"Antar Farid, the question you are asking is certainly significant. Its significance is very subtle. I will have to go step by step to make it clear to you.

"These are the stages a seeker moves through: the student, the disciple, the devotee. The fourth is also there but it does not belong to the seeker, it belongs to the one who has arrived; that's why I am not counting it. The seeker is on the path. The student is not aware that he is a student. He may think he is a disciple, he may think he is a devotee; he functions absolutely unconsciously.

"I am reminded of a case – it happened in the life of a Sufi mystic, Junnaid:

"A man came; he wanted to be a disciple."