"The techniques don't really give you spiritual growth, but they create a hallucination which looks like spiritual growth because you don't know what spiritual growth is.

"It happened that one Sufi master was brought to me. He was master of thousands of Mohammedans, and once a year he used to come to the city, and a few of the Mohammedans of his group had become interested in me and they wanted a meeting. They highly appreciated that their master saw God everywhere, in everything, and he was always joyful: 'We have been with him for twenty years and we have never seen him in any other state except ecstasy.'

"I told them, 'It will be good that he becomes a guest in my house. And for three days leave him with me. I will take care of your master.' He was an old man, a very good man.

"I asked him, 'Have you used any technique for this constant ecstasy, or has it come on its own without any technique?'

"He said, 'I have certainly used a technique. And the technique was to remember, while looking at everything, that God is there in it. In the beginning it looked ridiculous, but slowly, slowly the mind became accustomed. Now I see God everywhere, in everything.'

"Then I said, 'Do one thing…. How long have you been practicing it?'

"'Forty years' – he must have been nearabout seventy.

"I asked, 'Can you trust your experience of ecstasy?'

"He said, 'Absolutely.'

"Then I said, 'Do one thing. For three days stop the technique – no more remembering that God is in everything. For three days look at things as they are; don't impose your idea of God. A table is a table, a chair is a chair, a tree is a tree, a man is a man.'

"He said, 'But what is the purpose of this?'

"I said, 'I will tell you after three days.'

"But not even three days were needed. After only one day he was angry at me, ferociously angry, that, 'You have destroyed my forty years' discipline. You are a dangerous man. And I have been told that you are a master, but rather than helping me…."