106
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 1, Ch. 2]
devotees;  viprāḥ —O twice-born;  puṇya-tīrtha —those who are cleansed of all vice;  niṣevaṇāt —by service.
TRANSLATION
O twice-born sages, by serving those devotees who are completely freed from all vice, great service is done. By such service, one gains affinity for hearing the messages of Vāsudeva.
PURPORT
The conditioned life of a living being is caused by his revolting against the Lord. There are men called  deva , or godly living beings, and there are men called  asuras , or demons, who are against the authority of the Supreme Lord. In the  Bhagavad-gītā  (Sixteenth Chapter) a vivid description of the  asuras  is given in which it is said that the  asuras  are put into lower and lower states of ignorance life after life and so sink to the lower animal forms and have no information of the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead. These  asuras  are gradually rectified into God consciousness by the mercy of the Lord's liberated servitors in different countries according to the supreme will. Such devotees of God are very confidential associates of the Lord, and when they come to save the human society from the dangers of godlessness, they are known as the powerful incarnations of the Lord, as sons of the Lord or as servants of the Lord or as associates of the Lord. But none of them falsely claim to be God themselves. This is a blasphemy declared by the  asuras , and the demoniac followers of such  asuras  also accept pretenders as God or His incarnation. In the revealed scriptures there is definite information of the incarnation of God. No one should be accepted as God or an incarnation of God unless he is confirmed by the revealed scriptures.
The servants of God are to be respected as God by the devotees who actually want to go back to Godhead. Such servants of God are called  mahātmās , or the  tīrthas , and they preach according to particular time and place. The servants of God urge people to become devotees of the Lord. They never tolerate being called God. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was God Himself according to the indications of the revealed scriptures, but He played the part of a devotee. People who knew Him to be God addressed Him as God, but He used to block His ears with His hands and chant the name of Lord Viṣṇu. He strongly protested against being called God, although undoubtedly He was God Himself. The Lord behaves so to warn