Sufis Way Quotes & Sayings

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

Proverb. — 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

I longed to teach, but I had to wait until the desire had left me before I could really do so. — Idries Shah

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

When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious to people nowadays, when it is widely recognised that fixations are not the same as valuable and laudable observances. One should not pray if that prayer is vanity; rituals are wrong when they provide lower satisfactions, like emotional stimulus instead of enlightenment; he or she should not be an ascetic who is only enjoying it. — 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

None meets harm who knows his capacity. — 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

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

Everything man needs is in the world. — Idries Shah

But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school. — Idries Shah

The basic urge toward mysticism is never, in the unaltered man, clear enough to be recognized for what it is. — Idries Shah

The pathways into Sufic thinking are, it is traditionally said, almost as varied as the number of Sufis in existence. — Idries Shah

Certain levels of human understanding cannot be attained, it is claimed, until the brain can work in more than one way. — Idries Shah

Sufism is known by means of itself. — Idries Shah

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. — Idries Shah

You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to do, and you do know what that means. — Idries Shah

You may have forgotten the Way:
But those who came before
Did not forget you.
Saying of Master Bahaudin Naqshband of Bokhara — Idries Shah

Trust is needed before lessons can be learnt. — Idries Shah

Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic. — Idries Shah

1:52-53
THE NIGHT VIGIL

Darkness has been given a nightshirt to sleep in (25:47). Remember how human beings were composed from water and dust for blood and flesh with oily resins heated in fire to make a skeleton. Then the soul, the divine light, was breathed into human shapes. The work now is to help our bodies become pure light. It may look like this is not happening. But in a cocoon every bit of worm-dissolving slime becomes silk. As we take in light, each part of us turns to silk.

We made the night a darkness, but we bring shining dawnlight out of that. In the same way the mound of your grave will bloom with resurrection. Sufis and those on the path of the heart use darkness to go within. During the night vigil the universe is theirs (40:16). With all the kings and sultans and their learned counselors asleep, everyone is unemployed, except those wakeful few and the divine presence. — Bahauddin

Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded the Sufis' own reiteration that the Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning. — Idries Shah

A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years' sincere, obedient dedication. — Idries Shah

The Sufis say there are three ways to know fire - by hearing it described, by seeing it, or by being burned. — Huston Smith

You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out. — Idries Shah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To send a kiss by messenger. — Idries Shah

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

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

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction. — Idries Shah

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

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

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

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit. — Idries Shah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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