It is pathetic for the philosophically minded, and especially for the inheritors of the formerly close-guarded hidden teaching, to observe how followers of a mystical or religious guide take all his words without exception quite literally and all his revelations as incontestable truth. When Sri Ramakrishna said that a man must die within twenty-one days of achieving illumination, he said what other mystics are likely to contradict rather than confirm. And when he asserted that hardly one man in a century attains the goal through following the philosophic path, there is no support from the traditions of the hidden teaching for his assertion. All this is written despite my most respectful admiration and warm reverence for Ramakrishna and despite my unhesitating belief that he was a man of genuine spiritual self-realization. I do not select his statements for criticism deliberately but only because they are the first ones which happen to come to mind. There are several other mystics, whom I and most of us honour, whose sayings could equally have been drawn upon as containing examples of this kind of contestable teaching.
-- Notebooks Category 16: The Sensitives > Chapter 9 : Inspiration and Confusion > # 30
