Idries Shah Quotes

I ask about the sky, but the answer is about a rope. ~ Idries Shah

EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men. ~ Idries Shah

Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental. ~ 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 ~ Idries Shah

Nothing cheap without reason. ~ Idries Shah

Deep in the sea are riches beyond compare. But if you seek safety, it is on the shore. ~ Idries Shah

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

God provides the food, men provide the cooks. ~ Idries Shah

Saying of the Prophet
Struggle
The holy warrior is he who struggles with himself. ~ Idries Shah

Action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher. ~ Idries Shah

Dye your hair, certainly. But what can you do for your face? ~ Idries Shah

Do not dwell upon whether you will put yourself into the hands of a teacher. You are always in his hands. ~ Idries Shah

Saadi: Be a true renouncer, (zahid) and [you can even] ware satin. ~ Idries Shah

Things which are seemingly opposed may in fact be working together ~ Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Emotionalist:
A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine. ~ Idries Shah

It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares. ~ Idries Shah

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

In the modern world we are in a paradoxical situation; because although in theory man knows that he can extend his attention to something and then remove it, he very often does not do so. In many areas he does not look at something and then detach from it, and look at something else.
Once he has found something to interest himself in, he cannot detach himself from it efficiently, and therefore he cannot be objective. Note that, in most if not all languages, we have words like 'objectivity' which leads people to imagine that they have it, or can easily use it. That is equivalent (in reality if not in theory) to saying 'I know the word "gold", so I am rich. ~ Idries Shah

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. ~ Idries Shah

Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised. ~ Idries Shah

No effort makes a black crow into a white hawk. ~ Idries Shah

Rust through washing never became white. ~ Idries Shah

If you are 'humble', it may help you in ordinary life. If you are not, you will get nowhere in higher things. ~ Idries Shah

If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul. ~ Idries Shah

The Sufis regard systems which treat everyone alike as mechanical and degenerate. ~ Idries Shah

Truth has no form. ~ Idries Shah

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

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. ~ Idries Shah

Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings. ~ Idries Shah

There is no purpose in hammering cold iron. ~ Idries Shah

The mine is always bigger than the gem. ~ Idries Shah

The selection and following of a spiritual guide is the most important duty of a Sufi. ~ Idries Shah

A yellow dog is brother to the jackal. ~ Idries Shah

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

A man from the Land of Fools wanted to pull down the clouds.
'Why?' someone asked him.
'To squeeze out the rain. ~ Idries Shah

However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can't run away from your own feet. ~ Idries Shah

He who is fortunately enlightened [the Sufi]
Knows that sophistry is from the devil and love from Adam. ~ Idries Shah

Sufism is the essence of all religions. ~ Idries Shah

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

Words have to die if humans are to live. ~ Idries Shah

Saying of the Prophet
Anger
You ask for a piece of advice. I tell you: 'Do not get angry.' He is strong who can withhold anger. ~ Idries Shah

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

No problem is too difficult to be solved by a theoretician. ~ Idries Shah

Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic. ~ Idries Shah

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

Assume that you are part-hypocrite and part heedless, and you will not be far wrong. ~ Idries Shah

Q: What is a fundamental mistake of man's?
A: To think that he is alive, when he has merely fallen asleep in life's waiting-room. ~ Idries Shah

Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it. ~ Idries Shah

SAYING OF SHEIKH ZIAUDIN:
Self-justification is worse than the original offence. ~ Idries Shah

Man has less than he suspects of: Time, Friends, Hopes, Qualities.
Proverb ~ Idries Shah

If ... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosity ~ Idries Shah

Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information. ~ Idries Shah

The intellect is not sovereign: knowledge is. ~ Idries Shah

Humility has to precede instruction. ~ Idries Shah

Forms of Love: A man once decided that all perfection and beauty was in the tree. It gave fruit, shelter, materials for manufacturers. It did this, too, without apparently making demands. It was there for 'good' purposes. So he taught people that 'tree' was 'good'.
Everyone eventually worshipped in forests and groves, and they loved trees. This pure occupation diverted most human attention for perhaps 10,000 years. These people mistook the immediate for the Real. So it is with man's present ideas about love.
His most sublime Ideas about love, if he but knew it, can be called the lowest of the possible perceptions of real love. ~ Idries Shah, Reflections

