You will never reach Mecca, I fear: for you are on the road to Turkestan.
~ Idries Shah
It will pass, whatever it is.
You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality.
Take the straight path, even if it is long: marry no widow, even if she is a houri.
What goes into a salt-mine becomes salt.
The power of Allah: no sound, no shape, no form. But when it manifests, none can resist it.
SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGANRUDBARI : Heart to heart is an essential means of passing on the secrets of the Path.
No colour comes after black.
Sufism is experience, and hence not to be defined – imprisoned – in perennial, static categories.
Sufism is, in fact, not a mystical system, not a religion, but a body of knowledge.
Learning without action is like wax without honey.(Anwar-i-Suhaili)
Even if false gold makes a man happy:At the mint it will be identified.
A loan is the scissors of friendship.A man's own tongue may cut his throat.The cage has no value without the bird.
What do I sing, and what does my tambourine sing?
Dye your hair, certainly. But what can you do for your face?
EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMIWhen we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.
THE HEAVENSTo the mallet of the Highest MindThe heavens are the smallest possible ball.(Akhlaq-i-Mohsini)
You may be able to get the bone down your throat But if it reaches your stomach it will tear your navel.(Gulistan)
Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp.
When there is a true or useful thing, there is sure to be a counterfeit.
Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental.
Eat what you desire, but dress like other people.
Continuously, in commemoration of the FriendWe drank wine, even before the creation of the vine.
Whoever knows God, does not (any longer) say “God”.
He is the completed Man who, from his completeness, performs, with his Mastership, the work of a slave.
Everyone does not know the secrets of TruthThe States of Truth are not evidential.
Sufism is always systematised only for limited or transitory periods: because Sufism is primarly instrumental, not for enjoyment or display.
To Him who has sense, a sign is enoughFor the heedless, however, a thousand expositions are not enough.
Whoever has taught me one letter has made me his slave.
The bird which has no knowledge of pure water, has his beak in salt water all year round.
Rust through washing never became white.
If you cannot sit on a throne like a king, seize, like a tent-pitcher, the rope of the Royal tent.
Those who can’t, try: those who can, don’t have to.
Give and TakeThe Chief takes less than he is givenAnd gives more than he has taken.
No surgeon can treat the wounds of the tongue.
None meets harm who knows his capacity.
Now that I have found thee, I know that in the first step I took, I moved away from thee.
Hazrat Ali, in a saying attributed to him, says: ‘Man is in disguise, covered by his tongue’.
If you are covetous, you are a prisoner: If you are greedy, you will never be filled.
If you have two shirts, sell one and with the money buy a flower’.
