The famous quote when stated in Kung-fu panda movie, made me think.. does the Master really appear when the student is ready? Has it ever happened to me before? If yes, when and how many times..? Set my mind to think. I started counting the number of activities I tried to learn and from where and whom I received the guidance and support. It was interesting.
Sharing what I realized thus far…
When one is really interested in learning something, the universe tries to find out the best person from whom we are ready to receive the advice or guidance and sends them our way. We end up being friends with them, or our relatives, or colleagues at work, from our community. Someone whom we know or interact with has the answer to any of our questions and can suggest the next step for us. Incredible right! Thats how we are all connected! Think about your most critical choices you had to make and how you made those choices, where did the guidance come from? Have you ever listened to that particular person before this? Might or might not have, but suddenly in that moment, that individual’s advice seems to be the most important thing in your life and you end up following it. You may or not ever be in touch with that person again.
Then, I start thinking about how it is happening these days. Most of us have virtual friendships and relationships than an actual social circle. We do not get a chance to meet that many people outside of our school/work. How would it happen in today’s scenario. It was very interesting to see that the “Recommended videos” or “Recommended links” or auto popups on our youtube channels (even when we do not log in and watch nor search for the keywords) seems to take that role. Guidance comes in whichever form we are ready to receive. If we watch lot of youtube videos, they come from them. If we browse through facebook a lot, any of our friends contacts from some other group would have discussed about it. I do not know how the recommendations logic works on AI, but it is perfect way for us to get to our next steps and our quick questions answered.
Now came the question of – do we really need a “MASTER” or a “Guru”? Do they really come to us. Answer is still a Yes. For these small small questions, we do not need a HUGE / big Master or Guru to guide us. If we are taking a step forward to learn something different that can ONLY be learned from a Master / Guru, doing these things helped me get one.
- Visit any religious institution of your choice. For those who are not religious, visit any local volunteering avenues (soup kitchens, salvation army, etc)
- Keep your eyes and ears open to see what impresses you most over there
- Appreciate the person doing it (genuinely)
- Make it a habit
- In 3 months, you will realize that the space where you were looking for a Guru/Teacher (and not just some answer to a question), you would have found them
Respecting your Guru/Teacher is critical for your relationship to last. Whatever be the reason you might have looked for a Guru/Teacher, might not be the same thing you end up learning from them. It would be much much more and will transform your world!
Wishing you the best in your search!