Source Text
In his Opus Maius, in which he quotes Sufi authority, he says: There are two modes of knowledge, through argument and experience. Argument brings conclusions and compels us to concede them, but it does not cause certainty nor remove doubts in order that the mind may remain at rest in truth, unless this is provided by experience.
The Sufi is an individual who believes that by practising alternate detachment and identification with life, he becomes free. He is a mystic because he believes that he can become attuned to the purpose of all life. He is a practical man because he believes that this process must take place within normal society. And he must serve humanity because he is a part of it.
Mankind, according to the Sufis, is infinitely perfectible. The perfection comes about through attunement with the whole of existence. Physical and spiritual life meet, but only when there is a complete balance between them. Systems which teach withdrawal from the world are regarded as unbalanced.
In cell and cloister, monastery and synagogue, one lies In dread of hell: one dreams of paradise. But none that know the divine secrets Has sown his heart with suchlike fantasies.
This is the meaning of mystical experience, which, however, when indulged in without proper harmony with evolution seems merely to be something sublime — a sensation of omnipotence or of grace, but no assurance of where the happy or unhappy mortal is going next.
‘Then all your life is wasted — we are sinking!’ This is the emphasis upon Sufism as a practical activity, denying that the formal intellect can arrive at truth, and that pattern-thinking derived from the familiar world can be applied to true reality, which moves in another dimension.
‘My master taught me that nobody at all should become indignant about anything until he is sure that what he thinks is a wrong is in fact a wrong — and not a blessing in disguise!’ Nasrudin, in his capacity as a Sufi teacher, makes frequent use of the dervish technique of himself playing the part of the unenlightened man in the story, in order to highlight a truth. A famous tale denying the superficial belief in cause and effect makes him the victim:
Because the average person thinks in patterns and cannot accommodate himself to a really different point of view, he loses a great deal of the meaning of life. He may live, even progress, but he cannot understand all that is going on. The story of the smuggler makes this very clear: Nasrudin used to take his donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, sifted the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. Meanwhile he was becoming visibly more and more prosperous.
Then he retired and went to live in another country. Here one of the customs officers met him, years later. ‘You can tell me now, Nasrudin,’ he said. ‘Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?’ ‘Donkeys,’ said Nasrudin. This story also emphasises one of the major contentions of Sufism — that preternatural experience and the mystical goal is something nearer to mankind than is realised. The assumption that something esoteric or transcendental must be far off or complicated has been assumed by the ignorance of individuals. And that kind of individual is the least qualified to judge the matter. It is ‘far off’ only in a direction which he does not realise.
One day Nasrudin was sitting at court. The King was complaining that his subjects were untruthful. ‘Majesty,’ said Nasrudin, ‘there is truth and truth. People must practise real truth before they can use relative truth. They always try the other way around. The result is that they take liberties with their man-made truth, because they know instinctively that it is only an invention.’
AI Summary
The Sufis by Idries Shah presents key insights from the Sufism tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.