In Rabindranath Tagore's poem Upagupta, when the dancing girl invites the ascetic Upagupta to her house, he says: "When time is ripe, I'll come to you". The beautiful young girl is taken aback. What did he mean by saying, "time is not ripe?" For Upagupta, time here is not a material entity of years or months. It is the period of the evolution of consciousness or awareness. But for the dancing girl, it is materialistic. The conversation comes to an end as both speak from two different realms.
Later in the poem, when the girl is banished from the city, denounced, her body full of sores, the ascetic comes to her saying: "The time, at last, has come to visit you, and I'm here". She now realises what he meant by ‘time'. Here time is not linear but cyclic, true to Indian ethos. Communication between the two is smooth now. She who was "drunk with the wine of her youth" is now conscious and awake and has seen the real and eternal. She is sober, and free from delusion, fit for the spiritual path.
Each individual is a process, not a product. The process varies from person to person.
The enlightened one recognises it and so remains compassionate. That is why, we find enlightened souls taking the risk of talking or preaching. To say is to miss the real. To teach is to disturb the process in an individual. We know that the Buddha hardly answered questions put to him often.
Krishna says in the Gita: "All are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me" (4.11). The pace varies from person to person. Some walk, a few run but all are bent on reaching the destination. The passengers in a bus or train have different speed irrespective of the speed of the vehicle. Some are in a hurry, a few relaxed and some in between. But they all have to reach there and will one day. Give them their time. Don't try to change them.
Swami Vivekanand says, "The child is the father of man. Would it be right for an old man to say that childhood is a sin or youth a sin? It is the necessary stage of life... Man is to become divine by realising the divine. Idols, temples, churches or books are only supports of this spiritual childhood, but on and on he must progress".
If at all the enlightened have ever tried to teach something, it was out of extreme concern for humanity and as a warning knowing that their words alone wouldn't bring any change but can accelerate the process in an individual to a little extent at least.
Imitating the enlightened can mislead us. Our process is quite different, so is our path. Keep asking questions; don't worry about answers. Nobody can give an answer because the answer is within us. It has to be discovered. If we analyse we can see that question emerges from answer and dissolves in it as bubbles appear on water and dissolve in the same. Wait, watch and be alert. God is omnipresent. It is our right to know Him.
The parable of the prodigal son in the Bible is about the same ripening of time. The son had to go after material pleasures, exhaust himself in order to come back home, to his father, God. Till one is fully evolved to consciousness or awareness, one is bound to move in ignorance. There is a time lag between lower truth and higher truth.