What are the qualifications of the spiritual master?

The qualifications of the bona fide spiritual master can be summed up in two words: srotriyam and brahma-nistham. The word srotriyam means that the spiritual master must have received the revealed Vedic knowledge from his spiritual master, who in turn received it from his, and so on in a line of spiritual masters extending back to the original spiritual master, Krsna Himself. This is called the disciplic succession. To be bona fide, a spiritual master has to belong to this disciplic succession coming from the Lord.

The bona fide spiritual master does not invent anything new. He's a messenger, not an inventor. His duty is to transmit the Vedic knowledge as the Lord originally spoke it and as the disciplic succession has handed it down. Just as a postman delivers your letters without subtracting anything or adding anything of his own, so the spiritual master delivers the spiritual message of Vedic knowledge as it is, without adding or subtracting anything.

How can you tell whether the spiritual master meets this qualification? Very easily. The words of Krsna are recorded in the Bhagavad-gita, and you merely have to compare. For example, in the Bhagavad-gita Lord Krsna says, "Always think of Me and surrender to Me" (Bg. 9.34).** So the bona fide spiritual master instructs his disciples to think always of Krsna and surrender to Krsna. If a so-called guru advises his disciples to think of something impersonal or void instead of Krsna, or to surrender to someone other than Krsna, how can he be bona fide? We should immediately reject him as worthless.

Nor can the spiritual master advertise that he himself is God. The bona fide spiritual master always presents himself as a humble servant of God, never as God Himself. Any so-called guru who claims to be God, or who tells his disciples that they can become God, is a charlatan. The bona fide spiritual master acts as a humble servant of the Lord and instructs his disciples to do likewise.

Now we come to the genuine spiritual master's second qualification: brahma-nistham. The word brahma-nistham means that the spiritual master has full faith in the Supreme (in Krsna) and is always absorbed in Krsna consciousness. The spiritual master must be free from all material attachments. He must be the master of his senses, not their servant. For instance, if someone is addicted to liquor, women, or cigarettes, there is no question of his being a guru. There are so many examples of so-called gurus and swamis who advertise themselves as being on the platform of eternity, bliss, and knowledge, but who fall down from their yoga practice to have sex with their disciples. Thus, they fail to meet the standard of brahma-nistham.

To be truly brahma-nistham, the spiritual master must be a devotee of Krsna. Krsna says in the Bhagavad-gita, "Always think of Me. Become My devotee. Worship Me and offer homage to Me" (Bg. 9.34). So the bona fide spiritual master always thinks of Krsna, he is a devotee of Krsna, and he always worships and glorifies Krsna. Krsna says in the Bhagavad-gita that no one is dearer to Him than one who preaches His glories. Therefore, another qualification of the bona fide spiritual master is that he glorifies Lord Krsna all over the world. Such a spiritual master is directly empowered by Lord Krsna Himself. Even other devotees and transcendentalists offer respect to such an exalted personality and honor him with the title "prabhupada," meaning "one at whose feet sit many masters."