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Those who say 'I am ready to learn', or 'I am not ready to learn' are as often mistaken as they are correct in their surmise. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Obligation to Learn
The pursuit of knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim. -- Idries Shah
Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Truthful man:
He who is, secretly, regarded by everyone as an enemy. -- Idries Shah
If you cannot sit on a throne like a king, seize, like a tent-pitcher, the rope of the Royal tent. -- Idries Shah
Helping others
I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Moslem or not. -- Idries Shah
Saadi: Be a true renouncer, (zahid) and [you can even] ware satin. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Love
Do you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Desire
Desire not the world, and God will love you. Desire not what others have, and they will love you. -- Idries Shah
A Better Beard that Yours. 'All true devotees wear a beard,' said the Imam to his audience. 'Show me a thick and lustrous beard and I'll show you a true believer!' 'My goat has a beard far bushier and longer than yours,' replied Nasrudin. 'Does that mean he is a better Muslim than you? -- Idries Shah
Show a man too many camels' bones,or show them to him too often,and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one. -- Idries Shah
A certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence; I do not know. What I do know is that he has a perfectly delightful absence. -- Idries Shah
Remedy
Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.
Hazrat Ali -- Idries Shah
Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis. -- Idries Shah
Religion, for instance, cannot be accepted or rejected out of hand, until the student knows exactly what religion means. -- Idries Shah
Imagination blocks you like a bolt on a door. Burn that bar. (Rumi) -- Idries Shah
They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom. -- Idries Shah
To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them. -- Idries Shah
If you are 'humble', it may help you in ordinary life. If you are not, you will get nowhere in higher things. -- Idries Shah
Neither imagine that you are false, nor lash yourself, for both may be forms of self-indulgence. -- Idries Shah
History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant. -- Idries Shah
Many Sufis are not guides. -- Idries Shah
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives. -- Idries Shah
Learning how to learn involves examining assumptions. Mulla Nasrudin tales very often fulfil this funcition. -- Idries Shah
Ibn El-Arabi wrote, 'The Teacher is he who hears you, then unveils you to yourself -- Idries Shah
As Ibn Arabi says: 'Absolute existence is the source of all existence'. -- Idries Shah
Angels are the powers hidden in the faculties and organs of man -- Idries Shah
The sight of God in woman is the most perfect of all. Ibn Arabi. -- Idries Shah
Be a dog, but don't be a younger brother.
Proverb. -- Idries Shah
Has it not occurred to you that, conversely, other people do not have your difficulties because they do not react as you do to what happens? -- Idries Shah
Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Understanding
Speak to everyone in accordance with his degree of understanding. -- Idries Shah
To say "yes" to the Sufi way is to say "no" to imagined escapes. -- Idries Shah
Understanding and knowledge are completely different sensations in the realm of Truth than they are in the realm of society. -- Idries Shah
Debating whether one trusts or not is a sign that one does not want to trust at all, and therefore is still incapable of it. -- Idries Shah
If you forsake a path, it is because you were hoping for conviction from it. You seek conviction, not self-knowledge. -- Idries Shah
You may have forgotten the Way:
But those who came before
Did not forget you.
Saying of Master Bahaudin Naqshband of Bokhara -- Idries Shah
When you feel least interested in following the Way which you have entered, this may be the time when it is most appropriate for you. -- Idries Shah
Never follow any impulse to teach, however strong it might be. The command to teach is not felt as an impulsion. -- Idries Shah
Whoever might perfume a scorpion
Will not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Anger
You ask for a piece of advice. I tell you: 'Do not get angry.' He is strong who can withhold anger. -- Idries Shah
Our heads are filled with 'knowledge', a knowledge that in some areas pre-empts our seeing anything at all. -- Idries Shah
The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love. -- Idries Shah
In the distorting mirror of your mind, an angel can seem to have a devil's face. -- Idries Shah
As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions. -- Idries Shah
At His door, what is the difference between Moslem and Christian, virtuous and guilty? At his door all are seekers and He the sought. -- Idries Shah
An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before. -- Idries Shah
Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information. -- Idries Shah
A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years' sincere, obedient dedication. -- Idries Shah
It is necessary to note," says Rumi, "that opposite things work together, even though nominally opposed" (Fihi Ma Fihi). -- Idries Shah
The automatism of man is overcome, in the words of Dhun'Nun, by aiming for 'being as you were, where you were, before you were'. -- Idries Shah
Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
The Tongue
A man slips with his tongue more than with his feet. -- Idries Shah
Unbelief and belief are both marching on His road, while both are saying, 'He is one and He has no associates'. -- Idries Shah
To Him who has sense, a sign is enough
For the heedless, however, a thousand expositions are not enough. -- Idries Shah
Poor greedy one, wherever he runs
He's after food, and death is after him.
(Saadi) -- Idries Shah
To be a Sufi is to detach from fixed ideas and from preconceptions; and not to try to avoid what is your lot. -- Idries Shah
You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend. -- Idries Shah
Few things are more absurd than wise saws originally designed to inculcate or maintain the social needs of a society long past - when they are applied to today. -- Idries Shah
He that is purified by love is pure; and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.
Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. -- Idries Shah
Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Community: Irrationals unified by hope of the impossible. -- Idries Shah
The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it. -- Idries Shah
Do not try to be humble: learn humility. -- Idries Shah
The liar has a bad memory. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic. -- Idries Shah
The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress. -- Idries Shah
The definition of the word 'finished' is: 'This word means finished. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Death
Die before your death. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Practice
Who are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Tasks
Whoever makes all his tasks one task, God will help him in his other concerns. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Objects
It is your attachment to objects which make you blind and deaf. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Envy
Envy devours good deeds, as a fire devours fuel. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Sleep
Sleep is the brother of death. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Humility
Humility and courtesy are themselves a part of piety. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Women
Women are the twin-halves of men. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Struggle
The holy warrior is he who struggles with himself. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Accusations
Anyone reviling a brother for a sin will not himself die before committing it. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Reflection
The Faithful are mirrors, one to the other. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Truth
Speaking the truth to the unjust is the best of holy wars. -- Idries Shah
Teaching:
One hour's teaching is better than a whole night of prayer.
Saying of the Prophet -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Oppression
When oppression exists, even the bird dies in its nest. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Food
Nobody has eaten better food than that won by his own labour. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Some behaviour
I am like a man who has lighted a fire, and all the creeping things have rushed to burn themselves in it. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Distribution
God it is who gives: I am only a distributor. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
THE PEOPLE
It is the people who are God's family.
(Muhammad the Prophet) -- Idries Shah
When you get a principle on which everyone is agreed, you get the beginning of complacency and deterioration. -- Idries Shah
Talking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken. -- Idries Shah
A man is deficient in understanding until he perceives that there is a whole cycle of evolution possible within himself: repeating endlessly, offering opportunities for personal development. -- Idries Shah
A loan is the scissors of friendship.
A man's own tongue may cut his throat.
The cage has no value without the bird. -- Idries Shah
The more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep. -- Idries Shah
Three things cannot be retrieved:
The arrow once sped from the bow
The word spoken in haste
The missed opportunity.
Ali, the Lion of Islam. -- Idries Shah
Even if false gold makes a man happy:
At the mint it will be identified. -- Idries Shah
The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality. -- Idries Shah
A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it. -- Idries Shah
The totality of life cannot be understood, so runs Sufi teaching, if it is studied only through the methods which we use in everyday living. -- Idries Shah
Sufis hold that the superior experience and knowledge comes to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth,capacity,and earning of it. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience and you will know'. -- Idries Shah
Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them? -- Idries Shah
It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings very well indeed -- Idries Shah
Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon. -- Idries Shah
You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude. -- Idries Shah
The happiness of the superficial: when a man who has lost his donkey finds it again. -- Idries Shah
You can perceive a person's aspiration if it is genuine, because this creates a change in the emanations from such a person. -- Idries Shah
Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge. -- Idries Shah
You can learn more in half an hour's direct contact with a source of knowledge (no matter the apparent reason for the contact or the subject of the transaction) than you can in years of formal effort. -- Idries Shah
Treat this world as I do, like a wayfarer; like a horseman who stops in the shade of a tree for a time, and then moves on. -- Idries Shah
The man who knows must discharge a function. The one who does not, cannot arrogate one to himself; he can only try to do so. -- Idries Shah
The secret protects itself. It is found only in the spirit and practice of the Work. -- Idries Shah
Q: How can I help myself?
A: By remembering the proverb: 'The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service', from Saadi. -- Idries Shah
Nothing cheap without reason. -- Idries Shah
Certain levels of human understanding cannot be attained, it is claimed, until the brain can work in more than one way. -- Idries Shah
It is experience which teaches, not controversy based on supposed logic and assumptions of what is likely to be true. -- Idries Shah
Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves. -- Idries Shah
From a personal experience and the examination of literature, I feel that we cannot take for granted that a dialogue, without information and perhaps without understanding, is possible between any individuals or groups on all levels. So the prerequisite is information. -- Idries Shah
When the mind is full of established biases, it will not be able to graft Sufism on top of them. -- Idries Shah
To send a kiss by messenger. -- Idries Shah
The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans. -- Idries Shah
Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead. -- Idries Shah
MAGHRIBI: Learning is in activity. Learning through words alone is minor activity. -- Idries Shah
One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time. -- Idries Shah
What you are seeking in your retreat, I see clearly in every road and alleyway. -- Idries Shah
Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition -- Idries Shah
People who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man. -- Idries Shah
When the lion had eaten its fill, and the jackals had taken their share, the ants came along and finished up the meat from the bones of the haughty stag. -- Idries Shah
When you are still fragmentated, lacking certainty - what difference does it make what your decisions are? -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Monkishness
No monkery in Islam. -- Idries Shah
Whoever knows God, does not (any longer) say "God". -- Idries Shah
Nothing can defile the Sufi, and he in fact purifies everything." Abu-Turab al-Nakhsabi. -- Idries Shah
A king who feared wasps once decreed that they were abolished. As it happened, they did him no harm. But he was eventually stung to death by scorpions. -- Idries Shah
Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm. -- Idries Shah
The selection and following of a spiritual guide is the most important duty of a Sufi. -- Idries Shah
Practise your knowledge, for knowledge without practice is a body without life -- Idries Shah
You can keep going on much less attention than you crave. -- Idries Shah
But the minimum human duty is to serve others: it is no great attainment. -- Idries Shah
What can you do with a person who says that he is absolutely uncertain about everything, and that he is absolutely certain about that? -- Idries Shah
It will pass, whatever it is. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet.
