The teaching must, of course, work with the best part of the individual, must be directed to his or her real capacity.
~ Idries Shah
The clothes may vary, but the person is the same.
Why did I do such-and-such a thing?' is all very well. But what about 'How otherwise could I have done it?'.
Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis.
If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth.
Man thinks many things. He thinks he is One. He is usually several. Until he becomes One, he cannot have a fair idea of what he is at all.
Correct teaching brings out human excellence.
Sufis deny the absolute reality of time, space and physical form. These things are both relative and local. They only appear to be absolute.
The Sufi saying has it: God, to the bee, is something which has TWO stings!
The object of Sufi preparatory study, however, being to illustrate, expose and out-manoeuvre superficial ambition.
Right time, right place, right people equals success.Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
What is humanity? To feel pain at the sorrows of our neighbours, to feel humiliated at the humiliation of fellow-beings.
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza.Poverty: The result of marriage.
A man's capacity is the same as his breadth of vision.
A donkey eats a melon, it remains a donkey
Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves.
When the mind is full of established biases, it will not be able to graft Sufism on top of them.
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaEmotionalist:A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine.
You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude.
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaIntellectual: One who knows no craft.
People who cannot trust are themselves not trustworthy, and therefore cannot be entrusted with important things.
Question 3: Why should a person study Sufism?Answer: Because he was created to study it, it is his next step.
Patience is the food of understanding.
You fear tomorrow: yet yesterday is just as dangerous.
Saadi’s dictum, in the Bostan: ‘The Path is not in the rosary, the prayer-mat and the robe
The existence of relative truth does not prove the non-existence of universal truth.
HE is a Master who may teach without it being totally labelled teaching, HE is a student who can learn without being obsessed by learning.
When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form.
Remember that greed includes greed for being not greedy.
There is a saying that, according to what a person's mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil's face.
Learning how to learn involves examining assumptions. Mulla Nasrudin tales very often fulfil this funcition.
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.
It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed.
The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
If you seek small things to do, and do them well, great things will seek you, and demand to be performed.
Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.
Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.
The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn.
