sufis

They asked Abboud of Omdurman: 'Which is better, to be young or to be old?' He said: 'To be old is to have less time before you and more mistakes behind. I leave you to decide whether this is better than the reverse.

It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings very well indeed

Show a man too many camels' bones, or show them to him too often, and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one. (Mirza Ahsan of Tabriz)

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.

If you seek small things to do, and do them well, great things will seek you, and demand to be performed.

Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.

It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed.

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.

Show a man too many camels' bones,or show them to him too often,and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one.

Learning how to learn involves examining assumptions. Mulla Nasrudin tales very often fulfil this funcition.

There is a saying that, according to what a person's mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil's face.

The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.

When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form.

Patience is the food of understanding.

You fear tomorrow: yet yesterday is just as dangerous.

Saadi__ dictum, in the Bostan: __he Path is not in the rosary, the prayer-mat and the robe

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaEmotionalist:A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine.