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say that only the third part of humanity can learn. Sufi masters are very choosy. It is very difficult to be accepted by a Sufi master, very very difficult. They create all sorts of obstacles around them.
First, they live in such an ordinary way that you cannot suspect that here is a master. They live in absolutely ordinary ways. For example, the master may be a blacksmith or a shoemaker or a carpetmaker or a butcher or a carpenter -- just the very ordinary world. You cannot suspect that the man who makes your shoes and repairs your shoes is a master. He won't allow any suspicion; that is the way he protects himself from those who are not ready but think themselves ready. From intruders he protects himself in this way.
You will never see a Sufi master going to the mosque or the temple -- to any public place -- to pray. No, he prays when everybody is fast asleep, in the midnight. Even his wife may not suspect that this man has attained. No, this is part of the Sufi method -- not to allow anybody to know.
Jesus must have lived with some Sufis in Egypt. He carries a few of their teachings in The Bible. One of them is: Whatsoever you do with your right hand, don't allow your left hand to know about it. This is a Sufi tradition: Live completely in the dark, so nobody knows and intruders don't come, pseudo-seekers don't knock, and foolish people don't trespass on your time and your energy.
Then second, if somehow you come to know about a Sufi master, years you will have to wait with him -- as an apprentice, not for meditation. If he is a shoemaker, you will have to learn shoemaking for years. And they are hard taskmasters. Sometimes ten, twelve years will pass and you will be simply working on shoes and preparing shoes, and the question should never be raised, unless the master himself asks, "What have you come for? What do you want?"
He will watch you. He will be with you. In that togetherness something will grow, by and by, through very indirect methodology -- for example, shoemaking. It is a meditation because the disciple is told to do only the thing that is given to be done; no thinking is allowed.
And remember this, if you
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