If you have faith and confidence, it is not the human form of the guru that you worship, but the Supreme Lord who manifests through him.  - The Mother

Influence is not the outward authority of the Teacher over his disciple, but the power of his contact, of his presence, of the nearness of his soul to the soul of another, infusing into it, even though in silence, that which he himself is and possesses.  This is the supreme sign of the Master.  For the greatest master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.– Sri Aurobindo