1
If you really want to learn, do not be surprised if someone tries to teach you. And do not lightly reject the method.Idries Shah
2
Most people, whatever their opinions and protestations, do not want to learn.Idries Shah
3
One of the basic Sufi needs is to enable people to see themselves as they really are.Idries Shah
4
The Sufi teacher’s mission is to be in the service of those who can learn.Idries Shah
5
The teacher works in accordance with the prospects of his students and the possibility of maintaining the community of Sufis.Idries Shah
6
Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.Idries Shah
7
The teaching must, of course, work with the best part of the individual, must be directed to his or her real capacity.Idries Shah
8
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
9
Correct teaching brings out human excellence.Idries Shah
10
When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form.Idries Shah
11
Remember that greed includes greed for being not greedy.Idries Shah
12
There is a saying that, according to what a person's mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil's face.Idries Shah
13
Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.Idries Shah
14
The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn.Idries Shah
15
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 indeedIdries Shah
16
When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.Idries Shah
17
Forms are vehicles and instruments, and vehicles and instruments cannot be called good or bad without context.Idries Shah
18
Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed. They attract you because... they appeal to your greed.Idries Shah
19
Forms have changed through the centuries in obedience to the external world to which all forms belong.Idries Shah
20
...most systems end up by making imagined humility into a form of vanity, so they end up with vanity just the same.Idries Shah
21
Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed.Idries Shah
22
Rumi speaks of people who rely upon the written word as sometimes being no more than donkeys laden with books.Idries Shah
23
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
24
The would-be Sufi needs guidance precisely because books, texts, while telling you what is needed, do not tell you when.Idries Shah
25
What you are seeking in your retreat, I see clearly in every road and alleyway.Idries Shah
26
If... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosityIdries Shah
27
Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why it has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'.Idries Shah
28
Remember the proverb: 'A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent.Idries Shah
29
Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long.Idries Shah
30
One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.Idries Shah
31
Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.Idries Shah
32
There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance.Idries Shah
33
When humility is exercised, people begin to realise that they do not, as it were, exist at all.Idries Shah
34
Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.Idries Shah
35
Real generosity is anonymous to the extent that a man should be prepared even to be considered ungenerous rather than explain it to others.Idries Shah
36
Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible.Idries Shah
37
The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it.Idries Shah
38
...action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher.Idries Shah
39
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
40
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.Idries Shah
41
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
42
They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom.Idries Shah
43
The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality.Idries Shah
44
He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge.Idries Shah
45
It has truly been said that 'Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn.Idries Shah
46
Words have to die if humans are to live.Idries Shah
47
Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings.Idries Shah
48
Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction.Idries Shah
49
Do not try to be humble: learn humility.Idries Shah
50
If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.Idries Shah