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In a village where everyone has only one leg, the biped will hop about more lamely than anyone else, if he knows what is good for him.Idries Shah
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One day we will all wear a garment which has no pockets...Idries Shah
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Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew.Idries Shah
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If wine is the enemy of religion, I shall devour the enemy of religion.Idries Shah
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The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces.Idries Shah
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Haste is from the Devil.Idries Shah
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My father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints, allow the imagination to be freed, and we are charged with the capability of heighetned thought. Learn to use your eyes as if they are your ears, he said, and you become connected with the ancient heritage of man, a dream world for the waking mind.Tahir Shah
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Fettered feet in the presence of friends is better than living in a garden with strangers.Idries Shah
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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
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Most people, whatever their opinions and protestations, do not want to learn.Idries Shah
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One of the basic Sufi needs is to enable people to see themselves as they really are.Idries Shah
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The Sufi teacher’s mission is to be in the service of those who can learn.Idries Shah
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The teacher works in accordance with the prospects of his students and the possibility of maintaining the community of Sufis.Idries Shah
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The Sufis regard systems which treat everyone alike as mechanical and degenerate.Idries Shah
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The candle burned the moth: But soon it will vanish in its own fat.Idries Shah
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Yes, the world is an illusion. But Truth is always being shown there.Idries Shah
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If you want special illumination, look upon the human face: See clearly within laughter the Essence of Ultimate Truth.Idries Shah
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The question of divine knowledge is so deep that it is really known only to those who have it.Idries Shah
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A man must be a Solomon before his magical ring will workIdries Shah
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Any society which enjoins its members to adhere to both of these (politeness and truth) is a fraud.Idries Shah
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A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work. (Hafiz)Idries Shah
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Imagination blocks you like a bolt on a door. Burn that bar. (Rumi)Idries Shah
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Our objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience.Idries Shah
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As swords were designed to kill They did well to make them tongue-shaped.( Anwar-i- Suhaili)Idries Shah
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Superior experience and knowledge will be made available to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth, capacity and earning of itIdries Shah
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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
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Not a believer in the mosque am I, Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I.I am not the pure amongst the impure, I am neither Moses nor Pharaoh.Bulleh, I know not who I am. Not in the holy books am I, Nor do I dwell in bhang or wine, Nor do I live in a drunken haze, Nor in sleep or waking known. Bulleh, I know not who I am. Not in happiness or in sorrow am I found. I am neither pure nor mired in filthy ground. Not of water nor of land, Nor am I in air or fire to be found. Bulleh, I know not who I am. Not an Arab nor Lahori, Not a Hindi or Nagouri, Nor a Muslim or Peshawari, Not a Buddhist or a Christian.Bulleh, I know not who I am. Secrets of religion have I not unravelled, I am not of Eve and Adam.Neither still nor moving on, I have not chosen my own name! Bulleh, I know not who I am. From first to last, I searched myself. None other did I succeed in knowing. Not some great thinker am I.Who is standing in my shoes, alone? Bulleh, I know not who I am.Bulleh Shah
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Three ThingsThree things cannot be retrieved: The arrow once sped from the bow The word spoken in haste The missed opportunity.( Ali the Lion, Caliph of Islam, son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet),Idries Shah
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Sufism, " according to the Sufi, "is an adventure in living, necessary adventure.Idries Shah
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Religion, for instance, cannot be accepted or rejected out of hand, until the student knows exactly what religion means.Idries Shah
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Knowledge cannot be attained except through humility.Idries Shah
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Knowledge gives nothing to a man until he gives everything to it.Idries Shah
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Sufis (the name for the realised individual, not the learner or follower) are reunited with objective Reality and Unity.Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaFlattery:One of the most promising of businesses: always brisk.Idries Shah
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The teaching must, of course, work with the best part of the individual, must be directed to his or her real capacity.Idries Shah
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The clothes may vary, but the person is the same.Idries Shah
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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
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Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis.Idries Shah
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If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth.Idries Shah
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Man thinks many things. He thinks he is One. He is usually several. Until he becomes One, he cannot have a fair idea of what he is at all.Idries Shah
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Correct teaching brings out human excellence.Idries Shah
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Sufis deny the absolute reality of time, space and physical form. These things are both relative and local. They only appear to be absolute.Idries Shah
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The Sufi saying has it: "God, to the bee, is something which has TWO stings!Idries Shah
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The object of Sufi preparatory study, however, being to illustrate, expose and out-manoeuvre superficial ambition.Idries Shah
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What is humanity? To feel pain at the sorrows of our neighbours, to feel humiliated at the humiliation of fellow-beings.Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza.Poverty: The result of marriage.Idries Shah
