sufis

Sufism, the "secret tradition," is not available on the basis of assumptions which belong to another world, the world of intellect.

When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial.

But the minimum human duty is to serve others: it is no great attainment.

The would-be students wish to transcend books.But, ask yourselves: if someone says that books do not contain wisdom, and yet he writes books; books do not contain Sufism, and yet he continues to publish books on Sufism, what is really happening? It really is your duty, and not mine, to ask and to find the answer to that question, if you are interested enough.

To say "yes" to the Sufi way is to say "no" to imagined escapes.

With enough information, it is almost impossible "not" to predict people's action.

Salute to the Thief. Junaid of Baghdad was passing the scene of a public hanging, where a thief was on the scaffold. Junaid bowed towards the criminal. Someone asked him: 'What did you do that?' Junaid said: 'I was bowing before his single-mindedness. For his aim, that man has given his life.

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.

Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised.

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?'.

Three things cannot be retrieved:The arrow once sped from the bowThe word spoken in hasteThe missed opportunity. Ali, the Lion of Islam.

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.

An intelligent enemy,' he would say, stroking his beard as if it were a bristly pet, 'rather than a foolish friend.' Or, 'He learnt the language of pigeons, and forgot his own.' Or, the favourite of Jan Fishan Khan: 'Nothing is what it seems.

Until you can understand illogicality, and the meaningfulness of it, shun the Sufis except for limited, precise, self-evident services.

A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything

Of whom can we think well when it is believed that if nothing bad is done to you, this has been a kindness?

Rumi himself once said that counterfeit gold is only to be found because there is such a thing as real gold to be copied.

He is the completed Man who, from his completeness, performs, with his Mastership, the work of a slave.