Source Text
Being a man of “timelessness” and “placelessness,” the Sufi brings his experience into operation within the culture, the country, the climate in which he is living.
PART ONE The Study of Sufism in the West
The Sufis claim that a certain kind of mental and other activity can produce, under special conditions and with particular efforts, what is termed a higher working of the mind, leading to special perceptions whose apparatus is latent in the ordinary man. Sufism is therefore the transcending of ordinary limitations.[8] Not surprisingly, in consequence, the word Sufi has been linked by some with the Greek word for divine wisdom (sophia) and also with the Hebrew kabbalistic term Ain Sof (“the absolutely infinite”).
consequence. Sufi claims that “man rose from the sea,” and that he is in a state of evolution, covering an enormous period of time, appeared to be fanciful nonsense until the nineteenth-century Darwinists seized upon this material with delight.[64]
For the Sufi, these trustful and sometimes unbalanced people can be more of a problem than the skeptics. The believers create a further problem because, balked of easy magical knowledge, they may quite quickly turn to those organizations (well-meaning and otherwise) which seem to them able to satisfy this thirst for the unknown or the unusual; or to offer “short cuts.” It is not to be denied that we use this phrase – but always with qualifications: “Adepts have, however, devised short cuts to an attainment of a knowledge of God. There are as many ways to God as there are souls (selves) of men.”[
“Angels are the powers hidden in the faculties and organs of man”
probably true to say that religion is too important a matter to leave to speculative non-expert intellectuals or clerics.
The Sufis state that there is a form of knowledge which can be attained by man, which is of such an order that it is to scholastic learning as adulthood is to infancy. Compare, for instance, el-Ghazali: “A child has no real knowledge of the attainments of an adult. An ordinary adult cannot understand the attainments of a learned man. In the same way a learned man cannot understand the experiences of enlightened saints or Sufis.”[88]
But Sufi ideas, in being put in this manner, are never intended to challenge the man, only to provide him with a higher aim, to maintain his conception that there may be some function of the mind which produced, for instance, the Sufi giants. Inevitably the contentious collide with this idea.
But the Sufi insists: “A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years” sincere, obedient dedication.” (Rumi.) Sufism also states that man may become objective, and that objectivity enables the individual to grasp “higher” facts. Man is therefore invited to try to push his evolution ahead toward what is sometimes called in Sufism “real intellect.”[90]
AI Summary
The Way of the Sufi 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.