Mystics understand that a certain moral evolution is necessary before a person can attain a certain power. So they do not teach it indiscriminately - not out of desire for monopoly, or to hold something back in their possession. What will a child do if you give him a loaded rifle to play with? He does not understand what killing means. Yes, if we stop to examine our aims, aspirations, pursuits in life to which we attach so much importance, perhaps we shall discover that we are not very far removed from the children.

The world as a whole is not prepared or ready to use spiritual powers. The sages and mystics will ask: "will he do real justice to the power if he had it?" This explains why they select a few awakened souls, and leave the children to go on playing. They think it is a sin to take little children away from their play when they wish to go on playing - why make them grave, serious, anxious, sorrowful? Surely, it is better just now to give them more toys - the occupations they are so engrossed in, the sports they so much love.

In the East, it is regarded as a sin to wake a sleeping person. Let him rest. He is comfortable. It is not time yet for him to wake up. So, if you went and woke him up you would make him unhappy, and even resentful. Let him go on sleeping till the time comes when he will wake up naturally. A person is asleep when he says there is no such thing as telepathy, no such thing as heaven, no such thing as God, and so on. Let such a one be. He is not ready.

So mystics do not openly talk about mysticism, but keep their knowledge for the few who have woken up. And when a person wakes up he will see for himself. The only purpose which the sage or mystic fulfills is to take his hand when this happens. "It is now his time to wake; I must give him help." This is called, "initiation," and from that time a person is ready to go into the mysteries of life.

A person may ask: "What is the sign that one is ready to awake from sleep?" It is this: When a person begins to think "all I have learnt and understood seems so unreal; there are some realities which I am vaguely aware of, and yet compared with them all I have studied and done seems to be of no account!" As the dawn comes after the night of darkness, so he sees light coming; but he has not yet seen the sun! He is only beginning to be awake.