Ādi-līlā, Chapter 1
45
devotee, who is called  āśraya-vigraha , or the manifestation or form of the Lord of whom one must take shelter.
If one poses himself as an  ācārya  but does not have an attitude of servitorship to the Lord, he must be considered an offender, and this offensive attitude disqualifies him from being an  ācārya . The bona fide spiritual master always engages in unalloyed devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. By this test he is known to be a direct manifestation of the Lord and a genuine representative of Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu. Such a spiritual master is known as  ācāryadeva . Influenced by an envious temperament and dissatisfied because of an attitude of sense gratification, mundaners criticize a real  ācārya . In fact, however, a bona fide  ācārya  is nondifferent from the Personality of Godhead. This will produce an effect subversive to transcendental realization.
As mentioned previously, a disciple should always respect the spiritual master as a manifestation of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, but at the same time one should always remember that a spiritual master is never authorized to imitate the transcendental pastimes of the Lord. False spiritual masters pose themselves as identical with Śrī Kṛṣṇa in every respect to exploit the sentiments of their disciples, but such impersonalists can only mislead their disciples, for their ultimate aim is to become one with the Lord. This is against the principles of the devotional cult.
The real Vedic philosophy is  acintya-bhedābheda-tattva , which establishes everything to be simultaneously one with and different from the Personality of Godhead. Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī confirms that this is the real position of a bona fide spiritual master and says that one should always think of the spiritual master in terms of his intimate relationship with Mukunda (Śrī Kṛṣṇa). Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, in his  Bhakti-sandarbha  (213), has clearly defined that a pure devotee's observation of the spiritual master and Lord Śiva as one with the Personality of Godhead exists in terms of their being very dear to the Lord, not identical with Him in all respects. Following in the footsteps of Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī and Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, later  ācāryas  like Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura have confirmed the same truth. In his prayers to the spiritual master, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura confirms that all the revealed scriptures accept the spiritual master to be identical with the Personality of Godhead because he is a very dear and confidential servant of the Lord. Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas therefore worship Śrīla Gurudeva (the spiritual master) in the light of his being the servitor of the Personality of Godhead. In all the ancient literatures of devotional service and in the more recent songs of Śrīla Narottama dāsa Thākura, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Thākura and other unalloyed Vaiṣṇavas, the spiritual master is always considered either one of the confidential associates of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī or a manifested representation of Śrīla Nityānanda Prabhu.
TEXT 47
শিক্ষাগুরুকে ত' জানি কুঞ্চের অরূপ ।
অন্তর্যাশী, শুক্তশ্রেষ্ঠ,—এই দুই রূপ ॥ ৪৭ ॥