In this modern age, it is quite difficult to find a guru worthy to be honoured and followed. What is a true guru actually, and how might I be able to recognise such a person?

Ans: These great ones, these enlightened saints worthy of being called "gurus" have reached the final goal, they have liberated themselves forever, and now they have turned back and are engaged in illuminating and liberating others. They have done everything that has to be done, attained everything that has to be attained, and they have no more wishes, and they revel in a state of supreme satisfaction. Their hearts are full; they desire nothing. But if you want an explanation from your point of view, then you can say that they do have one thought, one intention, one desire and that is that all sincere seeking souls who are in quest of the supreme goal may attain that goal. There is a spontaneous intention of supreme love and goodwill that all may be established in the great state that they have attained by the grace of God.

If we are able to see in a human individual manifestations of holiness, of sanctity, of purity, of nobility, of goodness, and loftiness of conduct, character, nature, sentiment, thought, feeling and action, if we see something out of the ordinary-something of those qualities that we have been taught to associate only with God-then we may say that such a person is a living manifestation of the divine. We begin to realise, "God I have not seen, but godliness I have seen. All the qualities attributed to God, I see in an extraordinary measure in this human being." The guru is such a being. He or she becomes a visible God for us. God reveals Himself through the guru.