The personality and the message

I see how easily, in religion, we can fall in love with a personality and lose sight of the message. We follow the person. Then we argue about the person someone else follows.

It reminds me of admiring a maths teacher and never learning the maths. Or praising a doctor while leaving the medicine unused. The admiration can become the whole activity. I can be drawn to a person and still have to ask what I have understood from their teaching.

When I listen to a teacher, what am I learning? How does it affect how I live? I want to understand the message behind the personality that has caught my attention.