Sufis Quotes

When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious to people nowadays, when it is widely recognised that fixations are not the same as valuable and laudable observances. One should not pray if that prayer is vanity; rituals are wrong when they provide lower satisfactions, like emotional stimulus instead of enlightenment; he or she should not be an ascetic who is only enjoying it.

Idries Shah

An intelligent enemy,' he would say, stroking his beard as if it were a bristly pet, 'rather than a foolish friend.' Or, 'He learnt the language of pigeons, and forgot his own.' Or, the favourite of Jan Fishan Khan: 'Nothing is what it seems.

Tahir Shah

Contrary to Expectation. A wise man, the wonder of his age, taught his disciples from a seemingly inexhaustible store of wisdom. He attributed all his knowledge to a thick tome which was kept in a place of honour in his room. The sage would allow nobody to open the volume. When he died, those who had surrounded him, regarding themselves as his heirs, ran to open the book, anxious to possess what it contained. They were surprised, confused and disappointed when they found that there was writing on only one page. They became even more bewildered and then annoyed when they tried to penetrate the meaning of the phrase which met their eyes. It was: 'When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.

Idries Shah

Many Americans first fell in love with the poetry of the thirteenth century teacher and spiritual leader Jelalludin Rumi during the early 1990s when the unparalleled lyrical grace, philosophical brilliance, and spiritual daring of his work took modern Western readers completely by surprise. The impact of its soulful beauty and the depth of its profound humanity were so intense that they reportedly prompted numerous individuals to spontaneously compose poetry.

Aberjhani

In the modern world we are in a paradoxical situation; because although in theory man knows that he can extend his attention to something and then remove it, he very often does not do so. In many areas he does not look at something and then detach from it, and look at something else.Once he has found something to interest himself in, he cannot detach himself from it efficiently, and therefore he cannot be objective. Note that, in most if not all languages, we have words like 'objectivity' which leads people to imagine that they have it, or can easily use it. That is equivalent (in reality if not in theory) to saying 'I know the word “gold”, so I am rich.

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

If a pot can multiply. One day Nasrudin lent his cooking pots to a neighbour, who was giving a feast. The neighbour returned them, together with one extra one – a very tiny pot. 'What is this?' asked Nasrudin. 'According to law, I have given you the offspring of your property which was born when the pots were in my care,' said the joker. Shortly afterwards Nasrudin borrowed his neighbour's pots, but did not return them. The man came round to get them back. 'Alas!' said Nasrudin, 'they are dead. We have established, have we not, that pots are mortal?'.

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

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

Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised.

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

The would-be students wish to transcend books.But, ask yourselves: if someone says that books do not contain wisdom, and yet he writes books; books do not contain Sufism, and yet he continues to publish books on Sufism, what is really happening? It really is your duty, and not mine, to ask and to find the answer to that question, if you are interested enough.

Idries Shah

The Seeking of the Master. Musa Najib was asked why he charged a fee from those who came to his sessions; and why he often did not even address his audience. He said: 'I charge for this object lesson: people believe that knowledge must be given freely, and consequently mistake everything which is free for knowledge. I do not always lecture because, among Sufis, “The Master finds the pupil.” The pupil has to be physically present: but he may be absent in every other sense. When I discern that a pupil is “present” then I “find” him, for then his inner call is audible to me, even if it is silent to him.' 'Seek and you will be found.

Idries Shah

Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded the Sufis' own reiteration that the Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.

Idries Shah

To say "yes" to the Sufi way is to say "no" to imagined escapes.

Idries Shah

Three things cannot be retrieved:The arrow once sped from the bowThe word spoken in hasteThe missed opportunity. Ali, the Lion of Islam.

Idries Shah

Feeling important is a vice, not a virtue, however concealed as participation in something noble.

Idries Shah

With enough information, it is almost impossible "not" to predict people's action.

Idries Shah

But the minimum human duty is to serve others: it is no great attainment.

Idries Shah

Sayings of the ProphetTrust: Trust in God – but tie your camel first.

Idries Shah

One lie will keep out forty truths.

Idries Shah

Whoever gives knowledge to a fool loses itAnd who keeps it from the deserving does wrong.

Idries Shah

ServiceI will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages.Rabia el-Adawia.

Idries Shah

Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do.

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

Sufism is experiential

Idries Shah

The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is “not” in their destiny.

Idries Shah

Counsels of BahaudinYou want to be filled. But something which is full has first to be emptied. Empty yourself so that you will fill properly, by observing these counsels, which you can do as duties to yourself:FirstNever follow any impulse to teach, however strong it might be. The command to teach is not felt as an impulsion.

Idries Shah

If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it. If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why. If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude?

Idries Shah

Voice in the nightA voice whispered to me last night: 'There is no such thing as a voice whispering in the night!

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

WisdomSufian 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

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

Now that I have found thee, I know that in the first step I took, I moved away from thee.

Idries Shah

Hazrat Ali, in a saying attributed to him, says: ‘Man is in disguise, covered by his tongue’.

Idries Shah

If you are covetous, you are a prisoner: If you are greedy, you will never be filled.

Idries Shah

If you have two shirts, sell one and with the money buy a flower’.

Idries Shah

A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years’ sincere, obedient dedication.

Idries Shah

The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real

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

Abu-Yaqub al-Susi: 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

Better to quarrel with a friend than to support enemies.

Idries Shah

The mine is always bigger than the gem.

Idries Shah

Whoever has not first dug a well, should not steal a minaret.

Idries Shah

Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic.

Idries Shah

It is the goldsmith who can assay the gold.

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

Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.

Idries Shah

Whoever might perfume a scorpionWill not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband

Idries Shah

Truth has no form.

Idries Shah

A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information....The key is the teacher.

Idries Shah

That which is given free is never knowledge. It may be information....but knowledge does not come in that manner.

Idries Shah

Sufism, in one definition, "is" human life.

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

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

When there is a true or useful thing, there is sure to be a counterfeit.

Idries Shah

Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental.

Idries Shah

Eat what you desire, but dress like other people.

Idries Shah

Continuously, in commemoration of the FriendWe drank wine, even before the creation of the vine.

Idries Shah

Whoever knows God, does not (any longer) say “God”.

Idries Shah

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Sufis Quotes

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