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.

The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.

The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.

But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.

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.

If wine is the enemy of religion, I shall devour the enemy of religion.

The Sufis are unanimous that a Guide (Sheikh) is absolutely essential, though never available on demand: 'the Sufis are not merchants'.

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?

A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work. (Hafiz)

Sufis deny the absolute reality of time, space and physical form. These things are both relative and local. They only appear to be absolute.

Inheritance and culture obscure people’s higher capacities.

Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path.

The Sufis regard systems which treat everyone alike as mechanical and degenerate.