Lies, promises, trust
He is not of mine who lies, breaks a promise or fails in his trust. -- Idries Shah
The great poet Hafiz says that you should dye your prayer-carpet with wine if your teacher tells you to do so. -- Idries Shah
A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work -- Idries Shah
Learning without action is like wax without honey.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) -- Idries Shah
Three Things
Three things cannot be retrieved:
The arrow once sped from the bow
The word spoken in haste
The missed opportunity.
(Ali the Lion, Caliph of Islam, son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet), -- Idries Shah
With enough information, it is almost impossible "not" to predict people's action. -- Idries Shah
Question 3: Why should a person study Sufism?
Answer: Because he was created to study it; it is his next step. -- Idries Shah
There is a saying that, according to what a person's mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil's face. -- Idries Shah
The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying. It was: 'What do you think I am, stupid, or something? -- Idries Shah
Much smoke has been seen, and caused great fear of fire - even when no fire ensued. -- Idries Shah
If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself! -- Idries Shah
Much travel is needed before the raw man is ripened. -- Idries Shah
To bind one free man with love is better than to release a thousand slaves. -- Idries Shah
But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps. -- Idries Shah
Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword. -- Idries Shah
You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean. -- Idries Shah
The clothes may vary, but the person is the same. -- Idries Shah
Dramatic. A well developed sense of the dramatic has values beyond what people usually imagine. One of these is to realise the limitations of a sense of the dramatic. -- Idries Shah
Day and Night
The night is long: do not shorten it by sleep. The day is fair: do not darken it with wrongdoing. -- Idries Shah
Death
If he is a good man, death will be a release;
If he is a bad one, it will release others from him. -- Idries Shah
Our objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience. -- Idries Shah
From the beginning, from the age of Adam to the time of kingship: from the powerful, pardon: from the poor, sins. -- Idries Shah
Right time, right place, right people equals success.
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history. -- Idries Shah
He discards a quilt for fear of bugs. -- Idries Shah
I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems.
You ask me what to do about them.
It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race.
Face that one first. -- Idries Shah
What you have to learn is how to find the unworldly in everything. -- Idries Shah
When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'. -- Idries Shah
People today are in danger of drowning in information; but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be.
If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all. -- Idries Shah
Like calls to like, truth to truth and deceit to deceit. -- Idries Shah
The Book of Wisdom. Simab said: 'I shall sell the Book of Wisdom for a hundred gold pieces, and some people will say that it is cheap.' Yunus Marmar said to him: 'And I shall give away the key to understanding it, and almost none shall take it, even free of charge. -- Idries Shah
Effort makes some great men famous.
Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown. -- Idries Shah
When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it. -- Idries Shah
You may be able to get the bone down your throat
But if it reaches your stomach it will tear your navel.
(Gulistan) -- Idries Shah
These lecture provide material for the consideration of common factors, in theory and in development, from the viewpoint of the idea of surrender to the Divine Will, reviewing some aspects of the interplay between Christians and Moslems, and introducing material from and about Sufis. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Patience: A support for the disappointed. -- Idries Shah
A Sufi has a right to be served, but he has no right to demand. Maruf Karkhi of Khorasan -- Idries Shah
As swords were designed to kill
They did well to make them tongue-shaped.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) -- Idries Shah
Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study. -- Idries Shah
The proverb says that 'The answer to a fool is silence'. Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run. -- Idries Shah
Sufis are not here to satisfy a demand. They exist to share what they have got. These two things are not always the same. -- Idries Shah
BARQI: AESTHETICS IS ONLY THE LOWEST FORM OF PERCEPTION OF THE REAL. -- Idries Shah
People talk about 'service, effort, love, knowledge'. But with knowledge you know what love is, and what it is not. -- Idries Shah
One should not pray if that prayer is vanity. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Bribe
Substitute for law, which is a substitute for justice. -- Idries Shah
I am an idol worshipper; for I understand what idol worship means, and the idolater does not. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised. -- Idries Shah
Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious. -- Idries Shah
Many people who are in reality dead are walking in the streets; many who are in their graves are in reality alive. -- Idries Shah
Almost every day I am reminded of Saadi's reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates. -- Idries Shah
Better to quarrel with a friend than to support enemies. -- Idries Shah
No colour comes after black. -- Idries Shah
Whoever has not first dug a well, should not steal a minaret. -- Idries Shah
Well-meant techniques such as arbitrary self-mortification, are useless. -- Idries Shah
The Sufis say, "This is not a religion; it is religion -- Idries Shah
Trust is needed before lessons can be learnt. -- Idries Shah
The pathways into Sufic thinking are, it is traditionally said, almost as varied as the number of Sufis in existence. -- Idries Shah
Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Drugs: Source of the mystical experience of the ignorant. -- Idries Shah
From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying:
'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment. -- Idries Shah
The Sufi saying has it: God, to the bee, is something which has TWO stings! -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
The Judge
A man appointed to be a judge has been killed without a knife. -- Idries Shah
The bird which has no knowledge of pure water, has his beak in salt water all year round. -- Idries Shah
A Sufi is alive to the value of time, and is given, every moment, to what that moment demands. -- Idries Shah
THE HEAVENS
To the mallet of the Highest Mind
The heavens are the smallest possible ball.
