Sufism Quotes

Except Him, whatever understood,O Bedil~ love made me forget.

Sufism is about connecting with the intuitive parts of ourselves so that we can attune to the highest vibration in the universe, which is pure love. It's about joining together in the mystical heart.

Charlotte Kasl

Love was supposed to be the easiest path to divinity

Soroosh Shahrivar

Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven as they are both present inside this very moment. Why worry so much about the aftermath, an imaginary future, when this very moment is the only time we can truly and fully experience the presence and absence of God in our lives? Motivated by neither the fear of punishment nor the desire to be rewarded in heaven, Sufis love God simply because they love him.

Elif Shafak

A wise teacher is a keen and true student of absolute beauty and truth, and he searches everywhere for them in nature with all his heart

Sadegh M. Angha

The only thing I know is that a person who is not busy with others is one who recognizes the truth of existence.

Sadegh M. Angha

Truth is one, unique, single; it isindivisibly One.And its Oneness, and the knowledge ofthat oneness belongs to him; isplaced in him.Impossible, impossible; it is aloofness,estrangement, separation; he is known onlyby them.Knowledge of One is abstract; single,indivisible.To say one, and to say single is to reachthe attribute; but he, who is one, is beyondattribute.If I say "I," he sends back "I," in answerto my "I". So, "he" is for you and not forme.And if I say Unity is Oneness for hisloneliness, for his being alone, then Iplaced him increation; among things created.And if I say single One, as number one; howcan he comewithinnumber?And if I say, he is One for as theresult of being considered one, being provedOne–then Iplaced limit on him; delimitedhim.

Mansur al-Hallaj

I am a lover, and I deal in love. Sow flowers,So your surroundings become a garden.Don't sow thorns; for they will prick your feet.We are all one body,Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.

Rahman Baba

One day Lal shahbaz was wandering in the desert with his friend Sheikh Bhaa ud-Din Zakariya. It was winter, and evening time, so they began to build a fire to keep warm. They found some wood, but then they realised they had no fire. So Baha ud- Din suggested that Lal Shahbaz turn himself into a falcon and get fire from hell. Off he flew, but an hour later he came back empty handed. "There is no fire in hell," he reported. "Everyone who goes there brings their own fire, and their own pain, from this world.

William Dalrymple

you are a volume in the divine booka mirror to the power that created the universewhatever you want, ask it of yourselfwhatever you're looking for can only be foundinside of you

Jalaluddin Rumi

Our thoughts have prepared for us the happiness or unhappiness we experience.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Instant Reading. A certain famous Fakir was claiming in the village that he could teach an illiterate person to read by a lightning technique. Nasrudin stepped out of the crowd: 'Very well, teach me – now.' The Fakir touched the Mulla's forehead, and said: 'Now go home immediately and read a book.' Half an our later Nasrudin was back in the market-place, clutching a book. The Fakir had gone on his way. 'Can you read now, Mulla?' the people asked him. 'Yes, I can read – but that is not the point. Where is that charlatan?' 'How can he be a charlatan if he has caused you to read without learning?' 'Because this book, which is authoritative, says: “All Fakirs are frauds”.

Idries Shah

No soul in the world is without a particular mission to perform and accomplish, and the misery of every soul is in not having come to understanding of the purpose for which he is born. The lifetime of confusion is always caused by souls wandering all the time away from the purpose of which they were born.Inayat Khan (1882 – 1927).

Various

The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

Idries Shah

Selfishness keeps man blind through life.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.

Idries Shah

Self-mortification, far from producing liberation from material things, is far more likely to cause either an unhinged mind, delusions or a masochistic taste for more suffering, experienced, of course, as joy.

Idries Shah

Politics is the application of Sufism to earthlife...To refuse to act politically is to starve your children, destroy civilization.

Shamcher Bryn Beorse

It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.

Idries Shah

There are two aspects of individual harmony: the harmony between body and soul, and the harmony between individuals. All the tragedy in the world, in the individual and in the multitude, comes from lack of harmony. And harmony is the best given by producing harmony in one's own life.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.

Idries Shah

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

Idries Shah

The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.

Idries Shah

Good. Show me a man who thinks that he knows what 'good' is, and I will probably be able to show you a horror of a person. Show me a person who really knows what 'good' is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word.

Idries Shah

In reality, I am not dependent, butSo as to keep dignity of the GenerousI have resorted to beggary.

Bedil

Although hundreds of friends Have become my foes, The friendship of One Has given security to my soul. Rejecting many I have embraced the One-At last I am He and He is me.

Sarmad Shaheed

I am the king of kingsO Sheikh! Not naked like you, I love madness, dynamism, but I am not distraughtAn infidel, an idolator, I am not one of the pious. I am going towards the mosqueBut I am not a Muslim.

Sarmad Shaheed

Farsi Couplet: Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast. English Translation: If there is a paradise on earth, It is this, it is this, it is this

Amir Khusrau

Farsi Couplet:Naala-e zanjeer-e Majnun arghanoon-e aashiqanastZauq-e aan andaza-e gosh-e ulul-albaab neestEnglish Translation:The creaking of the chain of Majnun is the orchestra of the lovers,To appreciate its music is quite beyond the ears of the wise.

Amir Khusrau

Love The Way Love, Loves You

Syed Sharukh

Eblis said, "No man who thinks ill, will hear the truth despite a hundred signs.When one who fantasises is presented with reason his fantasies increase.When one talks to such a person, their words become the very cause of that person's fantasy. The crusader's sword is a tool for a thief.So the response to him is silence and peace; to talk with an idiot is insa

Jalaluddin Rumi

A great deal of thought is only a substitute for the thoughts that the individual would really find useful at the time.

Idries Shah

Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why is has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'.

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

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Sufism Quotes

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