Sufism Quotes - Page 4

Do not dwell upon whether you will put yourself into the hands of a teacher. You are always in his hands.

Idries Shah

He who sleeps on the Road will lose either his hat or his head.

Idries Shah

Before the antidote arrives from Iraq The man with snake-bite will be dead.

Idries Shah

The bowl is warmer than the soup.

Idries Shah

When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.

Idries Shah

There are as many paths to Truth as there are souls of men.

Idries Shah

The Sufis say, "This is not a religion; it is religion

Idries Shah

Sufism is the essence of all religions.

Idries Shah

SOVEREIGNTYSovereignty is a wind of change. (Hariri)

Idries Shah

The hearts of the noble are the graves of confidences.

Idries Shah

He who is fortunately enlightened [the Sufi]Knows that sophistry is from the devil and love from Adam.

Idries Shah

Satisfaction is a treasure which does not decay.Proverb

Idries Shah

Nothing can defile the Sufi, and he in fact purifies everything.” Abu-Turab al-Nakhsabi.

Idries Shah

Rumi himself once said that counterfeit gold is only to be found because there is such a thing as real gold to be copied.

Idries Shah

Hariri says, in his Maqamat: ‘Safety is on the river’s BANK.

Idries Shah

The skilled artisan uses the same iron to make a horseshoeAs he does for a polished mirror for the King.

Idries Shah

The great poet Hafiz says that you should dye your prayer-carpet with wine if your teacher tells you to do so.

Idries Shah

Everything man needs is in the world.

Idries Shah

God provides the food, men provide the cooks.

Idries Shah

Angels are the powers hidden in the faculties and organs of man

Idries Shah

StagesFirst I thought that a Teacher must be right in all things. Then I imagined that my teacher was wrong in many things. Then I realised what was right and what was wrong.What was wrong was to remain in either of the first two stages. What was right was to convey this to everyone.(Ardabili)

Idries Shah

When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.

Idries Shah

Sandals. The Sufi teacher Ghulam-Shah was asked what pattern he used in formulating his courses for disciples. He said: 'Barefoot until you can get sandals, sandals until you can manage boots.

Idries Shah

We seek the fire of the spark that is already within us.

Kamand Kojouri

Like the bat, the Sufi is asleep to 'things of the day' - the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all-important - and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That 'mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment' is a commonplace of Sufi literature

Idries Shah

The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured'.

Idries Shah

Careful preparation is necessary before people can perceive something which is there all the time.

Idries Shah

That which is capable of perceiving objective reality is, in Sufism, the human soul (ruh).

Idries Shah

All forms are limited. Some of the limitations are time, place, culture, language.

Idries Shah

Form is useful, but it is secondary.

Idries Shah

A Sufi has a right to be served, but he has no right to demand. Maruf Karkhi of Khorasan

Idries Shah

The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one.

Idries Shah

Whoever is to be wise despises himself. Only the ignorant trust their own judgement.

Idries Shah

Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it.

Idries Shah

If you will not reprove yourself,’ Saadi says, ‘you will not welcome reproof from another.

Idries Shah

While most streams of Buddhism take a contemplative stance on passion, pleasure, and pain, Sufism encourages us to be open to our passions - to dive into the sea, to become at one with the beauty and power of the waves.

Charlotte Kasl

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.

Idries Shah

Standing in Front of the Mirror of EternityDressed By True ExistenceLooking to Your Own RealityIn the Ocean of Oneness

Sheikh Nazim Al-Haqqani

One of the outstanding sources of resistance to imperial power in the Muslim world came from Sufi groups. While Sufi brotherhoods are generally known for a more quietist and mystic approach to Islam, they traditionally rank among the best organized and most coherent groupings in society. They constitute ready-made organizations - social-based NGOs, if you will - for maintaining Islamic culture and practices under periods of extreme oppression and for fomenting resistance and guerrilla warfare against foreign occupation. The history of Sufi participation in dozens of liberation struggles is long and widespread across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Sufi groups were prominent in the anti-Soviet resistance, and later against the American in Afghanistan and against US occupation forces in Iraq.

Graham Fuller

Soar on to the King, the crown jewel,And then you'll truly seeThat nothing is as beautifulAs His grand Majesty.

