The proper relationship between guru and disciple is that the disciple has respect but at the same time, it is respect mixed with loving affection. My guru is the representative of God, he is my teacher. He is teaching me. He is guiding me, but he has affection for me, he has love for me, he has concern for me, and I have affection and love for him also.

So therefore when there is some doubt, or there is some difficulty, the disciple is not afraid of guru. Sometimes we see in institutions, that when guru comes to town, the disciple is shaking in his boots. I mean he is quivering. “Ahh,,g-g-g-urudev…” you know and there is all kinds of awe and reverence and saluting and dandavats and formality…

So much formality! And it stiffens the heart. The heart becomes very stiffed and crippled, in such formality. So one cannot feel a free flow of emotion, and actually he cannot reveal the sensitivities of his own mind and heart to his guru. The disciple is here and the guru is on Mars or guru is on Venus or something, he is like light years away! This not the intention of sastra, this is not the teachings.
So this guru is guide, guru is friend. Because one time Prabhupada was saying, “As much as we have relationship with guru, that’s as much as we have relationship with Krsna.”

And everyone sitting here, we want to love Krsna, we want to serve Radha and Krsna, we want to go to the spiritual world, and eternally serve them in our siddha deha and that will be a very intimate and confidential relationship - Going on, moment to moment, with such intimacy and such friendliness and such sweetness and natural flow of feelings, no inhibitions, no restrictions, no rules, regulations, it is the flow, the natural flow, the Vrndavana flow. The flow of love, the river of love, it is called prema nadi, the river of love, it flows, it moves, its fresh. It makes sounds, it’s colorful, it’s cooling, it’s refreshing. This is the river of love, the flow of Vrndavana.”

So we are all aiming towards that, we are aspiring for that. And how much we feel intimacy with guru, is how much we feel with Krsna. If we feel very, very far away from guru, then we are also very, very far away from Krsna.

So this is something we all have to work on.