Instead we need a more subtle analysis that looks at what goes on between teacher and student. Often the choice of a teacher is as unpredictable and mysterious as the attraction to a potential lover. You sense that you have something essential to learn here, something that no one else has ever imparted to you before. And this recognition is what allows the teacher to take on a certain authority for you. Many people today question the need for spiritual teachers at all, claiming, in the spirit of democracy, that everyone should be their own master.
Many traditions do in fact assert that the true teacher is only found within.
Yet in the early stages of one's development one does not know how to find or listen to the inner master, or to distinguish genuine inner guidance from more superficial wishes and preferences. Just as one would turn to an acknowledged master in any field one wanted to pursue in depth, so a person who seeks to overcome the limitations of egocentricity will naturally be drawn to someone who has actually mastered that work. The role of effective teachers is to instruct, encourage and correct the student, as well as to provide an example of what is possible. Effective teachers also try to see what individual students most need at each step of their development, rather than trying to fit the student into a preprogrammed agenda. Thus spiritual teachers derive a certain relative authority through the actual help they offer their students.