Idries Shah Quotes - Page 7

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

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.

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

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.

Real generosity is anonymous to the extent that a man should be prepared even to be considered ungenerous rather than explain it to others.

Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible.

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

...action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher.

Why did I do such-and-such a thing?' is all very well. But what about 'How otherwise could I have done it?

All approaches to a study or an individual may start with a desire for attention. However they start, they must never end up in this manner.

The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality.

He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge.

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

It has truly been said that 'Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn.

Words have to die if humans are to live.

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.

Never follow any impulse to teach, however strong it might be. The command to teach is not felt as an impulsion.

To copy a virtue in another is more copying than it is virtue. Try to learn what that virtue is based upon.

Do not try to be humble: learn humility.

If you seek a teacher, try to become a real student. If you want to be a student, try to find a real teacher.