It is not easy to find out whether a soul is a mystic or not. But as gilt and gold are two different things, and as imitation gold does not endure when it is tested, so it is with the one who is not a true mystic. It is easy to talk as a mystic, to act as a mystic, but it is difficult to pass the test when it comes.

Once a mystic, walking in a garden, noticed a particularly beautiful rose. Attracted by its beauty he exclaimed, "Praise be to God!" and went and kissed it. His disciples, who were walking behind him, then each picked a flower and kissed it fifty times. The gardener was annoyed and came towards them grumbling, but they said that they had only followed the example of their teacher. The teacher kept silent. But when they had gone a little farther they saw a smith at work, and a hot iron was glowing in the fire. The teacher approached, spoke the same words, "Praise be to God!" and took the hot iron and kissed it. He asked the disciples, "Why do you not follow me in this?" But none of them dared to do it.

In the East when people know that somebody is a mystic, they do not try to pass judgment if he has kissed a flower or if he kisses the fire. They regard it all as belonging to the mystic temperament.

There is another story of a mystic which explains a different side of this temperament. It is about the leader of the Qadiri Sufis in Baghdad, who was one of the greatest of the world's mystics. One day at the time that he was getting ready to eat his dinner a mother came to him, very vexed with the teacher. On his table was a dish of chicken. And she said, "You have given my son a vegetarian diet, and he is becoming thinner and paler every day; and here you are eating chicken." The teacher smiled and said gently, "Good lady, look here," and he took off the cover of the dish and the chicken jumped out. And he added, "The day your son can make the chicken jump out, he may eat it too."

One cannot pretend to be a mystic; one is born a mystic. No doubt a mystic may develop in life, that is another thing, but if one thinks that one can imitate a mystic one is mistaken, one can never do it. Mystics apart, can a person imitate a singer and sing correctly, or imitate a painter and paint well, or a poet and make poetry? Never. Either one is or one is not.