Does the development of the inner consciousness, one may ask, tend to personal isolation, to separation from the world? We are in the world, and therefore, however much we try to run away to spiritual spheres, we are thrown back to earth again. We are bound here as long as we have this earthly body. And so the best thing is to follow the process in another way:

to gain inner expansion of consciousness, and no doubt at that time one must go within, one must close oneself to the outer world;
but at the same time one should strive to practice the outer expansion of consciousness. In this way there is balance.

Those who only evolve spiritually become one-sided; they expand only the inner consciousness and not the outward one. Then they become unbalanced. Maybe spiritually they have extraordinary powers, but they have no balance. For this reason many people think of a spiritual person as somebody who has something wrong with his brain. If that is the understanding of the world, we should be most conscientious in order not to give the world a wrong impression.

If we have a profession, if we are in business, in industry, we should do it fully, proving to the world that we can be as practical as everybody else, and also economical, regular in every way, systematic, persevering, enthusiastic. All these qualities we must show and at the same time evolve spiritually; but it is these qualities which must give the proof of our spirituality.