Alexis York Lumbard

From my insufficiency to my perfection, and from my deviation to my equilibriumFrom my sublimity to my beauty, and from my splendor to my majestyFrom my scattering to my gathering, and from my rejection to my communionFrom my baseness to my preciousness, and from my stones to my pearlsFrom my rising to my setting, and from my days to my nightsFrom my luminosity to my darkness, and from my guidance to my strayingFrom my perigee to my apogee, and from the base of my lance to its tipFrom my waxing to my waning, and from the void of my moon to its crescentFrom my pursuit to my flight, and from my steed to my gazelleFrom my breeze to my boughs, and from my boughs to my shadeFrom my shade to my delight, and from my delight to my tormentFrom my torment to my likeness, and from my likeness to my impossibilityFrom my impossibility to my validity, and from my validity to my deficiency.I am no one in existence but myself,

Ibn Arabi

The differences between religions are reflected very clearly in the different forms of sacred art: compared with Gothic art, above all in its “flamboyant” style, Islamic art is contemplative rather than volitive: it is “intellectual” and not “dramatic”, and it opposes the cold beauty of geometrical design to the mystical heroism of cathedrals. Islam is the perspective of “omnipresence” (“God is everywhere”), which coincides with that of “simultaneity” (“Truth has always been”); it aims at avoiding any “particularization” or “condensation”, any “unique fact” in time and space, although as a religion it necessarily includes an aspect of “unique fact”, without which it would be ineffective or even absurd. In other words Islam aims at what is “everywhere center”, and this is why, symbolically speaking, it replaces the cross with the cube or the woven fabric: it “decentralizes” and “universalizes” to the greatest possible extent, in the realm of art as in that of doctrine; it is opposed to any individualist mode and hence to any “personalist” mysticism. To express ourselves in geometrical terms, we could say that a point which seeks to be unique, and which thus becomes an absolute center, appears to Islam—in art as in theology—as a usurpation of the divine absoluteness and therefore as an “association” (shirk); there is only one single center, God, whence the prohibition against “centralizing” images, especially statues; even the Prophet, the human center of the tradition, has no right to a “Christic uniqueness” and is “decentralized” by the series of other Prophets; the same is true of Islam—or the Koran—which is similarly integrated in a universal “fabric” and a cosmic “rhythm”, having been preceded by other religions—or other “Books”—which it merely restores. The Kaaba, center of the Muslim world, becomes space as soon as one is inside the building: the ritual direction of prayer is then projected toward the four cardinal points.If Christianity is like a central fire, Islam on the contrary resembles a blanket of snow, at once unifying and leveling and having its center everywhere.

Frithjof Schuon

To understand the extreme lengths to which the Sufis were prepared to go in reading esoteric meanings into the quite simple language of their Scriptures, it is necessary to remember that the Koran was committed to memory by all deeply religious men and women, and recited constantly, aloud or in the heart; so that the mystic was in a state of uninterrupted meditation upon the Holy Book. Many passages which would otherwise pass without special notice were therefore bound to arrest their attention, already sufficiently alert, and to quicken their imagination, already fired by the discipline of their austerities and the rigor of their internal life.

A.J. Arberry

Treat this world as I do, like a wayfarer; like a horseman who stops in the shade of a tree for a time, and then moves on.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetObjectsIt is your attachment to objects which make you blind and deaf.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetPracticeWho are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know.

Idries Shah

It was inevitable, as soon as legends of miracles became attached to the names of the great mystics, that the credulous masses should applaud imposture more than true devotion; the cult of the saints, against which orthodox Islam ineffectually protested, promoted ignorance and superstition, and confounded charlatanry with lofty speculation. To live scandalously, to act impudently, to speak unintelligibly—this was the easy highroad to fame, wealth, and power.

A.J. Arberry

Saying of the ProphetOppressionWhen oppression exists, even the bird dies in its nest.

Idries Shah

Helping othersI order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Moslem or not.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetDistributionGod it is who gives: I am only a distributor.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetWomenWomen are the twin-halves of men.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetReflectionThe Faithful are mirrors, one to the other.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetPrivacyWhoever invades people´s privacy corrupts them.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetLoveDo you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetObligation to LearnThe pursuit of knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetTruthSpeaking the truth to the unjust is the best of holy wars.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetTHE PEOPLEIt is the people who are God's family.(Muhammad the Prophet)

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetSome behaviourI am like a man who has lighted a fire, and all the creeping things have rushed to burn themselves in it.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetThe BequestI have nothing to leave you except my family.

Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetFoodNobody has eaten better food than that won by his own labour.

Idries Shah

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Sufism Quotes - Page 4

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