In our age of surrogates and the overabundance of information – and in fact often fake information – both mystics and God may seem unnecessary in some way, a kind of vestige of the “primeval past” of humankind. Especially because many mystical schools have degenerated and now discredit the Way more than they help to embark on it. And many of them from the outset were not mystical, and therefore there was little use from them. But that does not at all mean that the correlation of forces in Creation have changed in any way.
The work of mystics always had a hidden and manifested part. But the majority of people have an incorrect notion of even its visible part, because their level of understanding is determined by their level of being, and they cannot see the whole picture. People usually see that part of the Work which is turned precisely to them – to their awakening and teaching, but it is most often understood wrongly. The majority of people do not know about the hidden part of the Work at all, because it is not turned to them directly, although usually it is connected with the continuation of their existence. Those chosen for its fulfillment know about the Work, and for the rest it either does not exist, or has turned into myths, like those which Idries Shah created around it.
No matter what times come on Earth, while humankind is still alive, there will always be people inherently bearing within themselves the seed of pure striving towards God. There are those for whom awakening is the only means of realizing themselves, and the world no more than one of the means toward the goal. They become seekers, and they come to God. In the end, they become mystics of all kinds of levels and do what is necessary in the world. They turn into the connecting link between God and the world, and their Work is needed both to the earthly and the transcendent. Essentially, their presence and the Work is one of the conditions of the continuation of Creation, and that means one of the conditions for the existence of our world; thus mystics will live in it just as long as it will live. And perhaps even a little longer.