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In a spiritually-hungry and impatient age, the student is mistaken for a teacher.

What I see with the new crop of "life coaches" and gurus is unscrupulous individuals who are still in the process of learning the ropes/ fine-tuning their understanding assuming the position of Masters. Partly these overly-ambitious students/seekers  posing as teachers are to blame, and partly an undiscerning public.

To paraphrase Nietzsche, people prefer copies to masterpieces (doubly so in this day and age where Relatability reigns).
 
As T.S. Eliot says, humility is endless... (And, as I write this I think of: Golda Meir — 'Don't be so humble - you are not that great.')

Or, to twist the common proverb just a little: when the true teacher is ready, the impostors will disappear.

By imposters, I mean students posing as teachers - y'know, the type regularly cranked out by the Oprah factory.

I don't want to argue, but I'm not a fan of leveling the playing field and saying we're all teachers. In every discipline, Spirituality included, there are Masters and students; part of the problem of our confused, cynical times is disputing this self-evident truth...

Part of the problem has to do with everyone having a platform and therefore a Voice. For example, how everyone thinks they are a critic (say, of Literature) when they don't have the learning or the discernment to properly evaluate a work of Art, past "like" or "dislike". The same is exponentially true in matters of Spirit.

Students do not, entirely, define the teacher. There are student- less teachers and imposters with many *students*. Hard to define what a true teacher is, but yes connected to the 'quality' of their students and a stage of overflowing that needs to be shared. (I think, by association, of a tree whose fruits have ripened and must drop to the ground, or be picked, if they are not to spoil...)

Yet another way of describing this state of (over)abundance:

>...like a bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to receive it.…
>Bless the cup that wants to overflow, that the water may flow from it golden and carry everywhere the reflection of your delight.
>Behold, this cup wants to become empty again..."

- Nietzsche, 'Zarathustra'