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When the lion had eaten its fill, and the jackals had taken their share, the ants came along and finished up the meat from the bones of the haughty stag.
Idries Shah -
Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind.
Idries Shah
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The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.
Idries Shah -
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 -
People who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man.
Idries Shah -
Meditation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.
Idries Shah -
From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
Idries Shah -
Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it.
Idries Shah
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The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.
Idries Shah -
The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
Idries Shah -
The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
Idries Shah -
When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?
Idries Shah -
The proverb says that 'The answer to a fool is silence'. Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run.
Idries Shah -
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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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
Idries Shah -
Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
Idries Shah -
It is not enough that there is a collection of people with the common aim of working in unison towards an objective... Aspiration and desire only are not enough.
Idries Shah -
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 -
The more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep.
Idries Shah -
Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials.
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 -
If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him.
Idries Shah -
If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!
Idries Shah -
... when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief.
Idries Shah