(Akhlaq-i-Mohsini) -- Idries Shah
Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit. -- Idries Shah
If a Manx cat tells you that it is trying to preserve its long, beautiful tail, you don't have to believe it - especially if you have eyes. -- Idries Shah
When sense has left a head, it should be called a tail. -- Idries Shah
You have not forgotten to remember;
You have remembered to forget.
But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember - and generally more practical. -- Idries Shah
Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is experiential. Capacities, even those for learning beyond a certain point, are provoked by Sufis, by one's own efforts and what results from them, and by an element of what is referred to by Sufis as the Divine. -- Idries Shah
You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to do, and you do know what that means. -- Idries Shah
All approaches to a study or an individual may start with a desire for attention. However they start, they must never end up in this manner. -- Idries Shah
Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long. -- Idries Shah
A Sufi school comes into being in order to flourish and disappear, not to leave traces in mechanical ritual, or anthropologically survivals. -- Idries Shah
Have the nature of a dervish: then wear a stylish cap. -- Idries Shah
When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form. -- Idries Shah
You say that this society will come to an end, because societies always have done so.
I wonder whether they have ended because they were not really societies at all. -- Idries Shah
Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something. -- Idries Shah
You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them. -- Idries Shah
What goes into a salt-mine becomes salt. -- Idries Shah
A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information. -- Idries Shah
For every Pharoah there is a Moses. -- Idries Shah
Most of the supposedly Sufi organizations, exercises and "orders" are in fact only of archaeological interest. -- Idries Shah
The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day. -- Idries Shah
Forms have changed through the centuries in obedience to the external world to which all forms belong. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is education, in that it has a body of knowledge which it transmits to those who have not got it. -- Idries Shah
Sandals. The Sufi teacher Ghulam-Shah was asked what pattern he used in formulating his courses for disciples. He said: 'Barefoot until you can get sandals, sandals until you can manage boots. -- Idries Shah
The degree of necessity determines the development of organs in man ... therefore increase your necessity. -- Idries Shah
Brave is the thief who carries a lamp in his hand. -- Idries Shah
A man from the Land of Fools wanted to pull down the clouds.
'Why?' someone asked him.
'To squeeze out the rain. -- Idries Shah
The object of Sufi preparatory study, however, being to illustrate, expose and out-manoeuvre superficial ambition. -- Idries Shah
abandonment of spiritual values which makes us stand aghast.' The Mir answered: 'Neither could you provide entertainment for your people, nor could you bind them to your person. To call them "my people -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Wisdom: Something you can learn without knowing it. -- Idries Shah
Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous. -- Idries Shah
Continuously, in commemoration of the Friend
We drank wine, even before the creation of the vine. -- Idries Shah
Inner Knowledge
You want to become wise in one lesson: First become a real human being. -- Idries Shah
The spirit is the mirror; the body is the rust.
(Divan-i-Shamsi Tabriz) -- Idries Shah
Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings. -- Idries Shah
You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality. -- Idries Shah
Whoever is to be wise despises himself. Only the ignorant trust their own judgement. -- Idries Shah
God provides the food, men provide the cooks. -- Idries Shah
Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it. -- Idries Shah
However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can't run away from your own feet. -- Idries Shah
People who cannot trust are themselves not trustworthy, and therefore cannot be entrusted with important things. -- Idries Shah
Worry is a cloud which rains destruction. -- Idries Shah
What do I sing, and what does my tambourine sing? -- Idries Shah
Voice in the night
A voice whispered to me last night: 'There is no such thing as a voice whispering in the night! -- Idries Shah
THE BIRD AND THE WATER
A bird which has not heard of fresh water
Dips his beak in salt-water year after year.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) -- Idries Shah
It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis. -- Idries Shah
Real generosity is anonymous to the extent that a man should be prepared even to be considered ungenerous rather than explain it to others. -- Idries Shah
Correct teaching brings out human excellence. -- Idries Shah
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'. -- Idries Shah
No duty is ignoble. What can be ignoble is the sight of people trying not to be ignoble. -- Idries Shah
Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew. -- Idries Shah
The Sufis are unanimous that a Guide (Sheikh) is absolutely essential, though never available on demand: 'the Sufis are not merchants'. -- Idries Shah
EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men. -- Idries Shah
No practice exists in isolation. -- Idries Shah
A motto of the human race: Let me do as I like, and give me approval as well. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is the essence of all religions. -- Idries Shah
Until you can understand illogicality, and the meaningfulness of it, shun the Sufis except for limited, precise, self-evident services. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza.
Worry: Something to make you unnecessarily ill. -- Idries Shah
If you are covetous, you are a prisoner: If you are greedy, you will never be filled. -- Idries Shah
Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth. -- Idries Shah
Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun? -- Idries Shah
One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one. -- Idries Shah
The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service -- Idries Shah
The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk. -- Idries Shah
Salute to the Thief. Junaid of Baghdad was passing the scene of a public hanging, where a thief was on the scaffold. Junaid bowed towards the criminal. Someone asked him: 'What did you do that?' Junaid said: 'I was bowing before his single-mindedness. For his aim, that man has given his life. -- Idries Shah
Deteriorated science is a cult, so is imitative or deteriorated Sufism. -- Idries Shah
Two people can illustrate crudity to you.
The first is the crude man, whom you see perceiving the diamond as a stone.
