Often people picture a mystic as a dreamer, as someone who is intoxicated, a drunken man; but in reality to the mystic everybody else is intoxicated, for the knowledge of mysticism is soberness. The mystic's consciousness makes him sober, for he begins to see things more clearly. Mostly he cannot speak about it, because his language is not always understood. People have reason to consider a mystic to be like a drunken person: he does not take notice of things that everybody else takes notice of, he does not attach any importance to things that everybody else considers important, he does not give as much thought to himself as everybody else does, he does not look at everyone in the same way as other people do, he does not judge people in the same light as everybody else judges others, he does not think of God and man in the same way as every other person does. Naturally it becomes difficult for the mystic to live in the world where his language is not understood, while he understands the language of all others. Before we have spoken to the mystic he has heard us speak; before we have expressed our thought he has read it; before we have expressed our feeling he has felt it. That is why a mystic can be in communication with another person better than one could ever imagine, and thus the best definition that can be given of mysticism is that it is communication with life.