"The responses will be totally different.

"If you guide a person directly he will resist it, because you are trying to mold his personality; you are taking away his freedom, making him move in a certain direction.

"In the first place he will never reach, because with this reluctance, this resistance, there is, deep down, anger and rage. He is doing it – becoming dependent, accepting a certain spiritual slavery – for his own desires.

"And these are the factors which will create resentment in him. They will not bridge him to the master; they will create a wall between the two. Reaching the goal is almost impossible.

"This is a vicious circle: when you do everything that you are being told to do, outwardly you are obedient, ready to serve the master – outwardly grateful – but inwardly reluctant, resistant, angry. And when doing everything that the master has said, and you don't reach…that is the point where these kinds of people turn into enemies. Rather than bringing gratitude into them, the whole process has only gathered more and more enmity.

"But to guide a person without his being at all aware that he is being guided…it is just like when you smell perfume in the garden and you start moving towards it. You will not feel reluctant, resistant, inimical to the perfume – although it has guided you. In fact, spreading the perfume is nothing but spreading a net in which those who are capable will be caught and brought closer and closer.

"They will recognize only after they have reached that they have been guided, that they have been guarded, cared for – and not a single word has been told to them to do this or not to do this. Their freedom has not been touched in any way. They have not been turned into slaves.

"This has been my experience: it is very rare to find a master who can guide you in such a way, because it is with each step difficult, arduous. And the master has to be very conscious, very cautious that the disciple does not feel in any way lower than him. He has to take his hand in his own hand in such a way as if the disciple himself is taking the master's hand in his own hand."