The other is the refined man, who makes clear to you the crudity of the first one. -- Idries Shah
When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for. -- Idries Shah
He who is fortunately enlightened [the Sufi]
Knows that sophistry is from the devil and love from Adam. -- Idries Shah
ANDAKI: EFFORT IS NOT EFFORT WITHOUT ZAMAN, MAKAN, IKHWAN (RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT PEOPLE). -- Idries Shah
One day the cub will become a wolf, even if it has been reared among the sons of man. -- Idries Shah
He is the completed Man who, from his completeness, performs, with his Mastership, the work of a slave. -- Idries Shah
Everything man needs is in the world. -- Idries Shah
If you seek a teacher, try to become a real student. If you want to be a student, try to find a real teacher. -- Idries Shah
There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance. -- Idries Shah
Hit your hand on a stone and expect it to hurt. -- Idries Shah
People carry on whole conversations in proverbs. But they are not LIVING the proverbs. -- Idries Shah
Deep in the sea are riches beyond compare. But if you seek safety, it is on the shore. -- Idries Shah
The tongue is the best masseur of furrowed brows. -- Idries Shah
I asked a child, walking with a candle, 'From where comes that light?' Instantly he blew it out. 'Tell me where it is gone - then I will tell you where it came from.' (Hasan of Basra) -- Idries Shah
There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love. -- Idries Shah
Make mankind your dwelling place. -- Idries Shah
If you do not understand, you cannot love. You can only imagine that you love. -- Idries Shah
The existence of relative truth does not prove the non-existence of universal truth. -- Idries Shah
Whatever goes into a salt-mine becomes salt. -- Idries Shah
When there is a true or useful thing, there is sure to be a counterfeit. -- Idries Shah
... when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief. -- Idries Shah
The lightning said to the oak tree: 'Stand aside, or take what is coming to you! -- Idries Shah
The aspirant has to be guided by a mentor. The stage at which this guidance can take effect is seldom, if ever, perceptible to the learner. -- Idries Shah
Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why it has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'. -- Idries Shah
It is as true as anything else which can be spoken to say that all knowledge is really available everywhere. -- Idries Shah
If you have two shirts, sell one and with the money buy a flower'. -- Idries Shah
Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
A fool:
A man trying to be honest with the dishonest. -- Idries Shah
Sufism, they say, is that which enables one to understand religion, irrespective of its current outward form. -- Idries Shah
They asked Abboud of Omdurman: 'Which is better, to be young or to be old?' He said: 'To be old is to have less time before you and more mistakes behind. I leave you to decide whether this is better than the reverse. -- Idries Shah
Exaggeration is a standard peculiarity of man. To deprecate is often a form of exaggeration which people do not notice, because it appears to be its opposite. -- Idries Shah
In a village where everyone has only one leg, the biped will hop about more lamely than anyone else, if he knows what is good for him. -- Idries Shah
The fruit of timidity is neither gain nor loss. -- Idries Shah
Before garden, vine or grape was in the world," writes one, "our soul was drunken with immortal wine. -- Idries Shah
The power of Allah: no sound, no shape, no form. But when it manifests, none can resist it. -- Idries Shah
Conviction, far from being based upon reason, is the enemy of reason; because rationality does not change, while convictions do, all the time. -- Idries Shah
If you give what can be taken, you are not really giving. Take what you are given, not what you want to be given. Give what cannot be taken. -- Idries Shah
The mine is always bigger than the gem. -- Idries Shah
Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp. -- Idries Shah
The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose. -- Idries Shah
SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
GURGANI:
The teacher and the taught together produce the teaching. -- Idries Shah
It has truly been said that 'Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn. -- Idries Shah
Water shrinks wool, urgency shrinks time.
Shrinkage may be an advantage or the reverse, according to expectation. -- Idries Shah
Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise. -- Idries Shah
People change and needs change. So what was Sufism once is Sufism no more. -- Idries Shah
The basic urge toward mysticism is never, in the unaltered man, clear enough to be recognized for what it is. -- Idries Shah
The process of learning is the process of discovering what really exists. -- Idries Shah
Everyone does not know the secrets of Truth
The States of Truth are not evidential. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Adherent:
Someone who will believe anything except what he should. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Flattery:
One of the most promising of businesses: always brisk. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Intellectual: One who knows no craft. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Poverty: The result of marriage. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Emotionalist:
A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Supporter: Someone who will say anything. -- Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Penitent: Someone who has been made incapable of enjoying himself. -- Idries Shah
Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental. -- Idries Shah
The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed. -- Idries Shah
The worst of sages is a visitor of princes; the best of princes is a visitor of sages. -- Idries Shah
If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting. -- Idries Shah
The answer to a fool is silence. (Proverb) -- Idries Shah
Brotherhood" to the more civilised is connected with training and identity of interest.' Man -- Idries Shah
Any society which enjoins its members to adhere to both of these (politeness and truth) is a fraud. -- Idries Shah
A MOTTO OF THE HUMAN RACE
Tell me what to do; but it must be what I want you to tell me. -- Idries Shah
That which is given free is never knowledge. It may be information ... but knowledge does not come in that manner. -- Idries Shah
Knowledge is something which you can use.