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A man's capacity is the same as his breadth of vision.Idries Shah
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A donkey eats a melon, it remains a donkeyIdries Shah
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Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves.Idries Shah
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When the mind is full of established biases, it will not be able to graft Sufism on top of them.Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaEmotionalist:A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine.Idries Shah
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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
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Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaIntellectual: One who knows no craft.Idries Shah
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People who cannot trust are themselves not trustworthy, and therefore cannot be entrusted with important things.Idries Shah
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Patience is the food of understanding.Idries Shah
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You fear tomorrow: yet yesterday is just as dangerous.Idries Shah
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Saadi’s dictum, in the Bostan: ‘The Path is not in the rosary, the prayer-mat and the robeIdries Shah
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The existence of relative truth does not prove the non-existence of universal truth.Idries Shah
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When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form.Idries Shah
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Remember that greed includes greed for being not greedy.Idries Shah
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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
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Learning how to learn involves examining assumptions. Mulla Nasrudin tales very often fulfil this funcition.Idries Shah
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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
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It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed.Idries Shah
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The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.Idries Shah
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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.Idries Shah
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If you seek small things to do, and do them well, great things will seek you, and demand to be performed.Idries Shah
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Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.Idries Shah
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Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.Idries Shah
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If I knew what two and two were — I would say Four!Idries Shah
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They asked Abboud of Omdurman: 'Which is better, to be young or to be old?' He said: 'To be old is to have less time before you and more mistakes behind. I leave you to decide whether this is better than the reverse.Idries Shah
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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
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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
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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.Idries Shah
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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. (Mirza Ahsan of Tabriz)Idries Shah
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Saying of the ProphetDesireDesire not the world, and God will love you. Desire not what others have, and they will love you.Idries Shah
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The Sufi must be able to alternate his thought between the relative and the Absolute, the approximate and the Real.Idries Shah
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The Sufis, ' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their mindsIdries Shah
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When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.Idries Shah
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Ali, Son of the Father of the SeekerAli said: 'None may arrive at the Truth until he is able to think that the Path itself may be wrong. This is because those who can only believe that it must be right are not believers, but people who are incapable of thinking otherwise than they already think. Such people are not men at all. Like animals they must follow certain beliefs, and during this time they cannot learn. Because they cannot be called “humanity”, they cannot arrive at the Truth.Idries Shah
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Almost every day I am reminded of Saadi's reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates.Idries Shah
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Inheritance and culture obscure people’s higher capacities.Idries Shah
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Be a dog, but don't be a younger brother. Proverb.Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaBribe Substitute for law, which is a substitute for justice.Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaSupporter: Someone who will say anything.Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaAdherent:Someone who will believe anything except what he should.Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaPatience: A support for the disappointed.Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaCommunity: Irrationals unified by hope of the impossible.Idries Shah
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From the beginning, from the age of Adam to the time of kingship: from the powerful, pardon: from the poor, sins.Idries Shah
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Forms are vehicles and instruments, and vehicles and instruments cannot be called good or bad without context.Idries Shah
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Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed. They attract you because... they appeal to your greed.Idries Shah
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Forms have changed through the centuries in obedience to the external world to which all forms belong.Idries Shah
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...most systems end up by making imagined humility into a form of vanity, so they end up with vanity just the same.Idries Shah
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Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed.Idries Shah
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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
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Take the wheat, not the measure in which it is containedIdries Shah
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Our heads are filled with ‘knowledge’, a knowledge that in some areas pre-empts our seeing anything at all.Idries Shah
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Presence and AbsenceA certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence: I do not know. What I do know is that he has a perfectly delightful absence.Idries Shah
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People carry on whole conversations in proverbs. But they are not LIVING the proverbs.Idries Shah
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Trust is needed before lessons can be learnt.Idries Shah