My Guru Maharaja was a very great scholar, yet his Guru Maharaja, from a literary point of view, could not even sign his name, “Gour Kishore Das Babaji Maharaja”. Bhaktivinoda Thakur asked Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur to accept Gour Kishore Das Babaji Maharaja as his spiritual master: “You go and take your initiation from Gour Kishore Das Babaji Maharaja.”

He [Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati] thought, “I am a great scholar, and I am the son of Bhaktivinoda Thakur, a magistrate and great vaisnava. He [Gour Kishore Das Babaji] will be very much pleased to accept me.” Of course, he was very much pleased. But in the beginning he refused [to accept Srila Bhaktisiddhanta]. Of course, that was only a show. Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati was not proud. He acted just to teach us. Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati explained, “I was a little proud. So I was thrice refused by my Guru Maharaja,” although he was his only disciple. So scholarship is not a qualification for becoming a devotee. That is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teaching. Scholarship may help, but it is not necessary. The real necessity is that one should be humble and meek and follow the instruction of the spiritual master. This is real qualification.

— Lecture in Vrindavan. 13 March 1974.