Belief is something which uses you. -- Idries Shah
Things which are seemingly opposed may in fact be working together -- Idries Shah
None should say : 'I can trust,' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting. -- Idries Shah
What is sometimes thought to be clever is, significantly often, merely an advanced form of foolishness. -- Idries Shah
When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge. -- Idries Shah
The Sufi must be able to alternate his thought between the relative and the Absolute, the approximate and the Real. -- Idries Shah
Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal.
Interesting people can find something interesting in all things. -- Idries Shah
That which is capable of perceiving objective reality is, in Sufism, the human soul (ruh). -- Idries Shah
An old fool is worse than a young one: For the young may always grow wise. (Zohair) -- Idries Shah
He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge. -- Idries Shah
Give and Take
The Chief takes less than he is given
And gives more than he has taken -- Idries Shah
Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct. -- Idries Shah
The skilled artisan uses the same iron to make a horseshoe
As he does for a polished mirror for the King. -- Idries Shah
A man's capacity is the same as his breadth of vision. -- Idries Shah
If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed. -- Idries Shah
Scraps
The scraps from the meal of the Emir are larger than the gifts of halwa from the merchant.
Timur Fazil -- Idries Shah
When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut? -- Idries Shah
The teaching must, of course, work with the best part of the individual, must be directed to his or her real capacity. -- Idries Shah
Of whom can we think well when it is believed that if nothing bad is done to you, this has been a kindness? -- Idries Shah
Denial and affirmation are games which people play.
There are people who deny that they are capable of denying, and who would insist that people do not insist. -- Idries Shah
among roses, be a rose, among thorns, be a thorn -- Idries Shah
I ask about the sky, but the answer is about a rope. -- Idries Shah
Sufis (the name for the realised individual, not the learner or follower) are reunited with objective Reality and Unity. -- Idries Shah
If wine is the enemy of religion, I shall devour the enemy of religion. -- Idries Shah
How many friends would you have if you went from one to another asking them to conceal a dead body? -- Idries Shah
Hariri says, in his Maqamat: 'Safety is on the river's BANK. -- Idries Shah
Wisdom
Sufian said:
'The wisdom which is invisible but which sustains is a hundred times better than the appearance of wisdom, for that has itself to be sustained. -- Idries Shah
Too much kindness towards the fox may mean doom for the rabbit. -- Idries Shah
The Sufis,' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their minds -- Idries Shah
Rumi himself once said that counterfeit gold is only to be found because there is such a thing as real gold to be copied. -- Idries Shah
It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares. -- Idries Shah
Careful preparation is necessary before people can perceive something which is there all the time. -- Idries Shah
Rumi speaks of people who rely upon the written word as sometimes being no more than donkeys laden with books. -- Idries Shah
Premature independence is the daughter of conceit. -- Idries Shah
Now that I have found thee, I know that in the first step I took, I moved away from thee. -- Idries Shah
Dye your hair, certainly. But what can you do for your face? -- Idries Shah
It is the goldsmith who can assay the gold. -- Idries Shah
Proverbs and truisms are for this reason dangerous, because they produce blindness or non-thought. -- Idries Shah
HE is a Master who may teach without it being totally labelled teaching; HE is a student who can learn without being obsessed by learning. -- Idries Shah
Assume that you are part-hypocrite and part heedless, and you will not be far wrong. -- Idries Shah
If ... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosity -- Idries Shah
Truth has no form. -- Idries Shah
But the Sufis work IN the world, and therefore WITH 'things of the world'. -- Idries Shah
Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests. -- Idries Shah
Q: What is a fundamental mistake of man's?
A: To think that he is alive, when he has merely fallen asleep in life's waiting-room. -- Idries Shah
Inheritance and culture obscure people's higher capacities. -- Idries Shah
Saadi's dictum, in the Bostan: 'The Path is not in the rosary, the prayer-mat and the robe -- Idries Shah
The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is "not" in their destiny. -- Idries Shah
Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them. -- Idries Shah
Those who can't, try: those who can, don't have to. -- Idries Shah
The barren branches may appear inelegant: They are, to the cook, the means to make his fire. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is experiential -- Idries Shah
Information about the activities of one body of Sufis may be harmful to the potential of another. -- Idries Shah
The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real -- Idries Shah
Much religious teaching in the world is in reality a confused or deteriorated form, very different from its roots. -- Idries Shah
Humility is a teacher of itself. It is learnt by means of its practise. -- Idries Shah
You fear tomorrow: yet yesterday is just as dangerous. -- Idries Shah
Man thinks many things. He thinks he is One. He is usually several. Until he becomes One, he cannot have a fair idea of what he is at all. -- Idries Shah
It is not always a question of the Emperor having no clothes on. Sometimes it is, 'Is that an Emperor at all? -- Idries Shah
If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul. -- Idries Shah
If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress. -- Idries Shah
It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance? -- Idries Shah
SOVEREIGNTY
Sovereignty is a wind of change.
(Hariri) -- Idries Shah
Why did I do such-and-such a thing?' is all very well. But what about 'How otherwise could I have done it? -- Idries Shah
Service
I will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages.
