Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume III - Part 1
General knowledge is another matter, it is intellectual and the intellect gains by the intellectual activity of teaching. Also if in Yoga it were only a matter of imparting intellectually one’s mental knowledge of the subject, that rule1 would perhaps hold; but this mental aspect is only a small part of Yoga. There is something more complex which forms the bigger part of it. In teaching Yoga to another one becomes to some extent a master with disciples. The Yogis have always said that one who takes disciples, takes upon himself the difficulties of his disciples as well as one’s own – that is why it is recommended not to take 
disciples unless and until one is siddha and even then only if one receives the Divine authority to do it – what Ramakrishna called getting the cāprās. Secondly, there is the danger of egoism – when one is free from that, then the objection no longer holds. There is a separate question and that is the telling of one’s own experiences to others. That too is very much discouraged by most Yogis – they say it is harmful to the sadhana. I have certainly seen and heard of any number of instances in which people were having a flow of experiences and, when they told it, the flow was lost – so there must be something in this objection. I suppose however it ceases to apply after one has reached a certain long-established stability in the experience, that is to say, when the experience amounts to a definite and permanent realisation, something finally and irrevocably added to the consciousness. I notice that those who keep their experiences to themselves and do not put themselves out on others seem to have a more steady sadhana than others, but I don’t know whether it is an invariable rule. It would probably not apply any longer after a certain stage of realisation.