Idries Shah Quotes
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaTruthful man:He who is, secretly, regarded by everyone as an enemy.
From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying:'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out.
Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path.
Deteriorated science is a cult, so is imitative or deteriorated Sufism.
Much religious teaching in the world is in reality a confused or deteriorated form, very different from its roots.
We and all our existences are non-entities. Thou art the absolute being whose appearance is transitory.
Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years’ time.
The degree of necessity determines the development of organs in man… therefore increase your necessity.
Sufism was formerly a reality without a name: now it is a name without a reality.
ANDAKI: EFFORT IS NOT EFFORT WITHOUT ZAMAN, MAKAN, IKHWAN (RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT PEOPLE).
An old fool is worse than a young one: For the young may always grow wise. (Zohair)
If you do not understand, you cannot love. You can only imagine that you love.
People talk about ‘service, effort, love, knowledge’. But with knowledge you know what love is, and what it is not.
The Sufis have said: ‘The importance of something is in inverse proportion to its attractiveness.
You may have forgotten the Way: But those who came beforeDid not forget you.Saying of Master Bahaudin Naqshband of Bokhara
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaDrugs: Source of the mystical experience of the ignorant.
Saying of the ProphetStruggleThe holy warrior is he who struggles with himself.
Saying of the ProphetHumilityHumility and courtesy are themselves a part of piety.
The donkey which brought you to this door must be dismissed if you want to get through it’.
They have fixed our nutrition and arranged our life-span. More than this, and ahead of this, efforts will not be productive.
But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school.
Trying to force something is the best way to stop it from happening.
If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth…
it was being written in the East that 'Sufism was formerly a reality without a name: now it is a name without a reality'.
But the Sufis work IN the world, and therefore WITH 'things of the world'.
Sufis are not here to satisfy a demand. They exist to share what they have got. These two things are not always the same.
You can perceive a person's aspiration if it is genuine, because this creates a change in the emanations from such a person.
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'.
Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study.
If you are 'humble', it may help you in ordinary life. If you are not, you will get nowhere in higher things.
Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests.
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.
Laziness - The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
Mediation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.
… the Sufi attitude is: ‘Let the real truth, whatever it may be, be revealed to me’.
People who have fallacious objectives are like the barren soil. The flowers grow from soil which is composed of the right objectives.
Saying of the Prophet. The Bequest: I have nothing to leave you except my family.
Saying of the ProphetAngerYou ask for a piece of advice. I tell you : 'Do not get angry.' He is strong who can withhold anger.