Exaggeration is a standard peculiarity of man. To deprecate is often a form of exaggeration which people do not notice, because it appears to be its opposite. ~ Idries Shah

Practise your knowledge, for knowledge without practice is a body without life ~ Idries Shah

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

A donkey eats a melon, it remains a donkey ~ Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Patience: A support for the disappointed. ~ Idries Shah

One should not pray if that prayer is vanity. ~ Idries Shah

Everything man needs is in the world. ~ Idries Shah

Most people, whatever their opinions and protestations, do not want to learn. ~ Idries Shah

Sufism, in one definition, "is" human life. ~ Idries Shah

Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun? ~ Idries Shah

The skilled artisan uses the same iron to make a horseshoe
As he does for a polished mirror for the King. ~ Idries Shah

It is not always a question of the Emperor having no clothes on. Sometimes it is, 'Is that an Emperor at all? ~ Idries Shah

Knowledge is something which you can use.
Belief is something which uses you. ~ Idries Shah

Brotherhood" to the more civilised is connected with training and identity of interest.' Man ~ Idries Shah

When you get a principle on which everyone is agreed, you get the beginning of complacency and deterioration. ~ Idries Shah

The Sufi way of thinking is particularly appropriate in a world of mass communication, when every effort is directed towards making people believe that they want or need certain things; that they should believe certain things; that they should as a consequence do certain things that their manipulators want them to do. ~ Idries Shah

A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years' sincere, obedient dedication. ~ Idries Shah

Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition ~ Idries Shah

When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts. ~ Idries Shah

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

Denial and affirmation are games which people play.
There are people who deny that they are capable of denying, and who would insist that people do not insist. ~ Idries Shah

If the path has been laid down, why the successive appearance of different teachers? Why would anyone reinvent the wheel, if everything were as cosy and sequential as primitive longing so easily convinces us? ~ Idries Shah

They have fixed our nutrition and arranged our life-span. More than this, and ahead of this, efforts will not be productive. ~ Idries Shah

The important place held by Jesus among the world's six hundred million Moslems ... and the agreement of both religions about the necessity for surrender to God as the means of salvation, thus makes it comparatively easy for a Moslem to address himself to Christians: the sympathy and the history are already there. ~ Idries Shah

In the realm of Greater Understanding, the workshop is dismantled after the work is finished. ~ Idries Shah

If I knew what two and two were – I would say Four! ~ Idries Shah

It is not important to have said a thing first, or best - or even most interestingly. What is important is to say it on the right occasion. ~ Idries Shah

You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality. ~ Idries Shah

Form is useful, but it is secondary. ~ Idries Shah

If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it. If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why. If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude? ~ Idries Shah

It is not Sufism if it does not perform its function for you. A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep a man warm. ~ Idries Shah

The practice of the Sufis is too sublime to have a formal beginning, ~ Idries Shah

But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school. ~ Idries Shah

What goes into a salt-mine becomes salt. ~ Idries Shah

Are you ignorant enough to expect horsemanship from blacksmiths? ~ Idries Shah

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

The teacher works in accordance with the prospects of his students and the possibility of maintaining the community of Sufis. ~ Idries Shah

It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance? ~ Idries Shah

Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp. ~ Idries Shah

The bowl is warmer than the soup. ~ Idries Shah

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit. ~ Idries Shah

Sufis are not here to satisfy a demand. They exist to share what they have got. These two things are not always the same. ~ Idries Shah

If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him. ~ Idries Shah

Most systems end up by making imagined humility into a form of vanity, so they end up with vanity just the same. ~ Idries Shah

Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow. ~ Idries Shah