Idries Shah Quotes - Page 4

The Sufi is One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not.

One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.

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

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

No practice exists in isolation.

A certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence; I do not know. What I do know is that he has a perfectly delightful absence.

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.

It is not enough that there is a collection of people with the common aim of working in unison towards an objective... Aspiration and desire only are not enough.

When the lion had eaten its fill, and the jackals had taken their share, the ants came along and finished up the meat from the bones of the haughty stag.

People who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.

We view Sufism not as an ideology that molds people to the right way of belief or action, but as an art or science that can exert a beneficial influence on individuals and societies, in accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies ... Sufi study and development gives one capacities one did not have before.

The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.

Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.

To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.

If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

MAN: Kick him-he'll forgive you. Flatter him-he may or may not see through you. But ignore him and he'll hate you

Talking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken.