Idries Shah Quotes - Page 6

From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying:'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
Idries Shah
Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition
Idries Shah
Teach honesty by all means - you do know what it is, don't you?
Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaTruthful man:He who is, secretly, regarded by everyone as an enemy.
Idries Shah
Day and NightThe night is long: do not shorten it by sleep. The day is fair: do not darken it with wrongdoing.
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
A real secret is something which only one person knows.
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
Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience it and you will know'.
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
Sufism is known by means of itself.
Idries Shah
We are adjured not to burn the candle at both ends.But how many people have verified that physically possible?
Idries Shah
Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge.
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
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
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
Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
Idries Shah
You can keep going on much less attention than you crave.
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
I will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages. Rabia
Idries Shah
To drown in treacle is just as unpleasant as to drown in mud.People today are in danger of drowning in information; but because they have been taught 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.The lightning said to the oak tree: 'Stand aside, or take what is coming to you!
Idries Shah
Neither imagine that you are false, nor lash yourself, for both may be forms of self-indulgence.
Idries Shah
When you are still fragmentated, lacking certainty — what difference does it make what your decisions are?
Idries Shah
Much travel is needed before the raw man is ripened.
Idries Shah
And there are many people, both Moslem and Christian, who have a good grasp of each others0 conceptions of surrender to God an other principles. But the widespread existence of bias, misinformation and lack of knowledge (…) militate against the effectiveness of dialogue, (…) by the most subtle and one of the most effective of instruments, the subconscious, almost the subliminal, introduction of hostility.
Idries Shah
Christian scholars often say that Sufi theories are close to those of Christianity. Many Moslems maintain that they are essentially derived from Islam. The resemblance of many Sufi ideas to those of several religious and esoteric systems are sometimes taken as evidence of derivation. The Islamic interpretation is that religion is of one origin, differences being due to local or historical causes.
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
… 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
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
The important place held by Jesus among the world's six hundred million Moslems... and the agreement of both religions about the necessity for surrender to God as the means of salvation, thus makes it comparatively easy for a Moslem to address himself to Christians: the sympathy and the history are already there.
Idries Shah
From imperial, economic and ideological causes, many cultures are the inheritors, and hence the prisoners, of attitudes of scorn and disdain for other faiths – outlooks which are not ennobling to anyone.
Idries Shah
Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something.
Idries Shah
Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it.
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
The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.
Idries Shah
Inner Knowledge -- You want to become wise in one lesson: First become a real human being.
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
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
One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
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
One can give or withhold in a manner far more effective, sophisticated, useful, which is quite invisible to people who think that giving or withholding is done by external assessment. If you seek some mark of favour or 'promotion', know that you are not ready for it. Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.
Idries Shah
Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it.
Idries Shah
It is a Sufi contention that truth is not discovered or maintained by the mere repetition of teachings. It can only be kept understood by the perpetual experience of it. And it is in the experience of truth that the Sufis have always reposed their trust. Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience it and you will know'.
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
Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.
Idries Shah
You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to go, and you do know what that means.
Idries Shah
There is no wisdom where there is no common sense: it cannot under those conditions find any expression.
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
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
If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
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
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
If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul.
Idries Shah
Assume that you are part-hypocrite and part heedless, and you will not be far wrong.
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
Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
Idries Shah
Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction.
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
Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings.
Idries Shah
They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom.
Idries Shah