Quotes by Sufis - Page 7

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
The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality.
Idries Shah
He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge.
Idries Shah
It has truly been said that 'Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn.
Idries Shah
Words have to die if humans are to live.
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
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
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
...action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher.
Idries Shah
The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it.
Idries Shah
Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible.
Idries Shah
Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetInk and BloodThe ink of the learned is holier than the blood of the martyr.
Idries Shah
Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword.
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
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
Deep in the sea are riches beyond compare. But if you seek safety, it is on the shore.
Idries Shah
TeachingOne hour's teaching is better than a whole night of prayer.
Idries Shah
One should not pray if that prayer is vanity.
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
Knowledge is something which you can use. Belief is something which uses you.
Idries Shah
Show me a person who really knows what 'good' is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word.
Idries Shah
The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
Idries Shah
When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?
Idries Shah
When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge
Idries Shah
The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured
Idries Shah
The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
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
When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
Idries Shah
RemedyYour 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
Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.
Idries Shah
When humility is exercised, people begin to realise that they do not, as it were, exist at all.
Idries Shah
There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance.
Idries Shah
Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.
Idries Shah
One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.
Idries Shah