When the student is ready...

"When the student is ready, the teacher appears."

-Mabel Collins

When you need to find patience with yourself, or if you've called yourself stupid or gullible or some other insult for not knowing what you learned before you learned it…remember this quote.

When you get frustrated with someone for not saying, thinking, doing, or being as it's so plain as day obvious to you that they should be for the good of everyone concerned…remember this quote.

In addition to not being "ready," a lot of people, including you and I, are just not able to see things the way others do and who knows if we will or won't be in this lifetime.

I've got no experience whatsoever in millions of things that millions of people have decades of experience in. For me to be in that ready or able mode, I'd have to spend that time with them in their minds starting from back in the past to present day. Not possible.

So we have some lessons in common, sure..things about self-worth, love, heartache, taking risks…many things. And the more you seek, the more you find.

The mid-step in between being totally unaware and being blissfully peaceful is the feeling of the need to control. But we don't think of it as control, we think of it as helping or encouraging, or trying to spare others the pain and headache we endured by just taking our word for it and not living it for themselves. But to them…the not-quite-ready-yet student..it seems like control.

The best thing you can do is encourage someone to follow their heart. The best thing you can do is follow yours. If asked and you have had what seems to be a similar experience, you can relay your story to them, but preface and end it with…but that was me, that was then and this is you, and this is now. Let them stumble. Let them learn.

And same goes..if someone claims to be more spiritually or religiously evolved than you and belittles you…it's a sure sign they're not. Anyone who is further along a path would never scoff at someone who is now taking the steps he or she used to take. We're not the first people to walk the Earth and hopefully we won't be the last. We're all just taking turns walking the miles from the first time we open our eyes to the last time we close them. Each person living a different life based on a mix of choice and circumstance, no two ever alike.

So be patient and forgiving with yourself and don't allow anyone else to make you feel foolish for doing so. Be patient and forgiving with others and encourage them in their choices…not the choices you'd make if you were them. Stay open, stay positive, learn and teach along the way, each step taken in perfect time in perfect sequence to the story of your life.

-Doe Zantamata

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