Quotes by Idries Shah

It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings very well indeed

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.

There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any such stage, and cannot learn through successive and superseding lessons.

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. (Mirza Ahsan of Tabriz)

Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the veils which have to be dissolved in the mind.

Saying of the ProphetDesireDesire not the world, and God will love you. Desire not what others have, and they will love you.

Two people can illustrate crudity to you.The first is the crude man, whom you see perceiving the diamond as a stone.The other is the refined man, who makes clear to you the crudity of the first one.

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

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

When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what belief is really for.

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.

Almost every day I am reminded of Saadis reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates.

Inheritance and culture obscure people’s higher capacities.

Be a dog, but dont be a younger brother.Proverb.

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaBribe Substitute for law, which is a substitute for justice.

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

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaAdherent:Someone who will believe anything except what he should.

Causes: As important a fact as any individual cause on earth is the vital incapacity of the human individual to distinguish between genuine cause and one which is foisted upon him by pressure, environment, propaganda, conditioning.If people had the sense they pretend to have, they would seek this fundamental distinction perceptible.Hardly anyone makes this effort. This is partly because it is an invisible but powerful part of their culture to teach that conditioned emotionality and ‘causes’ whose necessity, urgency or rightness is only conditioned into them, are necessarily, right.

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaPatience: A support for the disappointed.

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