Quotes from 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.

There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love.

When you are still fragmentated, lacking certainty — what difference does it make what your decisions are?

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

Forms have changed through the centuries in obedience to the external world to which all forms belong.

Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition

Si no puedes reír con frecuencia y autenticidad, no tienes alma.

The Hole and the Thread A CERTAIN great Sufi was asked about the role and status of some of his predecessors. He said: 'To erect a small building you may first have to excavate a large hole. 'To make a large carpet you may have to start with a single thread. 'When you can see the building or the carpet, your question is answered. 'But when your question is about the hole in the ground and the thread in the hand, you can only be answered in this parable.' * * *

We are adjured not to burn the candle at both ends. But how many people have verified that physically possible?

Ningún esfuerzo convierte a un cuervo negro en un halcón blanco. Anwar-i-Suhaili

Dicho del Profeta Deseo No desees el mundo y Dios te amará. No desees lo que otros posees, y ellos te amarán.

People change and needs change. So what was Sufism once is Sufism no more.

The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.

None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

It is the goldsmith who can assay the gold.

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

No problem is too difficult to be solved by a theoretician.

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

Humility has to precede instruction.

The Sufi is one who does what others do – when it is necessary. He is also one who does what others cannot do – when it is indicated.

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.

Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp.

Dicho del Profeta Soy como un hombre que ha encendido una hoguera y todas las cosas vivientes han corrido a quemarse en ella.

El sufismo es experiencial. Las capacidades, incluso aquellas necesarias para aprender más allá de cierto punto, son provocadas por los Sufis, por los propios esfuerzos y lo que resulta de ellos, y por un elemento al cual los Sufis se refieren como lo Divino.