Shah Asad Rizvi Quotes

Elevate your individuality to the status of a crown that serves no title. ~ Shah Asad Rizvi

The taste of a fruit for a king and a pauper is the same. ~ Shah Asad Rizvi

Strive and repeat; overcome defeat. ~ Shah Asad Rizvi

It is your intent that enforces the outcome of your life. ~ Shah Asad Rizvi

Life has meaning until the weight of moments is carried by the protection, encouragement, nurturing, presence and love of a mother. ~ Shah Asad Rizvi

Be loyal to your originality as you evolve toward a higher potential. ~ Shah Asad Rizvi

Wander to the shores where souls are made whole. ~ Shah Asad Rizvi

When there is a true or useful thing, there is sure to be a counterfeit. ~ Idries Shah

You may be able to get the bone down your throat
But if it reaches your stomach it will tear your navel.
(Gulistan) ~ Idries Shah

The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it. ~ Idries Shah

Of whom can we think well when it is believed that if nothing bad is done to you, this has been a kindness? ~ Idries Shah

Truth has no form. ~ Idries Shah

The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real ~ Idries Shah

Poor greedy one, wherever he runs
He's after food, and death is after him.
(Saadi) ~ Idries Shah

Why was it always the adults who showed such blind hatred, while we children did our best to get along? ~ Hannah Shah

BARQI: AESTHETICS IS ONLY THE LOWEST FORM OF PERCEPTION OF THE REAL. ~ Idries Shah

Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword. ~ Idries Shah

The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'. ~ Idries Shah

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

Just as religion can lead its devotees to suspend reason for faith, it can also lead them to suspend morality for piety. Indeed, ~ Ali A. Rizvi

Saying of the Prophet
Practice
Who are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know. ~ Idries Shah

There is one thing only which a Muslim can profitably learn from the west, the exact sciences in their pure and applied form. Only natural sciences and mathematics should be taught in Muslim schools, while tuition of European philosophy, literature and history should lose the position of primacy which today it holds on the curriculum. ~ Muhammad Asad

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

Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never seemed to increase their output. I realised later that, in the East, a commitment to produce does not automatically accompany employment. ~ Tahir Shah

When you are still fragmentated, lacking certainty - what difference does it make what your decisions are? ~ Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Supporter: Someone who will say anything. ~ Idries Shah

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

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. ~ Idries Shah

Spend sixteen weeks in the jungle and you being to question your own sanity, especially when you are the one goading everyone else ahead. ~ Tahir Shah

A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you. ~ Tahir Shah

There are as many paths to Truth as there are souls of men. ~ Idries Shah

Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew. ~ Idries Shah

Searching for a lost city is a particularly European obsession. ~ Tahir Shah

Change; those who adapt to change survive,those who refuse to adapt perish ......and those who set the change lead. ~ Ketan R Shah

It is the goldsmith who can assay the gold. ~ Idries Shah

The Sufis have said: 'The importance of something is in inverse proportion to its attractiveness. ~ Idries Shah

At the last moment, the fish and I exchange a troubled glance. The murrel seems to be demanding an explanation. Alas, I am in no position to start justifying the unusual treatment. What comes next is a new experience for both the fish and me. ~ Tahir Shah

I didn't join films to become a great star. I wanted a change from my mother's memory. I started believing in God after my mother's death because then there is heaven and hell and I might meet her there. I think of her as a star.She is a solid point of reference in my life. And I figure if I'm in films, if I'm 70mm, it is easier for her to see me. ~ Shah Rukh Khan

I'm not criticizing how people experience what they might call spirituality. I am interested in looking critically at something else - at how people use their language to articulate theories about something they call religion, to say, for example, that "in Islam religion and politics necessarily go together," or to insist that "violence has no place in religion," to universalize it. ~ Talal Asad

The problems of life are not there merely to be solved. They are there to lead you into the adventure of life. ~ Prashant Shah

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

Two reeds drink from the same stream. One is hollow, the other is sugarcane. - MOROCCAN PROVERB ~ Tahir Shah

Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience and you will know'. ~ Idries Shah

When you view (or think about) porn, a crummy feeling comes over you. It's the feeling of shame, or something like it. Shame changes your self view. It changes who you think you are, how you see yourself. You see yourself as ugly, and an undercurrent of resentment may start boiling up underneath. When you have this kind of self perception, you can't be vulnerable and open to the world. You can't allow yourself to be who you are. You have to keep your true self hidden from the world. You can't have intimacy. Intimacy is key to having a real relationship with anybody. When you view pornography, you destroy the possibility of intimacy with a partner and others, so a real relationship becomes impossible. You retreat out of interdependence with the world and into isolation where you can indulge in your addiction.

Along with the feeling of shame is the annihilation of boundaries. You can't defend yourself emotionally in the world. Words strike your soul while you're reeling from addiction. Everything hits you where it hurts. Minor inquiries by others feel like investigations of you. Your soul can't bear being seen, yet it's exposed entirely. The only recourse in a big, hurtful world, it seems, is to retreat and lick your wounds with the addiction again. ~ Fahad Shah

I am the Real, for I have not ceased to be real – through the Real. ~ Idries Shah

It didn't take long for the world to realize that the Shah was an enlightened liberal next to the bloody reactionary regime that followed, and which executed more people in three months than the Shah had done in 30 years. ~ Alexander Haig

Rather than trying to control Anger,try deferring it,looking for an alternative way of handling...i bet its more easy as well as more effective. ~ Ketan R Shah

Whoever gives knowledge to a fool loses it
And who keeps it from the deserving does wrong. ~ Idries Shah

Saying of the Prophet
Distribution
God it is who gives: I am only a distributor. ~ Idries Shah

Eat what you desire, but dress like other people. ~ Idries Shah

And Rumi tells us, 'Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue'. ~ Idries Shah