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
people desire common
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.
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.
practice isolation
No practice exists in isolation.
love-is beloved sufi
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.
people needs information
People today are in danger of drowning in information; but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be. If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all.
men law giving
If a pot can multiply. One day Nasrudin lent his cooking pots to a neighbour, who was giving a feast. The neighbour returned them, together with one extra one – a very tiny pot. 'What is this?' asked Nasrudin. 'According to law, I have given you the offspring of your property which was born when the pots were in my care,' said the joker. Shortly afterwards Nasrudin borrowed his neighbour's pots, but did not return them. The man came round to get them back. 'Alas!' said Nasrudin, 'they are dead. We have established, have we not, that pots are mortal?'.
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.
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.
people imagine dramatic
Dramatic. A well developed sense of the dramatic has values beyond what people usually imagine. One of these is to realise the limitations of a sense of the dramatic.
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.
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.
art views giving
We view Sufism not as an ideology that molds people to the right way of belief or action, but as an art or science that can exert a beneficial influence on individuals and societies, in accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies ... Sufi study and development gives one capacities one did not have before.
moments trusting-someone humans
The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.
practice way sufi
The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.