Idries Shah Quotes - Page 5

The main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as 'systems', which are more or less alike, and which depend upon dogma and ritual: and especially upon repetition and the application of continual and standardised pressures upon their followers.The Sufi way, except in degenerate forms which are not to be classified as Sufic, is entirely different from this.

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

Inner Knowledge -- You want to become wise in one lesson: First become a real human being.

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

Our objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience.

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

Saying of the ProphetUnderstandingSpeak to everyone in accordance with his degree of understanding.

In the distorting mirror of your mind, an angel can seem to have a devil's face.

Sufism is experiential

The secret protects itself. It is found only in the spirit and practice of the Work.

None should say: ‘I can trust,’ or ‘I cannot trust’ until he is master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

The sort of man who, throwing a stone upon the ground, would miss.

Life: sometimes the man on the saddle, sometimes the saddle on the man.

It has truly been said that 'Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn.

If the father cannot, the son will finish the task.

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.

Pick up a bee from kindness, and learn the limitations of kindness.

MAGHRIBI: Learning is in activity. Learning through words alone is minor activity.

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaCommunity: Irrationals unified by hope of the impossible.

You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out.

The Sufi must be able to alternate his thought between the relative and the Absolute, the approximate and the Real.

Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. “The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth.

Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed.

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.

One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.

The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces.

To bind one free man with love is better than to release a thousand slaves.

When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?

Rumi speaks of people who rely upon the written word as sometimes being no more than donkeys laden with books.

The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it.

Make mankind your dwelling place.

Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow.

Sufism is, in fact, not a mystical system, not a religion, but a body of knowledge.

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

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.

The Sufis are unanimous that a Guide (Sheikh) is absolutely essential, though never available on demand: 'the Sufis are not merchants'.

The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.

The Sufis,' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their minds

If you cannot sit on a throne like a king, seize, like a tent-pitcher, the rope of the Royal tent.

You yourself are your own barrier – rise from within it.

Saying of the ProphetHelping othersI order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Muslim or not.

Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves.

When humility is exercised, people begin to realise that they do not, as it were, exist at all.

Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon.

No practice exists in isolation.

People who cannot trust are themselves not trustworthy, and therefore cannot be entrusted with important things.

Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.

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.

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

I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems.You ask me what to do about them.It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race.Face that one first.

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaTruthful man:He who is, secretly, regarded by everyone as an enemy.

People cannot handle prejudice because they try to deal with the symptom. Prejudice is the symptom, wrong assumptions are the cause.'Prejudice is the daughter of assumption.

If you have no troubles – buy a goat.

The significance of the dwelling is in the dweller.

Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible.

Haste is from the Devil.

The question of divine knowledge is so deep that it is really known only to those who have it.

When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.

A Sufi school comes into being in order to flourish and disappear, not to leave traces in mechanical ritual, or anthropologically survivals.

Teach honesty by all means - you do know what it is, don't you?