A Teacher
At the beginning of the journey, everyone needs the support of a teacher – a guru, a mentor, a master, and a drill sergeant. This means that you have to learn to listen and remember.
All your skills of acquiring knowledge in schools and universities are worthless, because there are no teachers there. They are educators, instructors. A real teacher is someone you would trust with your life for the knowledge he or she will give you.
Find your teacher. You need him. It is better if it is a human being – that way you will understand him better.
Never look for a world-renowned, recognized or popular mage as a teacher. They are usually only concerned with their own image and fees. This is where their interests (and, alas, their opportunities) end.
Your attitude towards him can be whatever you like – love him, hate him, honor him, adore him – that is your problem. As long as he gives you knowledge and helps you gain power, he is your teacher. Whatever delusional assignments he puts in front of you, you will execute them. Once you have your own students (gods forbid!), you will be giving them an even harder time, rest assured.
You must learn to separate grain from the chaff, to learn to filter information, let it pass through your consciousness and… gain experience. Your teacher will show you the essence, the principles of practices, rituals and so on, but you will have to do them yourself. And after you have made a lot of mistakes (not before), he will explain to you the essence of those mistakes.
You must therefore learn to ask questions. The teacher will only answer a question that already contains part of the answer. This will show him first of all that you know
what you are talking about and why you are asking.
Your teacher has something that you do not have, but seek. And that is: knowledge and experience. It doesn’t matter how he achieved it or how many centuries he has nurtured his knowledge for, the most important thing is that he has it. And you will do anything to get this knowledge in a much shorter period of time. If you have to pay, pay. If you have to do his dirty work for him, you’ll do it as long as you’re an apprentice. Pure servility and running around with your hair on fire is quite normal in apprenticeship, we all went through it. And we did it willingly and brilliantly.
But! If you are forced to bow, bow as low as you can. And remember that feeling forever.
You’ll also learn to keep your rage in check. This skill – keeping your emotions in check – will come in very handy later, when you need to collect all power for a decisive battle (mages don’t duel: you will only have a chance for one strike at best. If you miss, you’re dead).
Get from your teacher all that he has. Remember, once upon a time, like you, he started at the bottom and stood on the shoulders of his teacher.
If you think that a teacher will be happy to give you his accumulated knowledge, you are very much mistaken. You will become his ulcer, his pain in the arse, his nightmare, but most importantly, you will beat what you want out of him.
But if at any point you realize that your guru begins to hinder your development, look for another one.
We also take on apprentices sometimes. If a person is worth something, we coddle them and babysit them even if it becomes unbearable and painful for all the involved, we still coddle them. But if he’s not worth it, we put an end to the project. Dixi.
From the book “The Art Of Controlling Reality” by Ksenia Menshikova