You meet someone. They have a certain calmness. A way of holding silence. A presence in the room. You decide they're special. You start watching them more carefully. The next time they speak, the words land differently because you've labeled them as a speaker of important things. The third time, you tell a friend about them with a specific tone. By the fifth time, they're your teacher. You did most of this. They mostly stood there.
K's observation about the guru-disciple structure: the disciple does the work of constructing the guru. The robes, the wisdom, the special status — these are projections from the seeker, woven from longing and assigned to a figure. Strip the projection and the figure is just a person. Strip the projection from a hundred figures and the institution collapses. The institution depends on the projection being maintained.
This is why gurus, even ones who started with genuine insight, often deteriorate. Once enough projection has accumulated, the figure starts to believe it. They're no longer who they were. They're the projection, internalized. Now the disciple is following their own projection back to themselves, through a person who has agreed to wear it. The whole system runs on a feedback loop with no anchor.
The disciple's body recognizes the projection it's making. There's a slight thrill when the teacher walks in. A small loss of breath. The chest opens, anticipating. None of this is generated by the teacher's actual presence. It's generated by the disciple's expectation. The teacher could be replaced by an actor of similar height and the response would be the same, for a while.
There is no guru without the disciple's projection. The robe is sewn from the seeker's longing. The hierarchy is sewn from the seeker's smallness. Take away the projection and the throne is just a chair.