Srila Prabhupada on What is Guru

“But the spiritual master does not think of himself as Hari. Although he's offered the respect of Hari, he thinks himself as humble servant of Hari and all others. A spiritual master takes his devo..., disciples as his spiritual master. That is the position. He thinks that "Krsna has sent me so many spiritual masters." He does not think himself as spiritual master. He thinks himself their servant. Because they have to be trained. Krsna has appointed him to train them. Therefore he thinks himself as servant of the disciples. This is the position. So when one is advanced, he can see the importance of devotees. Advanced devotee never disobey or disrespect another devotee. Disrespect to another devotee is a great offense. Vaisnava aparadha. Vaisnava aparadha is very serious offense. Therefore we teach to address amongst the devotees, "Prabhu", "Prabhu", "Such and such Prabhu." This should not be simply spoken by the lips. It should be realized. Everyone should think other devotee as his prabhu, master. Not he should try to become master.” (The Nectar of Devotion Lectures, Vrndavana, October 23, 1972).

Recently I read an interesting comment to the effect that in the devotee community, instead of discussion who is guru, we should be discussing what is guru. In the preceding comments Srila Prabhupada highlights three of the important symptoms a real guru manifests: One, he thinks himself as servant of all others. Two, he personally takes responsibility to train his disciples and, three, he treats all devotees, big and small, as prabhu or master. To speak frankly, my biggest disappointment during my tenure as a regional secretary in ISKCON during the first six or seven years of the Zonal Acarya farce was the utter disregard of the local zonal guru to spend any time to train his disciples. Unlimited time and discussion covering every detail of the initiation ceremonies, that was taken, but for training post-initiation? Practically nothing. And that hurt my heart, my service and, ultimately, my faith. In fact, it has taken me the best part of twenty years to fully recover.