The spiritual master is not that a particular man. The spiritual master is truth. So what is that truth? The truth is samsara-davanala-lidha-loka-tranaya karunya-ghanaghanatvam.
[The spiritual master is receiving benediction from the ocean of mercy. Just as a cloud pours water on a forest fire to extinguish it, so the spiritual master delivers the materially afflicted world by extinguishing the blazing fire of material existence. I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of such a spiritual master, who is an ocean of auspicious qualities.]
The whole world is in the blaze of material pangs, threefold miseries. And a person who is authorized to deliver people from that material pangs, he is called spiritual master.
(Sri Vyasa-puja — August 17, 1968, Montreal)