Shah Quotes
There can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone.
Stories are not like the real world; they aren't held back by what we know is false or true. What's important is how a story makes you feel inside.
In Morocco, before you even get to the matter of the sale, you have to coax the owner to sell.
Buy a house in a foreign country and, it seems, that anything which can go wrong usually does.
The model of publishing is changing and its happening right now, but most publishers are so frightened, they just dont know how to embrace it.
Through bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.
These days no one challenges us,' he said. 'And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.
Talking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken.
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.
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.
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.
A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.
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.
And Rumi tells us, ‘Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue’.
Everything man needs is in the world.
The selection and following of a spiritual guide is the most important duty of a Sufi.
It is necessary to note, " says Rumi, "that opposite things work together, even though nominally opposed" (Fihi Ma Fihi).
At His door, what is the difference between Moslem and Christian, virtuous and guilty? At his door all are seekers and He the sought.
Saying of the Prophet.Ink and Blood:The ink of the learned is holier than the blood of the martyr.
At His door, what is the difference between Muslim and Christian, virtuous and guilty? At his door all are seekers and He the sought.
The pathways into Sufic thinking are, it is traditionally said, almost as varied as the number of Sufis in existence.
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.
Practise your knowledge, for knowledge without practice is a body without life
As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions.
Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years’ time.
When you get a principle on which everyone is agreed, you get the beginning of complacency and deterioration.
A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything
What you are pleased to call Sufism is merely the record of past method.
Sufism is that which succeeds in bringing to man the High Knowledge.
Of whom can we think well when it is believed that if nothing bad is done to you, this has been a kindness?
Sufi Teachers are not, as you might hope, people who make you feel peace and harmony.
Sufism is education, in that it has a body of knowledge which it transmits to those who have not got it.
It is experience which teaches, not controversy based on supposed logic and assumptions of what is likely to be true.
Do not dwell upon whether you will put yourself into the hands of a teacher. You are always in his hands.
The secret protects itself. It is found only in the spirit and practice of the Work.
Unbelief and belief are both marching on His road, while both are saying, ‘He is one and He has no associates’.
Understanding and knowledge are completely different sensations in the realm of Truth than they are in the realm of society.
If you forsake a path, it is because you were hoping for conviction from it. You seek conviction, not self-knowledge.
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.
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.
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.