The young Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, grandson of HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, 1976 SeaTac Airport, visiting America, Seattle, Washington, USA

So I am confussed – scared that I am following a wrong spiritual guide; afraid that to change would be very bad karma and thinking that you postulate thart I am an unfit Dharma student anyway so maybe I should just give it all up.

Again, I am sorry for this, really.
I know this from own experiences, I had to leave even two close teachers.
But finally everything went well. After I left two of my teachers, who were according to my analysis heavily misleading their students, one of my teachers said: “You must abandon wrong teachers because they mislead their students onto wrong paths.” This teaching moved directly and deeply my heart and I understood deeply from within, it was correct what I did. My doubts were utterly removed by this teaching, and I felt relieve and joy that I did the correct things. Since I left my two teachers only good things happened to me and I feel more stable and relaxed and happy than ever in NKT. The point is, the feelings you have expressed in this comment above and the part I quoted respectively, are already the sign that the NKT system has control over you, it makes you fear to leave the group or the teacher. To go to other teachers and other schools or traditions is not negative Karma. Also many famous teachers left their first teachers and followed other teachers, like Tsongkhapa; he left his teacher even without saying good bye, Gampopa left his Kadampa teachers to follow Milarepa, Dromtönpa left his teacher to follow Atisha. Almost none of the masters we revere met their main master at the beginning, they came later along the path. There are also teachings that one can make a neutral distance to a teacher when one sees to many obvious faults and that one can make a neutral distance if one relied too quickly on a teacher without careful investigation beforehand, and later, after one already decided to rely on him, one recognizes that the teacher is not really qualified. See this collection of quotes and material which I compiled for NKT people in transition and finally put in the file section of the New Kadampa Survivors Forum. You'll find in that file also what Je Tsongkhapa taught about the qualities a student of the Mahayana Dharma should have and what faults arise if the person lacks these qualities. There is also the very important link to Alex Berzin's website who clarifies the “fear of breaking one's guru devotion”. All this may be very helpful to read. Alex Berzin based his text strongly on the teachings of the Dharma and he had an incredible master too: Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, who really trained him in the Dharma.

I hope this helps a bit. Please be patient but I can only reply step by step, it takes me a lot of time to answer such comments. Though I am happy to serve here a bit, I have very limited time resources.

Thank you very much for this opportunity and your sincere inquiry.

PS: Did you know that Geshe-la's main teacher is Geshe Lhundup Sopa, one of the greatest contemporary Gelug scholars, highly revered by academics and Dharma practitioners? He is still alive and lives in the USA. You can ask yourself why Geshe-la has no contact to his main teacher any more or why you have not even heard of this fact. Trijang Rinpoche didn't teach Geshe-la all his knowledge. He had many teachers. ]]>