Page 490 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

God and the Guru
It has been one of the most difficult things in religion to fix the roles played in spiritual evolution and liberation by God and the Guru.
For those who recognize the two as End and means respectively there is hardly any difficulty. The Guru is just the means to God and claims nothing more than a mediating role. He does not identify himself with God nor claim any more kinship with God than that which every other soul has, though he does claim to be able to lead the soul to God. There his work ends. He claims no wages beyond this task of having served His God with zeal. Men may offer all homage to him for his efficiency and skill in the discharge of his holy duty to God. Surely one expects a true Guru to be in closest nearness to God and inseparably linked with Him. It would be a travesty if such a Guru did at any time lead the seeker or led to feel that he is himself God or His delegate or vice-regent. The means should never be made an end, however much the means may be invariably effective and efficient.
However though the Guru had escaped this temptation though it is unfortunately not the present tendency - this cult of identifying the Guru with the Godhead has become rather a vogue. Men have created icons and images or statues which they have begun worshipping with all the paraphernalia and ritual offered to God. Any religion which is true to the goal of God realisation through the help of knowers and leaders of spirituality cannot permit identification of the Guru with God, except when it is realised that God Himself sometimes directly becomes the means also. When no means can lead to God except God himself then God takes on the roles of the Guru and the means. This involves the assumption that no one other than God can be the means to God. It is this principle of identity of end and means which had led to several men to equate God with Gurus and vice versa. It is only in respect of the Ultimate knowledge that this happens not in respect of other ends.
The commandment of the Veda, Let your mother become your God, Let your father be deemed to be thy God, or the final command let thy teacher