Sufi Quotes

World seems like a void of silence every time footsteps are deprived of dancing shoes.

Dance resides within us all. Some find it when joy conquers sorrow, others express it through celebration of movements; and then there are those... whose existence is dance,

If you want to find God, then all you need to do is love.

This is a day of celebration!Today, we are divorcing the pastand marrying the present.Dance,and you will find Godin every room.Today, we are divorcing resentmentand marrying forgiveness.Sing,and God will find you in every tune.Today, we are divorcing indifferenceand marrying love.Drink, and play that tambourine against your thighs.We have so much celebrating to do!

I have made You the companion of my heart.But my body is available to those who desire its company,And my body is friendly toward its guest,But the Beloved of my heart is the guest of my soul. 

When no one is looking,I swallow deserts and cloudsand chew on mountainsknowing they are sweet bones!When no one is lookingand I want to kiss God,I just lift my own hand to my mouth.

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

Khusrau darya prem ka, ulti wa ki dhaar, Jo utra so doob gaya, jo dooba so paar. English Translation. Oh Khusrau, the river of love Runs in strange directions. One who jumps into it drowns, And one who drowns, gets across.

Similitude of the heart is like that of a telephone operator between man and God.

Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests.

It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed.

There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse.

The dance had distilled her and she had become one with the essence of all that is.

Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.

One sip of this wine and you will go mad with drunkenness. You will drop your masks and tear your clothes — destroying everything that separates you from the Lover. Once you taste the fruit of this vine, you will be kicked out of the city of yourself. You will forget the world. You will forget yourself. I tell you: you will become a madman who wanders the streets looking for the Lover once you drink this Wine of Love.

With faith one attains and realises peace and harmony. With doubt one destroys and gains freedom to move ontowards.

He had found riches beyond worldly imagination. He had found the never ending well of love.

Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study.

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety;if I sit in my own place of patience,what I need flows to me, and without pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me,is looking for me and attracting me.There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.

Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.

We are here in a wood of little beeches: And the leaves are like black lace Against a sky of nacre. One bough of clear promise Across the moon. It is in this wise that God speaketh unto me. He layeth hands of healing upon my flesh, Stilling it in an eternal peace, Until my soul reaches out myriad and infinite hands Toward him, And is eased of its hunger. And I know that this passes: This implacable fury and torment of men, As a thing insensate and vain: And the stillness hath said unto me, Over the tumult of sounds and shaken flame, Out of the terrible beauty of wrath, I alone am eternal. One bough of clear promise Across the moon

Music does not need language of words for it has movements of dance to do its translation.

You know how it goes:at some point in your life, you fell in love with someone and had a glimpse of God.Then you abandoned life and loverand started celebratingyour love for God.

The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed.

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

Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighbourhood of despair.Even when all doors remain closed, God wil open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that has been denied.

Forget your voice, sing!Forget your feet, dance!Forget your life, live!Forget yourself and be!

God begets love.

No one is born beneath this dance. This dance gives birth to you.

The most complete gift of God is a life based on knowledge.

Don't Worry Be Happy

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.

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

But what else are secrets for if not discovery? That is their nature. Only time stands between a mystery and its rightful master.

Writing poems is simply an excuse to remember You.

EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMIWhen we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.

There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance.

The first time I heard you laugh, I only wanted to say funny things so you would always be laughing. You know what happens to chocolate when you leave it out in the sun? I’m that unfortunate chocolate and you, you are the laughing sun. For this reason, I am offering myself to you not as a martyr or some selfless fool, but as a self-indulgent moth who actively pursues the light without much fear for the flame. The moth who revels in the heat and declares: Burn me.

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

Then Gai told me about the famous cup of the heart, which I should now begin to empty. The Sufis compare our spiritual heart, the seat of God within us, with a cup into which the love of God flows. This cup, however, needs to be emptied before it can be filled with Divine love. This emptying is a long process that requires courage, strength of character, determination, and, above all, sincerity. It is a process of reining in and eventually extinguishing the ego, of letting go of material needs, bad and unhealthy habits and emotional attachments in order to make room for God. Sufis often likened it to the process of dying and being born again. ‘Die before you die’ is a famous Sufi saying. This was the essence of every spiritual path, Gai told me.

How can you be a lover of loveand not be a lover of God?It is impossible.

I searched for my Beloved in the strangest of places, until the day I realized I couldn't take my eyes off Her.

Having drunk the dregs of Your Love, I am intoxicated beyond recognition. Now, I only pray for the nearness of You so I may advance in my annihilation.

Polish the mirror of your heart until it reflects every person's light.

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

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

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

No practice exists in isolation.

You’ll only know the answers once you love.

May we always see life through love-coloured glasses.

The feet and their tappingWrite many a lovely coupletThe body dances to your rhythm O lordAfter all, you are the master and I a puppet

I will speak of love until you go mad and join me in my mad worship of love.

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

Saying of the ProphetMonkishnessNo monkery in Islam.

To Be One With The One Is Not For Everyone

They will become Godly when they will have God in their hearts.

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

Not a believer in the mosque am I,Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I.I am not the pure amongst the impure,I am neither Moses nor Pharaoh.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not in the holy books am I,Nor do I dwell in bhang or wine,Nor do I live in a drunken haze,Nor in sleep or waking known.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not in happiness or in sorrow am I found.I am neither pure nor mired in filthy ground.Not of water nor of land,Nor am I in air or fire to be found.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not an Arab nor Lahori,Not a Hindi or Nagouri,Nor a Muslim or Peshawari,Not a Buddhist or a Christian.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Secrets of religion have I not unravelled,I am not of Eve and Adam.Neither still nor moving on,I have not chosen my own name!Bulleh, I know not who I am.From first to last, I searched myself.None other did I succeed in knowing.Not some great thinker am I.Who is standing in my shoes, alone?Bulleh, I know not who I am.

RemedyYour medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.Hazrat Ali