Idries Shah
Idries Shah
Idries Shah, also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimiand by the pen name Arkon Daraul, was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth16 June 1924
CountryIndia
real secret persons
A real secret is something which only one person knows.
hard-work people effort
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.
information sometimes pessimist
Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
book mean way
The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
real looks common
The more you look at 'common knowledge', the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge. No real knowledge is common.
path found humans
The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
book philosophical mean
Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded the Sufis' own reiteration that the Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
sleep men waking
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.
spiritual struggle sleep
Like the bat, the Sufi is asleep to 'things of the day' - the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all-important - and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That 'mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment' is a commonplace of Sufi literature
spiritual school thinking
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.
talking broken preparation
Talking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken.
doors fortune should
When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?
wise powerful names
When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.
taken lions ants
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.