Sufi Thought and Action Quotes

“Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Self-mortification, far from producing liberation from material things, is far more likely to cause either an unhinged mind, delusions or a masochistic taste for more suffering, experienced, of course, as joy.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“If wine is the enemy of religion, I shall devour the enemy of religion.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“The Sufis are unanimous that a Guide (Sheikh) is absolutely essential, though never available on demand: 'the Sufis are not merchants'.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“If the path has been laid down, why the successive appearance of different teachers? Why would anyone reinvent the wheel, if everything were as cosy and sequential as primitive longing so easily convinces us?”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work. (Hafiz)”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“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, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Inheritance and culture obscure people’s higher capacities.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“The Sufis regard systems which treat everyone alike as mechanical and degenerate.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“A man must be a Solomon before his magical ring will work”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Imagination blocks you like a bolt on a door. Burn that bar. (Rumi)”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Too much kindness towards the fox may mean doom for the rabbit.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“People who cannot trust are themselves not trustworthy, and therefore cannot be entrusted with important things.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Eat what you desire, but dress like other people.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“The bird which has no knowledge of pure water, has his beak in salt water all year round.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“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, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk. As Prince Dara Shikoh says, in a Persian poem: Do you wish to be included with the Lords of Sight? From speech (then) pass on to experience. By saying 'Unity', you do not become a monotheist; The mouth does not become sweet from the word 'Sugar”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“There are as many paths to Truth as there are souls of men.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Nothing can defile the Sufi, and he in fact purifies everything.” Abu-Turab al-Nakhsabi.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Trust is needed before lessons can be learnt.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“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, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Sufis (the name for the realised individual, not the learner or follower) are reunited with objective Reality and Unity.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Well-meant techniques such as arbitrary self-mortification, are useless.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Much religious teaching in the world is in reality a confused or deteriorated form, very different from its roots.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers

“Humility has to precede instruction.”
― Idries Shah, Sufi Thought and Action: An Anthology of Important Papers