Rabia el-Adawia. -- Idries Shah
If you seek small things to do, and do them well, great things will seek you, and demand to be performed. -- Idries Shah
Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow. -- Idries Shah
Sufi secrets are perceived, not understood by words. -- Idries Shah
Eat what you desire, but dress like other people. -- Idries Shah
All forms are limited. Some of the limitations are time, place, culture, language. -- Idries Shah
Self-mortification, far from producing liberation from material things, is far more likely to cause either an unhinged mind, delusions or a masochistic taste for more suffering, experienced, of course, as joy. -- Idries Shah
It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed. -- Idries Shah
If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth. -- Idries Shah
The problem is that the spurious, the unreal, the untrue is so much easier to find that it is in danger of becoming the norm. -- Idries Shah
No surgeon can treat the wounds of the tongue. -- Idries Shah
The Sufis have said: 'The importance of something is in inverse proportion to its attractiveness. -- Idries Shah
Most systems end up by making imagined humility into a form of vanity, so they end up with vanity just the same. -- Idries Shah
Satisfaction is a treasure which does not decay.
Proverb -- Idries Shah
People are always trying to understand.
There is only one way to do that.
It is to discover < +="" i="" +="">why< +="" i="" +=""> you want to understand. -- Idries Shah
If the path has been laid down, why the successive appearance of different teachers? Why would anyone reinvent the wheel, if everything were as cosy and sequential as primitive longing so easily convinces us? -- Idries Shah
If you want to be a calligrapher, write, and write, and write. -- Idries Shah
Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions. -- Idries Shah
Sufism, in one definition, "is" human life. -- Idries Shah
One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts. -- Idries Shah
Sufi Teachers are not, as you might hope, people who make you feel peace and harmony. -- Idries Shah
When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts. -- Idries Shah
Call yourself unlucky only if you take up coffin-making and people stop dying. -- Idries Shah
A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything. -- Idries Shah
Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information. -- Idries Shah
When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters. -- Idries Shah
The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one. -- Idries Shah
Man (as he imagines himself to be), in general, is a possibility, not a fact. -- Idries Shah
SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
RUDBARI : Heart to heart is an essential means of passing on the secrets of the Path. -- Idries Shah
Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind. -- Idries Shah
In the realm of Greater Understanding, the workshop is dismantled after the work is finished. -- Idries Shah
Take the wheat, not the measure in which it is contained -- Idries Shah
People who have fallacious objectives are like the barren soil. The flowers grow from soil which is composed of the right objectives. -- Idries Shah
Do not tell your secrets to everyone in this headquarters, Earth. We have surveyed it well. There was nobody to whom to entrust secrets. -- Idries Shah
Man has less than he suspects of: Time, Friends, Hopes, Qualities.
Proverb -- Idries Shah
A yellow dog is brother to the jackal. -- Idries Shah
Because sugar is not arsenic, many graves are full. -- Idries Shah
Anyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a tussle with thoughts and books, however, still passes for wise. -- Idries Shah
Patience is the food of understanding. -- Idries Shah
If you give what can be takes, you are not really giving.
Take what you are given, not what you want to be given.
Take what is given:
Give what cannot be taken. -- Idries Shah
People used to play with toys.
Now the toys play with them. -- Idries Shah
To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides. -- Idries Shah
It is not enough that there is a collection of people with the common aim of working in unison towards an objective ... Aspiration and desire only are not enough. -- Idries Shah
Haste is from the Devil. -- Idries Shah
Sufism, the "secret tradition," is not available on the basis of assumptions which belong to another world, the world of intellect. -- Idries Shah
The donkey which brought you to this door must be dismissed if you want to get through it'. -- Idries Shah
A donkey eats a melon, it remains a donkey -- Idries Shah
You will never reach Mecca, I fear: for you are on the road to Turkestan. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is, in fact, not a mystical system, not a religion, but a body of knowledge. -- Idries Shah
But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school. -- Idries Shah
Mediation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be. -- Idries Shah
There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any such stage, and cannot learn through successive and superseding lessons. -- Idries Shah
The would-be Sufi needs guidance precisely because books, texts, while telling you what is needed, do not tell you when. -- Idries Shah
Knowledge gives nothing to a man until he gives everything to it. -- Idries Shah
Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed. -- Idries Shah
Better the demon which makes you improve than the angel who threatens. -- Idries Shah
The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces. -- Idries Shah
Life: sometimes the man on the saddle, sometimes the saddle on the man. -- Idries Shah
IMPRESSIONS
Time brought a thousand impressions.
Not one of them had I seen in the mirror of the imagination.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) -- Idries Shah
Good. Show me a man who thinks that he knows what 'good' is, and I will probably be able to show you a horror of a person. Show me a person who really knows what 'good' is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word. -- Idries Shah
No effort makes a black crow into a white hawk. -- Idries Shah
What you are pleased to call Sufism is merely the record of past method. -- Idries Shah
To drown in treacle is just as unpleasant as to drown in mud. -- Idries Shah
first pious man, who said: 'Did you encounter my disciples and help them?' Khidr answered: -- Idries Shah
Teach honesty by all means - you do know what it is, don't you? -- Idries Shah
Sufi service has to be the right kind of service; neither servitude nor hypocrisy. -- Idries Shah
Forms are vehicles and instruments, and vehicles and instruments cannot be called good or bad without context. -- Idries Shah
The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
The Bequest
I have nothing to leave you except my family. -- Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet
Helping others
I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Muslim or not. -- Idries Shah
One day we will all wear a garment which has no pockets ... -- Idries Shah
Feeling important is a vice, not a virtue, however concealed as participation in something noble. -- Idries Shah
People cannot handle prejudice because they try to deal with the symptom. Prejudice is the symptom, wrong assumptions are the cause.
