So when a master rejects somebody it is because of compassion. If he accepts, it is because of compassion. Nothing else is possible because a master is nothing else; he is compassion.

I know well that I cannot be here very long. In fact my ship has arrived, and has been waiting for almost two decades. I have to leave the shore any moment. Somehow I go on postponing. A little longer I can be here, and a little more I can help you.

Of course, I cannot accept people at random. Even when you think I am accepting people at random I am not accepting at random. You may not be aware – because you don’t know who you are, what you are, what is possible with you. When I reject a certain person I reject because he has no possibility in this life, and he cannot take the risk. He is not prepared. He is asking for things which he is not ready to receive.

And the spiritual, the occult, is not like something that can be given to you whether you are ready or not. You can inherit riches from your father, but you cannot inherit spirituality from your master. It is not a simple inheritance. It cannot be transferred. You have to be absolutely ready for it; otherwise it can be given and it will never reach you. You will forget it somewhere or other.

Sufis say a master starts working only when he feels the potentiality exists, that the man is ready in many ways; a few strokes here and there and the painting will be complete. Otherwise he will not waste his time and your time. And a master is not there to teach you ordinary things. For that many teachers exist; you can go to them. A master is to give you something of the higher, of the extraordinary, of the invisible. You have to be very refined, very delicately prepared, because only then can the music of the unknown descend on you. A master cannot teach you if you already think that you know.

Many knowers come to me: pundits, scholars…. One old man I know has been coming to me for at least ten years. After every few months he comes again, and he talks about his knowledge, the Vedas, the Upanishads, and he talks about his yoga and what he has been doing, and what type of experiences he has attained. If he is right, he need not come to me. But he persists in coming. Whatsoever he says is just pretension, imagination. He thinks he has attained. And I can see that he has not attained anything, he has just learned from the scriptures. He has been moving in the spiritual circles, so he knows many rumors about kundalini and about chakras and about light and this and that, and every time he comes he wants me to say something to him, he wants my help. But he himself prohibits it. If he wants my help he has to stop pretending that he knows. He has to stop all this nonsense that he thinks is knowledge. And he goes on repeating that these things are not sayings from the scriptures, he has experienced them.