescribed qualifications according to the pratimoksha, bodhisattva, or tantric level. But once you have decided to follow a particular teacher, it does not help to continue to judge him or her, trying to figure out whether you made the right choice. Such an attitude will only pollute your mind. Instead, after making a positive assessment and choosing to follow a teacher, simply do so. Remember, it is your responsibility to check carefully whether a potential teacher is qualified, holds a lineage, and has received blessings. Only after becoming confident that this is so, and feeling that you can really trust this person and can keep pure samaya or sacred commitment with him or her, should you ask for the appropriate teachings.

What if you later find out that you were mistaken, that the teacher is not trustworthy, and that he or she is not guiding you toward liberation but is pointing you in the wrong direction? Someone who guides people in the opposite direction o f liberation is, by definition, not a spiritual teacher but a corrupter and unqualified, and there is no duty to follow blindly merely because you accepted him or her to begin with. It is perfectly alright to find somebody else. Especially today, all kinds o f people present themselves as spiritual teachers. If you run into one o f these charlatans, you should avoid them. On the other hand, if you do have a true teacher but somehow develop a negative attitude and destroy your connection with that person, this is the same as rejecting the Dharma, and it will have severe repercussions.

~ Freedom in bondage: The Life and Teachings of Adeu Rinpoche