'Prejudice is the daughter of assumption. -- Idries Shah
A stolen kiss is not easily returned. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is known by means of itself. -- Idries Shah
If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him. -- Idries Shah
A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything -- Idries Shah
To copy a virtue in another is more copying than it is virtue. Try to learn what that virtue is based upon. -- Idries Shah
When humility is exercised, people begin to realise that they do not, as it were, exist at all. -- Idries Shah
If you want to know what he's like - reverse what his opponents say. -- Idries Shah
One lie will keep out forty truths. -- Idries Shah
The practice of the Sufis is too sublime to have a formal beginning, -- Idries Shah
I longed to teach, but I had to wait until the desire had left me before I could really do so. -- Idries Shah
There is no wisdom where there is no common sense: it cannot under those conditions find any expression. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is transmitted by means of the human exemplar, the teacher. -- Idries Shah
It is not important to have said a thing first, or best - or even most interestingly. What is important is to say it on the right occasion. -- Idries Shah
It was being written in the East that 'Sufism was formerly a reality without a name: now it is a name without a reality'. -- Idries Shah
It is not Sufism if it does not perform its function for you. A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep a man warm. -- Idries Shah
They have fixed our nutrition and arranged our life-span. More than this, and ahead of this, efforts will not be productive. -- Idries Shah
Each flies with its own kind: pigeon with pigeon, hawk with hawk. -- Idries Shah
Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it. -- Idries Shah
We and all our existences are non-entities. Thou art the absolute being whose appearance is transitory. -- Idries Shah
The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age. -- Idries Shah
When the human being says:
'It is not true ... '
He may mean:
'I don't know about it, so I think it is untrue.'
Or:
'I don't like it. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is that which succeeds in bringing to man the High Knowledge. -- Idries Shah
Sufism," according to the Sufi, "is an adventure in living, necessary adventure. -- Idries Shah
You are still adrift while you still think that a means is an end. -- Idries Shah
Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do. -- Idries Shah
A great deal of thought is only a substitute for the thoughts that the individual would really find useful at the time. -- Idries Shah
The sort of man who, throwing a stone upon the ground, would miss. -- Idries Shah
Who is the wrong person to criticise?
You -- Idries Shah
People in this civilization are starving in the middle of plenty. This is a civilization that is going down, not because it hasn't got the knowledge that would save it, but because nobody will use the knowledge. -- Idries Shah
Remember the proverb: 'A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent. -- Idries Shah
A real secret is something which only one person knows. -- Idries Shah
Form is useful, but it is secondary. -- Idries Shah
Humility has to precede instruction. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is always systematised only for limited or transitory periods: because Sufism is primarly instrumental, not for enjoyment or display. -- Idries Shah
MAN: Kick him-he'll forgive you. Flatter him-he may or may not see through you. But ignore him and he'll hate you -- Idries Shah
The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete. -- Idries Shah
The more you look at 'common knowledge', the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge.
No real knowledge is common. -- Idries Shah
None meets harm who knows his capacity. -- Idries Shah
The significance of the dwelling is in the dweller. -- Idries Shah
Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn? -- Idries Shah
Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials. -- Idries Shah
People think that they think things, and they also think that they know things. They could usefully give some attention to the question of whether they know what they think and know what they think they know. -- Idries Shah
The hearts of the noble are the graves of confidences. -- Idries Shah
Action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher. -- Idries Shah
We are adjured not to burn the candle at both ends.
But how many people have verified that physically possible? -- Idries Shah
Hazrat Ali, in a saying attributed to him, says: 'Man is in disguise, covered by his tongue'. -- Idries Shah
Knowledge cannot be attained except through humility. -- Idries Shah
The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn. -- Idries Shah
Patience is a garment which has never worn out. -- Idries Shah
Pick up a bee from kindness, and learn the limitations of kindness. -- Idries Shah
You will never reach Mecca, because you are on the road to Samarkand -- Idries Shah
The Sufi is 'One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not. -- Idries Shah
Remember that greed includes greed for being not greedy. -- Idries Shah
The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured'. -- Idries Shah
Whoever has taught me one letter has made me his slave. -- Idries Shah
Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years' time. -- Idries Shah
Whoever gives knowledge to a fool loses it
And who keeps it from the deserving does wrong. -- Idries Shah
Rust through washing never became white. -- Idries Shah
There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse. -- Idries Shah
What is humanity? To feel pain at the sorrows of our neighbours, to feel humiliated at the humiliation of fellow-beings. -- Idries Shah
Words have to die if humans are to live. -- Idries Shah
Take the straight path, even if it is long: marry no widow, even if she is a houri. -- Idries Shah
And Rumi tells us, 'Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue'. -- Idries Shah
The means through which people may perceive Truth have forms; Truth has no form. -- Idries Shah
You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out. -- Idries Shah
Do not dwell upon whether you will put yourself into the hands of a teacher. You are always in his hands. -- Idries Shah
If the father cannot, the son will finish the task. -- Idries Shah
As the Eastern saying, by the sage Hilali, has it, 'one person who understands is worth a hundred who merely obey a custom. -- Idries Shah
Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. -- Idries Shah
Helping othersbr>I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Moslem or not. -- Idries Shah