The Spiritual Master is Never To Be Referred to as an Ordinary Man

There is no meaning to accepting an ordinary man as guru.

Govinda: We were in Boston in May of 1968 when a new Back to Godhead magazine was published with a black-and-white picture of Prabhupada on the back cover and the caption, "This man changed the world." It looked very slick for those days. Prabhupada called me in his room, handed it to me and said, "Look at this." I looked and thought, "What's wrong with it?" He said, "This is very serious. The spiritual master should never be referred to as a man. This consciousness, viewing the spiritual master as an ordinary man, even calling him a man, is the beginning of fall down." This seriously affected Prabhupada because one should never refer to or consider the spiritual master on the level of a man.