Our understanding of the teacher-student relationship has eroded. Why? Because yoga is no longer understood to be a spiritual practice, with the goal of experiencing our own deep core.  People now come to yoga for many reasons—yoga is mainstream. When yoga is studied as a spiritual practice, the role of the teacher is to help students understand what it means to be deeply human—to help them look at their limitations and the parts of themselves they don’t want to see. A lot depends on a student’s willingness to do that.