Got snide response from online spiritual "guru"/influencer to asked question. How to process?

A certain famous "guru" or influencer - I don't want to name names especially when I am not confident - ran an online live chat. I've followed them for some time now and liked a lot of what they were saying and understood most of it though have a few disagreements on peripheral matters like vaxx science. One of the things they got to, though, was this talking about "working with your inner child" and the way they talked of the "inner child" made it sound like it communicates "to you" as though it were someone else. And I wasn't quite sure why they were saying it this way because the way I've always thought of it the inner child is just those parts of you that were naturally present as a child, before any sort of social "masking", conformity, or the like (aka. "matrix") is applied or learned. Maybe this understanding is also not complete in its own right, hence why I am reticent to just come out gunning for this "guru". And so I asked them about that. I was hoping I'd get an answer about like maybe that is just a way of speaking, or maybe it is coming from the idea of a "disintegrated self", or whatever. I don't know what - just something useful and clarifying.

But that's not what I got. Instead, they quickly read the question, mumbled something like "you just want to be clever", and just as quickly went on to the next question. And while that didn't "butthurt" too bad, I felt completely blind-sided because at no level whatsoever was I aware of any wanting to "be clever" when I was asking it, and I try to pay lots of attention to my internal state particularly when talking to people. If I ask a question like that, I mean what it says on the tin. Pretty much never do I just want to project a certain "look". Even if there may be other feelings intruding. And in this case there weren't - at the moment it really felt at every level a straight and effortless clarifying ask. But also, I am aware of ego and humility and all that stuff and I don't want to be one of those people who doubles down on their faults without changing them and/or taking accountability, as to me that itself is a crucial part of spirituality.

And so I started going into a loop of internal battling with myself where I started thinking "but this is a 'guru'/influencer of some renown who presumably knows way more than little me just starting out with 2 years into this 'spiritual' stuff, don't be an arrogant dunning kruger twit! But I know it felt like there was nothing malign in me! But ..." and after enough of that internal back and forth I started to "feel" "maybe I could have had bad intent" and then started getting even more confused because I wasn't sure if that was the truth, or confabulation. Then I started to realize this was feeling like gaslighting (sowing doubt as to my own ability to know my own self and/or reality, in this case). Not saying that was intended, though! Just that it felt like it had that effect. I really didn't want to just arrogantly, as the "inexperienced one", speak against the "big guru". Of course I do know there are manipulative pseudo gurus too, too often. And cults. And ... but that's why I come here, so I can discuss this issue further and sharpen my discernment.

What is the right "balance" in seeming moral or intellectual-virtue conflicts like the need to question authority versus the need to mind one's own inexperience and ignorance? Between wanting to be accountable for your actual faults, and giving people a level of power over you that may put you in objective danger of abuse or harm from them?

(Note I think this is what trips a lot of people up with anti-science, too - they get into it because they are unaware of their own extent of ignorance of science, but also know "authority needs questioning", and have no idea of how to balance those two things.)

Not only that, but people in the live chat saying to them "it looks like you [i.e. they] are getting 'downloads' as you [they] are talking", presumably conveying a sense of admiration, but making me scratch my head with skepticism like, "well if they are/were, why didn't whoever spirit forces were involved, 'download' what the correct intent was right then and there?" I should note that I am not one to just "believe" spiritual claims, at least not in any tight or fervent, non-tentative way; for me spirituality is not a faith exercise but an explorative exercise. Everyone says "the spiritual" is out there and I am after trying to see what that is directly, not to take various back-and-forth theorizing by different partisans about it as dogma, whether that's religious, spiritual, or atheistic/materialist. So I do not see skepticism and the pursuit of spirituality as incompatible - if anything, quite the opposite. An open mind is not a disengaged mind, after all. But I also recognize the importance of guides and mentors, too. AND their pitfalls.