Guru allows us to serve

Today has been purifying.  Radhanath Swami has been really working on me through his lectures.  It seems like whatever I'm going through during the day he will speak on through whatever lecture I put on.  This is the best association I have.  Today he was going on about the false ego and intensely slicing through all of my nonsense.  After hearing his potent words I felt embarrassed and a little sick inside over how fallen and prideful I am.  But it was a relief to realize it and try to become more conscious.  It was a strong purification.

All of us have so many anarthas and unwanted tendencies to deal with-lust, anger, pride, arrogance, fear, laziness, greed, etc.  All of us suffer from something or cause pain to others through our negative tendencies.  That's why we need spiritual practice, sadhana.  That's why we need a spiritual teacher who is bona fide and real and true.  Guru allows us to serve by bringing us to a higher level of purity and consciousness where we realize that in reality we need to serve, we need to do sadhana, we need to surrender.  We need to be humble and kind to all living entities.  Guru serves as a mirror allowing us to see all of our darkness, all of our gunk, all of our foolishness and illusion....as well as our light and our potential.  When in the presence of such a great soul, we see how far we need to actually go and how through their example of selflessness, humility, service, love, devotion, and surrender, we too can make progress.  We too can become self-realized, beautiful, wise, and glorious.  But the goal is to be the humble servant.  Srila Prabhupada once said that his only qualification was that he never wanted to be the master, he always wanted to be the servant.  If we want to become powerful, wise and great, we never will be, in the deepest spiritual sense.  But if we keep the mood of the humble servant, the menial servant, the unimportant little lost soul immersed in an ocean of birth and death with nothing to save you but Krishna's causeless, causeless mercy....then we have a chance.  Then we might attain Bhakti.  
I've realized that Bhakti is the most delicate thing in the universe.  The most delicate, because it's most subtle and can be lost at any moment.  The image of a tiny creeper, or vine, is often used.  Like a tiny little seedling, anything, even a drop of water or careless statement could annihilate it.  Bhakti is lost whenever we become proud, lazy, indulge in our lower tendencies, or especially when we blasphemy or offend a Vaishnava.
So if we want Bhakti, we have to render service with humility and love.  We have to stay grounded in our sadhana with sincerity and dedication.  We have to take direction from more exalted and experienced Vaishnavas, and we absolutely have to avoid offense.  I am very fallen but my spiritual master is showing me all these things.