Sufis Quotes & Sayings

No colour comes after black. — Idries Shah

Be a dog, but don't be a younger brother.

Proverb. — Idries Shah

One day the cub will become a wolf, even if it has been reared among the sons of man. — Idries Shah

Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct. — Idries Shah

Well-meant techniques such as arbitrary self-mortification, are useless. — Idries Shah

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

What you are seeking in your retreat, I see clearly in every road and alleyway. — 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

When you feel least interested in following the Way which you have entered, this may be the time when it is most appropriate for you. — Idries Shah

I don't know what to make of the Muslim mystics, especially those who have come to be known as the Sufis. What do they experience in their mystic experiences? Could they have encountered the same God we do in our Christian mysticism? — Tony Campolo

There is no wisdom where there is no common sense: it cannot under those conditions find any expression. — Idries Shah

The sort of man who, throwing a stone upon the ground, would miss. — Idries Shah

The clothes may vary, but the person is the same. — Idries Shah

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

He is the completed Man who, from his completeness, performs, with his Mastership, the work of a slave. — Idries Shah

Learning without action is like wax without honey.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) — Idries Shah

Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long. — Idries Shah

Helping others
I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Moslem or not. — Idries Shah

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

Most of the supposedly Sufi organizations, exercises and "orders" are in fact only of archaeological interest. — Idries Shah

Hildegard von Bingen conveys spiritual ecstasy, if we're talking of Western music. What bothers me about Western music is that it doesn't have an esoteric dimension in the way the music of the East has, whether it be Byzantine chant, the music of the Sufis, or Hindu music. — John Tavener

These belief systems have to be dropped. Then understanding arises; then readiness to explore, then innocence, arises. Then you are surrounded by a sense of mystery, awe, wonder. Then life is no longer a known thing, it is an adventure. It is so mysterious that you can go on exploring; there is no end to it. And you never create any belief, you remain in a state of not-knowing. On that not-knowing state Sufis insist very much, and so do Zen masters. — Osho

Sufis teach that we first must battle and destroy the evil within ourselves by shining upon it the good within, and then we learn to battle the evil in others by helping their higher selves gain control of their lower selves. — Feisal Abdul Rauf

THE HEAVENS
To the mallet of the Highest Mind
The heavens are the smallest possible ball.
(Akhlaq-i-Mohsini) — Idries Shah

The automatism of man is overcome, in the words of Dhun'Nun, by aiming for 'being as you were, where you were, before you were'. — Idries Shah

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

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

With experience as their guiding light, Christian monks and nuns could, for example, come together with Sufis and Yogis to pray and meditate, then discuss their experiences by talking about how silence and inner peace have changed their lives, instead of talking about the content of their prayers or focusing on theology. Hindus, Christians, and Muslims, who tread the path of goodness, could come together and do good works. Doing good side by side would show them that they are not as different as previously thought and that their various beliefs can lead to similar outcomes. — Gudjon Bergmann

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions. — Idries Shah

The great poet Hafiz says that you should dye your prayer-carpet with wine if your teacher tells you to do so. — Idries Shah

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

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete. — Idries Shah

If you want to be a calligrapher, write, and write, and write. — Idries Shah

A stolen kiss is not easily returned. — Idries Shah

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. — Idries Shah

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

Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit. — Idries Shah

The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is "not" in their destiny. — Idries Shah

Humility is a teacher of itself. It is learnt by means of its practise. — Idries Shah

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

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

Question 3: Why should a person study Sufism?
Answer: Because he was created to study it; it is his next step. — Idries Shah

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening. — Idries 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

The Book of Wisdom. Simab said: 'I shall sell the Book of Wisdom for a hundred gold pieces, and some people will say that it is cheap.' Yunus Marmar said to him: 'And I shall give away the key to understanding it, and almost none shall take it, even free of charge. — Idries Shah

One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one. — Idries Shah

You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them. — Idries Shah

The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real — Idries Shah

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

You will never reach Mecca, because you are on the road to Samarkand — Idries Shah

SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
GURGANI:
The teacher and the taught together produce the teaching. — Idries Shah

When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form. — 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

If you are covetous, you are a prisoner: If you are greedy, you will never be filled. — Idries Shah

Even if false gold makes a man happy:
At the mint it will be identified. — Idries Shah

Man (as he imagines himself to be), in general, is a possibility, not a fact. — Idries Shah

Neither imagine that you are false, nor lash yourself, for both may be forms of self-indulgence. — Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Penitent: Someone who has been made incapable of enjoying himself. — Idries Shah

The aspirant has to be guided by a mentor. The stage at which this guidance can take effect is seldom, if ever, perceptible to the learner. — Idries Shah

To bind one free man with love is better than to release a thousand slaves. — Idries Shah

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit. — Idries Shah

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

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

The totality of life cannot be understood, so runs Sufi teaching, if it is studied only through the methods which we use in everyday living. — Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Drugs: Source of the mystical experience of the ignorant. — Idries Shah

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction. — Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Wisdom: Something you can learn without knowing it. — Idries Shah

Learning how to learn involves examining assumptions. Mulla Nasrudin tales very often fulfil this funcition. — Idries Shah

To send a kiss by messenger. — Idries Shah

If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed. — Idries Shah

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

Remember the proverb: 'A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent. — Idries Shah

Saying of the Prophet
Truth
Speaking the truth to the unjust is the best of holy wars. — Idries Shah

He that is purified by love is pure; and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.
Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. — Idries Shah

To say "yes" to the Sufi way is to say "no" to imagined escapes. — Idries Shah

You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude. — Idries Shah

A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work — Idries Shah

Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them? — Idries Shah

Saying of the Prophet
Sleep
Sleep is the brother of death. — Idries Shah

Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic. — Idries Shah

Have the nature of a dervish: then wear a stylish cap. — Idries Shah

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

Has it not occurred to you that, conversely, other people do not have your difficulties because they do not react as you do to what happens? — Idries Shah

The new Sufi tariqahs founded at this time stressed the unlimited potential of human life. Sufis could experience on the
spiritual plane what the Mongols had so nearly achieved in terrestrial politics — Karen Armstrong

The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one. — Idries Shah

Whoever might perfume a scorpion
Will not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband — Idries Shah

The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love. — Idries Shah

None meets harm who knows his capacity. — Idries Shah

Everything man needs is in the world. — Idries Shah

The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress. — Idries Shah

Salute to the Thief. Junaid of Baghdad was passing the scene of a public hanging, where a thief was on the scaffold. Junaid bowed towards the criminal. Someone asked him: 'What did you do that?' Junaid said: 'I was bowing before his single-mindedness. For his aim, that man has given his life. — Idries Shah

The Sufi must be able to alternate his thought between the relative and the Absolute, the approximate and the Real. — Idries Shah

Debating whether one trusts or not is a sign that one does not want to trust at all, and therefore is still incapable of it. — Idries Shah

You must go to Mahometanism, to Buddhism, to the East, to the Sufis Fakirs, to Pantheism, for the right growth of mysticism. — Florence Nightingale

It is necessary to note," says Rumi, "that opposite things work together, even though nominally opposed" (Fihi Ma Fihi). — Idries Shah

Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests. — Idries Shah

Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it. — Idries Shah

Much smoke has been seen, and caused great fear of fire - even when no fire ensued. — Idries Shah

THE BIRD AND THE WATER
A bird which has not heard of fresh water
Dips his beak in salt-water year after year.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) — Idries Shah