No shaikh is perfect, and it is particularly in his function as shaikh that he may sometimes disappear and become a pure medium for divine grace or wisdom. It is the dervish who helps to create the shaikh, and both are in the process of learning from the relationship. It must be remembered that before becoming a shaikh one had to be a dervish, and one never stops being a dervish. A messenger entered with the news that a certain shaikh in a distant village had died. The community was asking that a shaikh be sent to succeed their late teacher.
Spiritual seekers are typically people who have learned to question conventional reality.
Our post-modern culture has also suffered a loss of faith, the result of which can be characterized as a pervasive cynicism. The conventional conditioning and orthodoxy of the post-modern world consists of a profound cynicism, doubt, and inability to approach truth innocently. While one should look quite critically at any spiritual path or teacher before committing oneself, one shouldn't allow the pervasive cynicism and rebelliousness of our times to prevent one from seeing what humility and trust can offer. Once one has decided to play the master game of self-transformation one must do it wholeheartedly. In my own case it took quite a while for me to understand the value of cultivating a relationship with a teacher.