Sufism Quotes - Page 9

Sufism is experience, and hence not to be defined – imprisoned – in perennial, static categories.

What goes into a salt-mine becomes salt.

A man's capacity is the same as his breadth of vision.

When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.

I am humbled by the grace of God.I am humbled by the beauty of this universe.Humbled by others' kindness.Humbled by life.I drop down to my knees and give thanks.

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.

Humility has to precede instruction.

Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.

ScrapsThe scraps from the meal of the Emir are larger than the gifts of halwa from the merchant. Timur Fazil

Ali, Son of the Father of the SeekerAli said: 'None may arrive at the Truth until he is able to think that the Path itself may be wrong. This is because those who can only believe that it must be right are not believers, but people who are incapable of thinking otherwise than they already think. Such people are not men at all. Like animals they must follow certain beliefs, and during this time they cannot learn. Because they cannot be called “humanity”, they cannot arrive at the Truth.

Like calls to like, truth to truth and deceit to deceit.

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

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

… the Sufi attitude is: ‘Let the real truth, whatever it may be, be revealed to me’.

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

Imagination blocks you like a bolt on a door. Burn that bar. (Rumi)

Has it not occurred to you that, conversely, other people do not have your difficulties because they do not react as you do to what happens?

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

Give and TakeThe Chief takes less than he is givenAnd gives more than he has taken.

Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.

Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.

How many friends would you have if you went from one to another asking them to conceal a dead body?

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

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

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.

Before garden, vine or grape was in the world," writes one, "our soul was drunken with immortal wine.

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.

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

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

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

Do not tell your secrets to everyone in this headquarters, Earth. We have surveyed it well. There was nobody to whom to entrust secrets.

Hit your hand on a stone and expect it to hurt.

You must be more alive than life.You must see darkness danceand hear silence sing.You must be more awake than lightfor we aren’t born sleepingand we shouldn’t live sleeping.Only then will death’s slumberbecome sweet.

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

If you forsake a path, it is because you were hoping for conviction from it. You seek conviction, not self-knowledge.

The would-be Sufi needs guidance precisely because books, texts, while telling you what is needed, do not tell you when.

Deteriorated science is a cult, so is imitative or deteriorated Sufism.

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.

As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions.

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.

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?

SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGANRUDBARI : Heart to heart is an essential means of passing on the secrets of the Path.

I longed to teach, but I had to wait until the desire had left me before I could really do so.

Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path.

Love The Way Love, Loves You

I don’t mind losing in this game of love, if it means You will be the winner.

THE HEAVENSTo the mallet of the Highest MindThe heavens are the smallest possible ball.(Akhlaq-i-Mohsini)

Saying of the ProphetTasksWhoever makes all his tasks one task, God will help him in his other concerns.

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

Close your eyes. Meditate on your love. This is God.

The teaching must, of course, work with the best part of the individual, must be directed to his or her real capacity.

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

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

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

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaSupporter: Someone who will say anything.

Humility cannot be taught by propaganda, though slavery can. Shouting for humility is a form of arrogance. One of my most abiding recollections is of a priest at a religious occasion once roaring, in the most threatening way imaginable: t‘O our Lord God, we most humbly pray…!’Real humility is not always the same as apparent humility. Remember that fighting against self-conceit is still fighting: and that it will tend to suppress it temporarily. It does not cure anything.Remember, too, that humility itself does not bring an automatic reward: it is a means to an end. It enables a person to operate in a certain manner.

Sufism is known by means of itself.

Show a man too many camels' bones,or show them to him too often,and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one.

Sufism is always systematised only for limited or transitory periods: because Sufism is primarly instrumental, not for enjoyment or display.

The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real